This is a wonderful "courtyard" hotel, operated by Chinese locals. Of our 5 hotel stays during our 3-week visit to China, this was hands down our favorite. Charming, very clean and with lots of local character.

The hotel is located near the downtown shopping and tourist area, about a 15 minute walk from the main shopping street, close to the Peninsula and Novotel hotels. It is on the edge of a "working" hutong. A bicycle repairman is just down the street and it's next door to the neighborhood school.

Rooms are decorated in traditional chinese furniture and clustered around 2 courtyards. The second, inside courtyard is the most charming, with fish "bowls" scattered about and bird cages hung in the trees.

While the staff is not perfect in English, they are hard-working and go the extra mile to help guests with all questions. The manager arranges tours to the Great Wall. Several guests gave them high marks.

In addition to the charm of the hotel, a great plus for staying there is the other guests it attracts. Because it is small, relatively affordable and a bit different, it attracts guests who are also interesting. During our stay, we shared beers every afternoon in the courtyard with delightful new friends from Australia, New Zealand, California, Colorado and Germany. Quite a cross section of experiences and adventures.

We went on to stay in several of the top 5 star hotels in Beijing, Xian and Shanghai. None of them was half as much fun or as interesting as the Haoyuan Hotel.

Stayed for four nights at the hotel in mid-May and thoroughly enjoyed it. We stayed in a standard Chinese room and it was fully fitted out with everything we needed. Cab from the airport was about 45 minutes and 80RMB.

The courtyard was peaceful at night, the breakfast was great in the morning and the staff were always very helpful when we had requests of them (like when we were leaving and asked them to call a taxi - to our surprise, one of the girls behind the desk took off and ran in her high heels down the block to the adjacent main street to get the cab for us!)

We ate dinner here our first night in Beijing and it was very good, although just a little more expensive than the restaurants on the adjacent main street.

The hotel was about a 15 minute walk to the nearest subway, 15 minutes to Wangfujing and about 35-45 minute walk to Tiananmen Square and the Forbidden city. If ever in Beijing again I would definitely stay at the Haoyuan Binguan.

Note - I found that after booking our hotels directly in China, it was handy to go to some of the on-line Chinese travel agencies, lookup the hotel I was staying at and print out their map and Chinese address and directions to the hotel. Made communicating with the cab drivers very easy.

My friends were staying at the Travelers Hotel in Beijing, but I was unable to find a reasonably priced alternative until I came across this Hotel. While the rooms were fine - (I wouldn't recommend this place in the winter - it was pretty drafty), there was no restaurant. This hotel is not close to anything - it was a long cab ride to every thing. And, worst of all, taxi drivers couldn't find the place - even with the address card. I carried a cell phone and had taxi drivers get driving instructions from the hotel front desk. The location of this Hotel is in a hutong, but one that is in need of some gentrification - you will not feel comfortable walking alone at night here. The front desk got me Beijing opera tickets and that was great. They also got me a "tour" of the Great Wall, which turned out to be me and a driver who spoke no English. The hotel itself isn't bad, but the inconveniences of getting there and eating making this not a first choice.

This hotel is beautiful. Wonderful classical Chinese furniture and the friendliest hotel staff I have ever encountered. I cannot recommend this hotel more highly. The hot water is a bit slow, but that was the only problem. Obviously due to its converted-courtyard-house nature this hotel is far more suitable for a romantic holiday than a business stay!