Beijing to Shanghai and beyond: visas, payments, the Great Firewall, high-speed rail, traveler tips, and how to stay connected with an eSIM.
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China is not one trip. It is a civilization that happens to have excellent trains. Beijing's hutongs and palaces, Shanghai's Bund and dumpling houses, Xi'an's terracotta army, the karst river at Guilin, and Chengdu's teahouses and pandas can each eat a week. The high-speed rail network makes linking them feel almost unfair.
The country runs on apps you may not have used before. WeChat and Alipay are how you pay, ride and talk; Google, Instagram and WhatsApp are blocked on local networks. That sounds harder than it is. Set the apps up before you fly, keep a VPN if you need your usual tools, and China becomes startlingly smooth.
Food is a reason to come by itself: Peking duck in Beijing, xiaolongbao in Shanghai, hotpot in Sichuan, and a breakfast youtiao that costs coins. Follow the queue, point at what looks good, and let the chili oil make decisions for you.
A first trip works as two or three cities on the rail spine — Beijing, Xi'an, Shanghai is the classic — rather than a heroic attempt to 'see China.' The country is too old and too large for that. Pick a thread and pull.
Essentials
Traveler tips
Real advice from people who have been to China, curated by our team with links to the original sources.
Street food, metro tickets, taxis and even some temples take QR payments. Foreign cards can now link to both apps, but verification is easier at home. Screenshot your hotel address in Chinese — taxi drivers will want it.
On a Chinese network, Google Maps, WhatsApp and Instagram simply do not load. Download Baidu Maps or Amap, move group chats to WeChat, and decide before you fly whether you need a VPN for work email. Do not count on hotel Wi-Fi to save you at the station.
The official 12306 app is powerful and English-hostile. Trip.com sells the same seats with a calmer interface and English support. Book ID-tied tickets with your passport number, and arrive at the station with time — security is airport-like.
The first week of October and Chinese New Year turn trains, the Great Wall and every famous mountain into a human river. If your dates overlap, book everything early or go somewhere un-famous on purpose.
Sichuan is not Cantonese is not Shanghainese. Order the dish the city is proud of, accept that menus are a photo album, and never be too proud for a busy hole-in-the-wall with plastic stools. That is usually the meal.
TripAdvisor Forums
Every night in China has to be filed with the local public security desk. Big hotels do it at check-in when they scan your passport; cheap walk-up inns often will not, because they do not want the paperwork. Book on an international English listing — if the property has a full English page, it usually means they already handle foreign guests. Airbnb-style apartments leave the registration to you, and that is a police-station errand, not a lobby chat.
View sourceTripAdvisor Forums
Street-flagging a cab in Beijing or Chengdu is how you get a driver who cannot read your hotel in pinyin. Open Didi as a mini program inside WeChat or Alipay, pin the drop-off in Chinese, and keep a number that can receive the driver’s call — they ring when they are a block away and will not hunt for a roaming handset in a crowded curb lane. Do not send Didi between cities; that is what the high-speed train is for.
View sourceFAQ
Many hotel and café portals send an SMS code to a mainland number you do not have. A travel eSIM does not give you one. Ask reception for the room password, or stay on cellular — WeChat, Amap and Didi work without that login. Unlocked iPhone XS / Pixel 3 / Galaxy S20+ attach to fast Chinese 5G.
Not on the cellular network itself — those services are blocked in China regardless of whether you use a local SIM or a travel eSIM. WeChat, Alipay, Didi and Chinese map apps work normally. If you need Gmail or WhatsApp, arrange a VPN before you travel; do not expect to download one after you arrive.
Maps, WeChat, Didi and translation are constant — budget 2 GB per day, so 20–30 GB for two weeks. Unlimited is worth it if you also work from the phone. Hotel Wi-Fi varies wildly and often wants a Chinese mobile number to log in.
You can, with your passport, and the counters are a queue after a long-haul flight. An eSIM installed at home skips the desk and has WeChat and Didi working in arrivals — which is exactly when you need them.
Not for a purely local-app trip. Plenty of travelers do two weeks on WeChat, Amap and Trip.com without one. You will want a VPN if you need Google, Instagram, WhatsApp or your usual work tools. Set that up before you enter the country.
eSIM plans
China is a phone country that does not run on the apps you already have. An eSIM gets you onto a fast local network the moment you land in Beijing or Shanghai — useful for WeChat, Didi, Amap and rail tickets — without queuing for a passport-registered SIM at the airport.
Remember that a Chinese eSIM uses Chinese networks, so the same site blocks apply. Set up WeChat and maps before you fly, and treat the eSIM as the thing that makes those local tools work from the gate, not as a magic key to Google.