The $ 850 is for a four day tour including the Summer Palace , Forbidden Palace , Ming Tombs , Badaling , and other things in Beijing . Are you shitting me . You can DIY that for close to nothing . Forbidden city is smack in the center of the city . Summer palace is reachable by subway . Badaling is reachable by train from Beijing North station . Ming tombs takes a subway and a bus . All in all , you just paid 5000 RMB for a standard Beijing itinerary . For the same amount , a backpacker can go from one end of China to the other , see some seriously exotic landscape then come back . One of my groupmates in class let me know that her sister was a travel agentShe and her sister each pocketed 300 USD and offloaded you to a Beijing tour operator . If you are a teenager , suck it up as tuition for understanding the way the world works . If you are over 20 , dude , what are you thinking .