Venturing to the Great Wall of China without a guide is quite the experience—and it's just a slice of the challenge of trying to do anything in Beijing, sans access to Google or Facebook. After tracking down some vague instruction on how to get from the city to a remote section of the wall, we set out to see the wall in all her glory.

The instructions lead to a bus, which we ride for an hour or so, until we—of course—get off at the wrong stop. Boarding another bus, we meet a young couple who's also interested in trekking to less populace area of the wall. Together, the four of us decide to form a team and split the cost of a driver once we hit the end of the bus line.

Finding a driver is not the hard part—there are so many drivers eagerly offering rides in Chinese (to destinations that are, quite literally, foreign to us). Pointing at a map, we struggle to communicate our plans with a local driver, who struggles to communicate back. After a bit of that, we get in his car with hopes that we're headed to the right place.

The car ride is longer than we anticipated, but we play it cool until we finally arrive…somewhere. We all get out of the car and the driver points to the right and gives some instruction, then points to the left with some more instruction. We don't understand a lick of it, so we just shake our heads and smile. He drives off and we start walking, holding out hope that we'll figure it out. To say we're "off the beaten path" is more than accurate. When we see a sign that says, "This portion of the Great Wall is not open to the public," we know we're headed in the right direction.

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