Our travel adviser tackles your destination dilemmas, visa puzzles and itinerary ideas BEST WAY FOR BEIJINGI have a weekend in Beijing next month after attending business meetings during the week. Do you have suggestions of what the priority sights should be? Is it easy to access the Great Wall? Also any ideas of more affordable accommodation near the National Convention Centre, is Airbnb active? - Guy Harrisstory_article_left1Beijing is a difficult city to explore on your own, due to its size and the language barrier. So the best way to make use of (presumably two days) in Beijing would be to take organised group tours.There are many tours on offer, and your choice depends on your personal interests, cultural, sport or food.You can see the top tourist attractions in a day tour, but there is more time to take it in, and perhaps see more places, on two tours, one in the city and one outside of it - and yes, the Great Wall is accessible from the capital city.Shanghai Han Tang Travel (listed on the Expedia website), offers a day tour of Tiananmen Square, including Tiananmen Tower, chairman Mao's monument, and the Great Hall of the People, then the Forbidden City and the Temple of Heaven, the three top sites in Beijing.Variarts Travel, also listed on Expedia, offers a tour to the Summer Palace just outside the city and the Badaling section of the Great Wall, for $63.You also see jade carving, and visit a pearl market - most tours include a captive shopping experience and lunch. They also do a tour that goes to the Great Wall, but then the Ming tombs instead of the Summer Palace.Other companies offer similar tours. If you have time another fascinating one is through the old residential areas or hutongs, fast disappearing. There are also tours of food markets and even cookery classes.Bookings.com lists 137 hotels near the National Convention Centre. You can easily get away with under R1,000 a night. And yes, there are Airbnb places listed in the general area around the convention centre, which is near the Olympic village and stadiums.mini_story_image_vright1SCHENGEN VISASMy wife and I regularly travel internationally. Getting a Schengen visa is a time-consuming and costly exercise. Every time we are given one that expires on the day we are booked to leave Europe. The US and the UK are prepared to give 10-year visas - the US at a reasonable cost, the UK at a ridiculous price. With children living overseas we plan to travel even more, and are considering buying a small lock-up-and-go apartment in Estoril in Portugal.Is there any way to get a long-term multi-entry visa - for say 10 years - so that we do not have to apply every time we go? - Innes BuchananNon-Schengen citizens are let in for 90 days in any 180-day period. These days need not be consecutive. But South Africans need a visa to get in, usually with exact time limits.There is no single policy on longer-term visas for Schengen countries; it varies by country, but it can be done, for up to a year.Schengen allows for C- or D-class visas, semipermanent residence visas for up to a year. In some countries it's hard to get, in others nearly impossible. Spain and Portugal offer long-term stay visas for people who are retired, plan to work or have cash to invest.Multiple entry visas are granted by the embassies, not the normal consular or agent facilities. Most granted are for six months to five years...