Most people arrive in China expecting the difficulty to be cultural. It is not. Chinese cities are safe, orderly and astonishingly well built; the metro systems are newer than anything in Europe and the trains run to the minute. The difficulty is infrastructural: China built a parallel digital ecosystem in the 2010s, and a foreign visitor who has not plugged into it arrives functionally disabled — unable to pay, unable to navigate, unable to call a taxi.
Solve four problems before you fly and the country opens up completely.
Do you need a visa for China?#
This is the question that changed most in the last two years, and the one where old blog posts will actively mislead you.
Since 2023 China has rolled out unilateral visa-free entry to a growing list of countries — most of the EU, Switzerland, Norway, the UK (added 2025), Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Malaysia, Brazil, Argentina and others — normally allowing stays of 30 days for tourism, business, family visits and transit. Separately, the 240-hour (10-day) visa-free transit scheme covers 55 nationalities, including the United States and Canada, arriving at more than 60 ports, provided you hold an onward ticket to a third country or region and stay inside the permitted provinces.
Two consequences worth internalising:
- If your country is on the unilateral list, a two-week China trip now involves no paperwork at all. Book a flight, land, get a stamp.
- If you are American or Canadian, you can still travel visa-free by routing your trip as a transit: for example London → Beijing → Seoul. This is a legitimate, heavily used scheme, not a loophole — but the onward ticket must be to a different country than the one you came from.
Money: China is cashless, and that is a problem you can fix#
Roughly nine in ten urban transactions in China run through a QR code in Alipay or WeChat Pay. Street vendors, temple ticket offices, noodle shops, bike shares, vending machines — all QR. Many small businesses genuinely cannot make change for a ¥100 note because they have not handled cash in years.
Foreign credit cards are accepted in international hotel chains, airport shops and upmarket restaurants. Almost nowhere else.
The fix takes fifteen minutes and must be done before departure, because verification can require an SMS code:
- Install Alipay (easier for foreigners) and WeChat.
- Register with your real phone number and complete passport identity verification.
- Bind a Visa or Mastercard. Alipay applies a service fee on transactions above ¥200 (currently around 3%); below that, payments are free.
- Optionally top up a "Tour Pass" prepaid balance inside Alipay if you would rather not bind a card.
Carry ¥500–1,000 in cash as a genuine backup — for rural buses, temple donation boxes and the occasional stubborn ticket window. Chinese law requires merchants to accept cash, and most will, reluctantly.
Read the details in money and payments in China.
Internet: which SIM you use decides what you can see#
Mainland China blocks Google (including Gmail, Maps and Drive), WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, X, YouTube, Signal and most Western news sites.
There is one detail that changes everything: traffic on a foreign SIM roaming in China is routed back through your home carrier, so it usually reaches the open internet normally. A Chinese SIM card does not. So:
| Option | Cost | Open internet? | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home SIM roaming | Highest (¥/day packages) | Usually yes | Trips under 10 days, convenience |
| Foreign travel eSIM | Moderate | Usually yes | Most travellers |
| Chinese SIM (Unicom/Mobile) | Cheapest, huge data | No, firewalled | Long stays, heavy data use |
| Hotel Wi-Fi + VPN | Free | Only with a working VPN | Backup |
If you take a Chinese SIM, install and test a VPN before you arrive — VPN provider websites are themselves blocked from inside China, so you cannot download one after landing. Full detail: internet, VPN and apps in China.
Getting around: the train is almost always the answer#
China has more than 48,000 km of high-speed rail, and it has made domestic flying largely irrelevant for journeys under about 1,200 km. Beijing to Shanghai is 4.5 hours city centre to city centre, at 350 km/h, for roughly ¥550 in second class.
What a first-timer needs to know:
- Book through the official 12306 app (it has an English mode and accepts foreign passports and cards) or through Trip.com if you want a simpler interface for a small mark-up.
- Tickets are electronic and tied to your passport. You do not collect anything — you scan the passport itself at the gate.
- The pre-sale window has changed several times; plan for tickets going on sale roughly two weeks ahead, and book popular routes the day they open during holidays.
- Arrive 40 minutes early. Chinese stations are airport-scale, with security screening and gates that close 3–5 minutes before departure. They do not wait.
- Second class is fine. First class buys 20 cm of legroom. Business class is a flat-bed seat and costs three times as much.
Inside cities, the metro is cheap (¥3–8), signed in English in every major city, and payable by scanning a QR code from Alipay. For door-to-door, DiDi works like Uber and has an English interface; ordinary street taxis are cheap but the driver will not speak English, so show your destination in Chinese characters.
Language: how far English actually gets you#
Honestly: not far. In Beijing and Shanghai you will find English in hotels, at major sights and among younger people in international districts. In Chengdu, Xi'an and everywhere smaller, assume none — including at train stations, in restaurants and among taxi drivers.
This matters much less than it used to, because translation apps now work well:
- Google Translate — best quality, but requires a connection that reaches Google (see the SIM question above). Download the offline Chinese pack regardless.
- Baidu Translate or Youdao — work on any Chinese connection, handle photo translation of menus well.
- Point at the menu. Universal, effective, and how a large fraction of Chinese diners order anyway.
Learning ten phrases changes how you are treated more than it changes what you can accomplish. Start with 你好 (nǐ hǎo, hello), 谢谢 (xiè xie, thank you), 多少钱 (duō shao qián, how much), and 这个 (zhè ge, this one) — the last is the single most useful word in a Chinese restaurant. More in our survival Mandarin guide.
Where to go on a first trip#
The default first-timer route exists for good reason. It works.
Beijing → Xi'an → Chengdu → Shanghai, roughly 12–14 days, all connected by high-speed rail. You get the imperial capital and the Great Wall, the Terracotta Army and the Muslim Quarter, pandas and Sichuan food, then the 21st-century skyline as a finale. It is the classic 14-day itinerary.
If you have only a week, cut it to Beijing → Xi'an → Shanghai or, better, do one week properly rather than three cities badly. China punishes over-scheduling: the sights are enormous, the queues are real, and moving city every two days means you spend the trip in stations.
If you have been to China before or want scenery over monuments, look at Guilin and Yangshuo, Zhangjiajie or Yunnan.
When to go#
Broadly: late April to early June and mid-September to early November are the two good windows nationwide — mild, dry-ish, and outside the punishing summer heat. July and August are hot, humid and crowded with domestic school-holiday travel, though they are the only sensible season for Tibet, Xinjiang and the Northeast.
Avoid three periods unless you have no choice:
- Chinese New Year (Spring Festival) — a week-long, country-wide travel surge; hundreds of millions of people move at once, and many small businesses close for a fortnight.
- National Day Golden Week, 1–7 October — the single busiest domestic travel week; the Forbidden City and the Great Wall are genuinely unpleasant.
- Labour Day, roughly 1–5 May — shorter, but the same effect.
The full breakdown, region by region and month by month, is in when to visit China.
What it costs#
China is not the bargain it was in 2010, but it remains excellent value compared with Japan or Western Europe — especially for food and transport.
| Style | Daily budget (per person) | What that looks like |
|---|---|---|
| Backpacker | ¥250–400 (US$35–55) | Hostel dorm, street food, metro, some sights |
| Mid-range | ¥600–900 (US$85–125) | 3–4★ hotel, restaurant meals, all sights, second-class rail |
| Comfortable | ¥1,200–2,000 (US$165–280) | 4–5★ hotel, private guide days, business-class rail |
Entry tickets are the surprise line item: major sights run ¥40–150 each and add up fast. See what a China trip really costs.
Ten things nobody tells you#
- Book the big sights online, days ahead. The Forbidden City, Terracotta Army, Shanghai Museum and most national museums now use passport-linked timed entry with daily caps, and they sell out. Turning up at the gate frequently does not work.
- Many museums close on Mondays. Including the National Museum of China and the Shanghai Museum.
- Hot water is the default drink. Every hotel, train and airport has a boiling-water dispenser. Bring an insulated flask and you will never buy water again.
- Squat toilets are common outside hotels, and public toilets often have no paper. Carry tissues.
- Toilet paper goes in the bin in older buildings and most rural areas.
- Queueing is looser than you are used to, especially for lifts and buses. It is not personal.
- Nobody tips. Not in restaurants, not in taxis. Tipping a guide is fine; tipping a waiter causes confusion.
- Your hotel must register you with the police. Any licensed hotel does this automatically at check-in. If you stay in a private apartment, you are legally required to register at the local police station within 24 hours.
- Smoking is still widespread in older restaurants and stairwells, despite indoor bans in major cities.
- Air quality varies enormously by city and season. Beijing in winter can be bad; Kunming and coastal cities are usually fine. Check an AQI app rather than assuming.
A realistic pre-departure timeline#
| When | Do this |
|---|---|
| 8 weeks out | Check visa status for your nationality; apply if needed. Book international flights. |
| 6 weeks out | Book hotels in the big four cities (they sell out around holidays). Check vaccinations with a travel clinic. |
| 4 weeks out | Buy travel insurance. Decide SIM strategy; order an eSIM if using one. |
| 2 weeks out | Install and verify Alipay + WeChat, bind a card. Install Amap/Apple Maps, DiDi, 12306, a translation app and a VPN. Book rail tickets when the window opens. |
| 1 week out | Book timed-entry tickets for the Forbidden City, Terracotta Army and any museum you care about. Download offline maps and the offline Chinese translation pack. |
| Day before | Screenshot hotel addresses in Chinese. Photograph your passport. Withdraw a little cash on arrival at the airport ATM. |
Frequently asked questions#
Is China safe for tourists?#
Yes — violent crime against visitors is rare, and cities are heavily policed and monitored, with women commonly walking alone at night in urban areas. The real risks are mundane: traffic (look both ways twice, e-bikes are silent and everywhere), tourist scams around Wangfujing and the Bund, and pickpocketing in crowded markets. See health and safety in China.
Can I use my credit card in China?#
Rarely, outside international hotels, airports and upmarket restaurants. The practical solution is to bind your Visa or Mastercard inside Alipay or WeChat Pay before you travel, which lets you pay by QR code the way locals do. Carry some cash as a backup.
Do I need a VPN in China?#
Only if you are using a Chinese SIM card or hotel Wi-Fi and want Google, WhatsApp, Instagram or Western news. If you roam on your home SIM or a foreign travel eSIM, your traffic usually routes through your home network and reaches everything without a VPN. Install any VPN before arriving, because provider sites are blocked from inside.
How many days do you need in China?#
Ten days is the practical minimum for a first trip covering two or three cities without rushing. Fourteen days lets you do Beijing, Xi'an, Chengdu and Shanghai comfortably. Anything under a week is best spent in a single city plus a day trip.
Is English spoken in China?#
Not widely. Expect English at international hotels, airports, major museums and among younger people in Beijing and Shanghai — and almost none elsewhere, including taxis and restaurants. Translation apps and screenshots of addresses in Chinese characters close the gap effectively.
What is the best time of year to visit China?#
Late April to early June and mid-September to early November offer the best nationwide weather. Avoid Chinese New Year, the 1–7 October Golden Week and the early-May holiday, when domestic travel peaks and prices spike.