Tiananmen Square, Forbidden City Tour With Private/group Options

Had a great time on this tour! Lydia is a real expert in the field and tells amazing historic facts. Would recommend!

Lydia was very professional, she explain everything clearly. Definitely worth the visit of such of magnificent places

Kevin was a great guide for our private tour of Tiananmen and the Forbidden City. He provided us with excellent historical context and information during our tour. Our group had varying ages and physical capabilities, and Kevin was always happy to move at our pace.

A really well organised tour with Lydia, made it easy getting from place to place, through the security checks etc. Told us some great information and history with time to explore and look around. It was such an interesting tour and really would recommend doing. Thanks Lydia for a really enjoyable day. Beijing is Awesome!

We had a great day with Lydia!! We normally don’t do guided tours, but in this case, it was so worthwhile!! The venues are big, and our time was limited. Lydia picked out highlights, gave great comments and when asked was flexible and could deep dive in subjects. You can tell immediately that Lydia is experienced, very well organised, and knowledgeable about so many subjects. And has secretly a great sense of humour!! :-D Totally recommend!

Great experience and very helpful information

Amazing tour, packed with interesting facts, comfortable combination of time with a guide and free time. Thank you Lydia for making it so great and for the amount of knowledge you shared with us! Definitely recommend

It was a really nice experience. We got Lidya as our tour guide, and she understands the history really well. We started at the Tiananmen Square and wrapped up the tour at the Temple of Heaven.

Thank you to Lydia for this great guided tour of Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City! She answered all our questions and taught us a lot about these amazing places. I highly recommend this tour! Signed: the family n*6

We booked a guided tour of the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square, and it was definitely worth it! Having a tour guide made navigating the security checks and exploring the vast palace much easier and more efficient. Our tour guide, Lydia, was very professional and knowledgeable. She spoke excellent English, kept the tour well-organised, and made sure there was no time wasted. Everything went smoothly, allowing us to make the most of our visit. Highly recommend booking a guided tour, especially if it’s your first time visiting Beijing. Thank you, Lydia, for such a great experience!

Lydia was an excellent tour guide! She communicated well in advance about the meeting arrangements and was very knowledgeable about the sites we visited and their historical significance. She made sure we had plenty of breaks to explore independently, take photos, grab something to eat, or use the washrooms. She was also very flexible and accommodating, especially with participants who decided along the way to rejoin the group or extend their tour. One suggestion for improvement would be to provide a clearer itinerary at the beginning, including approximate timings, planned stops, breaks, and opportunities to eat. For example, knowing in advance that we would go through multiple security checks would have helped us decide what to bring and perhaps travel with lighter bags. A few participants also mentioned feeling hungry early in the tour because they weren't sure when the next food break would be. This information could be particularly helpful for people who need to eat at specific times or take medication. These are relatively minor suggestions that could make an already great experience even better. Overall, we had a wonderful experience with Lydia. She was knowledgeable, friendly, patient, and accommodating. I would highly recommend her and would happily join another tour led by her!

Wonderful guide, very knowledgeable and kind!

Though we had a rocky start,Summer's professionalism and talents turned the whole day around.We truly enjoyed our tour.Thank you Summer!

Great tour with Lydia! Lydia was a fantastic guide, well organized, friendly and very knowledgeable. Highly recommend!

After a bit of a mixup with hotel names, totally my fault, Summer went over and above to make sure our tour was all we wanted it to be. She was a terrific guide and we thoroughly enjoyed the day. Highly recommend the tour and Summer.

Our Guide was lovely! She was knowledgeable, patient kind, and fun! Our guide lisa went above and beyond her job, not only did she provide us with the service we were expecting, but she recommended fun Foods along the way that we would enjoy, it was a perfect day with her!

A great experience with a truly expert guide. I highly recommend as the tour was able to help navigate seamlessly getting from hotel to the Palace museum (Forbidden City) and was a wealth of knowledge helping to understand the rich history. They also know the best picture spots!

The Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square are difficult to visit without a guide. Lily's Tour was immensely helpful. You get in easily, and then hear all the history behind the sights explained to you, in proficient and high-skilled English. I recommend it highly. It's also a shopping-free tour. None of your time is lost on a mandatory shopping side-trip.

A great tour, very detailed and informative. Our guide was organized and able to help us navigate crowds. He even walked us to a restaurant after the tour so we could get lunch.

The Tiananmen Square and Forbidden City tour is a Beijing must do. We opted for the 4 hour tour in order to get an in-depth experience. Our guide Edward was great and spoke good English, albeit spending less time on the phone and engaging with the customers when queuing would have been even greater. We had a 10 am departure from our hotel, which is probably the worst time of the day to start this tour. We spent an hour and 45 minutes queuing to get into Tiananmen Square, which was a major bummer. If you want to avoid this type of queue, leave early or skip the square (the square as such is not all that great to see unless you want to visit the museum or Mao’s mausoleum) entirely and do the Forbidden City with Jingshan park, the latter offering great views of the city as such.

Bruce was very nice and competent. The tour was well organized and interesting. Would recommend. Thank you!

Sally was an amazing guide. She explained many interesting facts about the sites we visited. Moreover, since the place was very crowded, she was super good in being able to direct us in areas where there were much less people, finding hidden gems and places we wouldn’t expect. Of course we also visited the main areas. Highly recommended! Great value for money

We had an absolutely incredible day exploring Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden City with our guide Jeffrey. From the very start, everything was perfectly organised, and we really appreciated the smooth ticket handling which saved us lots of waiting time. Standing on Tiananmen Square was such a powerful, moving experience; our guide shared valuable background stories that helped us truly understand the significance of this iconic landmark. Moving on to the Forbidden City, we were blown away by the grand scale, magnificent architecture and centuries‑old imperial history. Our guide was extremely knowledgeable, patient and engaging, bringing ancient royal stories to life instead of just listing facts. They walked us through the main halls, pointed out hidden cultural details, recommended wonderful photo spots, and thoughtfully answered every single one of our countless questions. The pace was flexible, so we could stop to admire the views whenever we wanted. Without a knowledgeable local guide, we would have only seen buildings without grasping the rich history behind them. This tour far exceeded our expectations. It was one of the most memorable highlights of our trip to Beijing. We highly recommend this tour and our wonderful guide to anyone visiting the city.

Sue from Leo's Private Tours was a very kind and knowledgeable guide who took us to the Forbidden City and Tiananmen Square. She had a strong understanding of the history and significance of both sites, which made the experience very enriching. She was also very thoughtful and attentive throughout the tour, and her restaurant recommendations were excellent. Overall, she made our visit smooth, enjoyable, and memorable.

My visit to the Forbidden City was excellent thanks to Marco Polo. He was knowledgeable, friendly, and made the history of this incredible place come alive with his explanations. The tour was well organized and enjoyable from start to finish. Highly recommended for anyone visiting Beijing.

Easy going tour, you get to avoid the long que and our guide Sofia was great!

great tour & Leo is great. He helped us navigate the forbidden palace. Good explanation of things and help us understand the forbidden city. Good pace & considerate, very friendly to the senior in my family.

I had fantastic experience. Leo made me great understanding of Chinese history and culture. I am very happy from such excellent tour. Thank you very much.

​"If you're visiting the Forbidden City, do yourself a favor and book Sally as your guide. The site is huge and can be overwhelming, but she brought the history to life with fascinating details and stories I would have completely missed on my own. She was super patient, knew exactly how to pace the tour, and made the whole day seamless. Thanks for a great experience, Sally!" – Tak from Australia

Sally was a wonderful guide. Very knowledgeable, friendly and great English. Definitely recommend getting a guide.

We had a brilliant time with Maggie who was accommodating and truly knowledgeable. She answered all the questions about the Forbidden City and more whenever asked about the history of the place. We had a perfect balance of everything and she is truly humorous and helpful as a person. We’ll definitely keep in touch with her. Thanks Maggie!

Comprehensive tour. Maggie did a good job 👍

I went to the palace museum/forbidden city, our tour guide was Maggie and she was absolutely brilliant. Maggie messaged us the night before on watts-app, gave us information on what we needed to bring/how to dress beforehand for the weather. Maggie was fun, detailed, accommodating, easy to engage with and had great English. It really enhanced our experience walking through the palace with her explanations as we understood why things were and what each detail meant. At the end of the tour she walked my partner and I to a Beijing duck restaurant as we had wanted to find a good and it was near by.

Sofia was our tour guide and we had a great experience visiting Forbidden city for the first time. We had a small group of 4 and we liked that she presented the history of Forbidden City.

A perfect tour! Maggie is a fantastic tour guide! The half day Forbidden City and Tian’anmen Square tour was amazing. She met us at the hotel lobby and even called us the evening before to confirm that we had our passports and pick up time. The tour was perfectly delivered. The pace was just right, our family never felt rushed nor bored! Highly recommend Lily Tours and Maggie as a tour guide !!!

great tour guide 👍 better to get tour guide for forbidden city so you don’t have to deal with any confusion getting tickets. tour guide will also explain history of forbidden city

Sofia Sofia was very knowledgeable about the Forbidden City. She took us to places that I have not been to before, and I have been at the forbidden city several times. I would recommend her as a tour guide for this trip.

Our guide Renny is very informative and entertaining at the same time. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience. Highly recommended.

The best tour in Beijing .it was a cold and busy morning in the palace museum .but the tour was very good. because the tour guide was sofia .she knows which line is fast .she was so helpful .even we were a little bit late .she can helped us to get the tickets.our kids all like her.she take care for the two kids .she is so knowledge .even the kids can follow her the all morning.

Marco is a percet guide, precise, punctual, preofessional and attentive. The gruop had been choosen as perfect mix, and all went as planned. We have seen th best parts of the Forbidden City and we now have in our minds and hearts beautiful memories Thank you. 14 October 2025

We had an wonderful group tour of the Forbidden City with Marco as our guide. He made the history come alive and the 3+ hours flew by! My family group of 6 (including adults, kids, and grandparents) all thoroughly enjoyed our visit and learnt so much. Thankyou Marco!

Marco, our tour guide, made this experience perfect. He was very polite and accommodating, told us the history of the forbidden city with the right amount of details, and was kind enough at the end of the tour to offer recommendations for food in Beijing. I would definitely recommend.

We visited the Forbidden City in the afternoon. The palaces were absolutely beautiful and breathtaking—they made us feel like we’d stepped back 600 years. Our guide, Summer, shared so many cool stories about what went on there, which made the whole tour way more engaging and awesome.

I gave a five-star for the tour guide service provided - the most important thing is that joining the group enables you to get the admission tickets with ease. You are not guaranteed a ticket if buying it online yourself, and it'll waste you lots of time if purchasing the ticket at the entrance on the visit day. The tour guide has a profound knowledge about the forbidden city. She's willing to answer your questions and provides customized services/recommendations whenever possible. I would NOT recommend to visit the Forbidden City in August, though. It's nothing to do with the tour guide service, but for anyone visiting Beijing, think twice to visit in the hot summer if you have a choice of going there other time of the year. There are almost no trees in the Forbidden City (except the royal garden). You'll have to follow the large crowd go through sun-baked stone roads with no shades for 4 hours. Considering it a chance for free sun-bath/tanning can make you happier, but it doesn't work for little boys!

Even if the weather was really so hot for us our guide Summer was super knowledgeable, and whenever possible, she tried to get us away from crowded areas. She also tailored the tour to what our group wanted to see.

Our guide Summer was absolutely fantastic—her passion, command of English, and way of explaining the history were top-notch. The Forbidden City's architecture is truly breathtaking. Thank you so much, Summer!

Highly recommend this tour. Our tour guide Lucy was very accommodating and friendly cannot recommend her enough. I recommend an early visit to beat the crowds.

Forbidden City - with Lucy We had only a short time because of traveling arrangements BUT Lucy - after our great wall trip yesterday, Arranged everything for thua morning and had a wonderful experience with her - highly highly recommended

Summer has been our 5-STAR tour guide on 30.08.2025. We would highly recommend her to all visiting Bejing vacationers, she cares a lot about all the group. At the end of our tour, she ensures that everyone of us has RMB to get back to their respective hotels. As for us, she checks for our good route no. & messages us after our return to ensure that we were back safe in our hotel.