I wanted to see the entire Dragon. From where it dips its mouth to drink from the sea, to its arched back with massive spines and lastly where its huge tail points upwards at "The First Pass Under Heaven."
I had no interest in jostling with millions of tourists and tobogganing down the Great Wall at Badaling. My wife was not happy with the "overdose" of the Great Wall, so I had to drop the idea where the Great Wall dips into the sea and several other places in the middle too.
Eventually we visited the Xuanbe ( Overhanging wall ) at Jiyauguan, Gansu privince and then the sections at Simatai and Jinshanling. Simatai was unique as this was an area where they allowed me to stay up on the wall after sunset. Due to safety reasons they don't allow you to hike along the unrestored section after sunset, but in the day time you can do long hikes.
We stayed at the artificial water town of Gubei for the Simatai section (Watertown resort : very nice) and then moved to the Jinshanling Great wall hotel ( literally a stone's throw from Jinshanling section). The biggest advantage was that we could see both sunrise and sunset from the Jinshanling wall. One ticket is fine. Sadly the clouds and rain ruined my chances of seeing a good sunrise but by the afternoon the sky had cleared up and I absolutely loved the sweeping vista of the Jinshalning section with huge towers rising from the dense green hills. There were hardly any tourists. The hike depends entirely on your fitness and available time. If you have limited time just take the cable car up to the General Tower and then hike down from the other entrance
Gubei water town is of course totally fake but you get an idea.
Simatai was a little more crowded but most of the selfie seeking crowd had gone by 7-15 pm.
I had arranged a private car and driver for taking me to Gubei and Jinshanling form Beijing which was part of my entire tour package. It took about 2.5 hours. Totally worth the journey.
The Xuanbe wall is reconstructed and is a small section. I won't recommend going all the way to the west just to see that section, unless you are also travelling through the Hexi corridor /Silk Road tour. But it was a nice visit for me as I love history. In 1907 Aurel Stein accidentally discovered a mailbag inside a hole in the Jade Gate section of the Dunhuang wall. The mailbag contained letters from third century CE which were meant to be sent, but never were. Just like Royal Mail. Some letters had enough surviving parts to understand the content. Absolutely fascinating.
The Great Wall is just not a wall, for me it was a living creature, with many stories to tell. The Dragon still breaths fire.