China's huge capital city is a perennial favourite with tourists and backpackers, who relish its wide range of unusual sights, sounds, smells and tastes. The city's unique cultural elements are alive and well and can be experienced first-hand through indigenous cuisine, temples and traditional performances. Beijing is nevertheless more than up-to-date with modern trends and fashions, partly as a result of its cosmopolitan expat population and partly because China is increasingly an international trend-setter in its own right.

A global hub of business, culture and entertainment, Beijing has an incredibly diverse nightlife that will keep even the most demanding of socialites satisfied at all hours, especially during the summer months, when areas such as the Sanlitun bar street are buzzing from dusk till dawn. Visitors hoping to lighten their pockets will also have no shortage of shopping opportunities; from bustling markets such as Silk Street (Xiushuijie) to colossal shopping malls like the 13-storey Xidan Joy Center, Beijing has it all.

China is a teeming medley of more than 50 officially recognised ethnic minorities and Beijing, as the country's capital, is suitably varied and representative. The city's many attractions are testament to this, and visitors will find exploring everything fully a near-impossible task.