Before You Go: Essential Tips for Traveling in China

Traveling in China is a thrilling experience, but it helps to be prepared—especially when it comes to technology, payments, and navigating daily life. Here’s what you need to know, before you go, to make your trip smoother.

1. Download Essential Apps

Payments: China is largely a cashless society. Using foreign credit cards or cash is often challenging—many vendors don’t accept them, and small businesses may struggle to provide change. The solution: Alipay and WeChat Pay, which are now foreign-card friendly.

How to set them up before leaving home:

Make sure you set these apps up before you leave home. Setup and ID verification takes a while and you don’t want to be struggling with this at the airport!
Download the apps and create an account. It’s strongly advised you download both Alipay and Wechat so in the odd case when one does not work, you can try the other. It’s also recommended, if you can, to add more than one credit card.
Add your credit card(s) and complete identity verification (usually a passport upload and a selfie). Verification takes about 1 day.
Test if the payment apps work by using this website. The site charges a small amount (~$0.30) to test if payment works without having to wait until you get to China. I used this to successfully test out my Alipay account while still in Canada.
Explore their mini-programs. These “apps within apps” cover everything from ride-hailing (Didi) and food delivery (Meituan) to online shopping (Taobao). If you want to use these apps, set them up before you go as well. Sometimes they require a bound phone number so, use your home country mobile phone number to set these apps up before you go.

Arriving in China

We’re not sure why but when we landed in China, our apps did not work at first as we kept getting error messages that our payment pin code was wrong (quite sure we were using the right codes though!). To reset your payment pin code, you have to revalidate your ID (selfie). We had to attempt this at least 6-7 times before it finally worked and we could reset our pin codes. Without a pin code, you can’t make payments via the app. The apps are a bit janky at first but once things are setup, it was smooth sailing.

How to pay:

Method 1 (most common): Open your app, show your QR code to the vendor, and they scan it. You’ll get a confirmation message instantly.
Method 2 (smaller businesses): Scan the vendor’s QR code, enter the payment amount, and the vendor confirms the transaction.
Note that sometimes you may need to go through a VISA or Mastercard verification process for some payments.
Tip: If you have any trouble paying, just ask for help! I struggled for my first payment and was feeling really embarrassed but the cashier was super helpful in helping me navigate the app.

Other essential apps:

Amap: The best navigation app in China. Unlike Google Maps, which can be unreliable, Amap provides detailed metro, bus, and driving directions. It even has AR walking directions and built-in English translation. You can even hail rides via Amap although we did not try this as we used Didi.
Didi: China’s Uber equivalent and is available as a mini-program within Alipay and Wechat. Payment is done through these apps too if you use it as a mini-program. You can choose the car class (standard, premium, XL, etc.), enter your destination, and a driver usually arrives within five minutes. For some reason, Didi could not find my exact GPS location on Alipay but it could on Wechat so, this is why having both apps is essential. When one doesn’t work, try the other.

2. Internet and the Great Firewall

Many familiar sites are blocked in China (Google, Gmail, WhatsApp, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube). Accessing the internet is simple if you plan ahead:

eSIMs with built-in VPNs are the easiest solution. For example, you can buy 50GB for 15 days for around $20 USD. We purchased our eSIM on Trip.com and found their rates to be the cheapest.
We didn’t get a VPN since the eSIM already had it built-in and found that lately, most VPNs were getting blocked/shut down anyway.
Avoid relying on hotel Wi-Fi—most connections are behind the firewall and limit your access. Once you have an eSIM, you can hotspot to your laptop or tablet and stay connected anywhere.
Tip: A local SIM card is another option, but pre-loaded eSIMs save time at airports and are often more reliable for tourists.
Tip: We did have our eSIM stop working for about 2 hours. It would be advisable to get a secondary, back-up, 1 day eSIM in case this happens as getting around and paying for things are all reliant on an internet connection!

3. Booking Hotels and Trains

Hotels: Trip.com is the go-to platform for most accommodations in China. Booking is straightforward and often cheaper than other platforms. Booking.com is a backup if a property isn’t listed.

Trains: High-speed trains are widely used in China and again, Trip.com is the easiest way to go. You can use alternatives like 12306 China Railway but as a foreigner, Trip.com is entirely in English, offers step-by-step instructions on how to navigate stations, and is just way easier. Note that train bookings open 15 days in advance although you can also make reservations earlier but this is not always 100% guaranteed especially during busy peak holiday periods.

Tips on Train Stations: You enter a station using your passport/ID and also enter the boarding platform the same way. No physical tickets are necessary as everything is linked to your passport. Treat stations like airports—arrive at least one hour early to account for security checks and passport scanning.

4. Translation Tools

Even if you don’t speak Mandarin, communication is manageable:

Google Translate works well in China (camera mode is especially helpful for menus, signs, or labels).
Keep offline translation packs downloaded in case you’re in areas with poor internet access.
Learning a few key phrases in Mandarin, like greetings or numbers, can go a long way in markets or taxis.

5. Extra Travel Tips

Cash backup: Carry some RMB for very small vendors or rural areas. Bring the smallest denominator bills you can. We brought about ~$100 CAD in cash but did not use it even once but it was good to have just for peace of mind.
Offline maps: Even with Amap, downloading offline maps is smart for remote areas. You can do so via Google Maps by going to the region of map you want and typing in ‘Ok Maps’ in the search field. This will download that area offline for you.
Power and charging: Bring a universal adapter—most sockets are Type A, C, or I. If you plan to carry a power bank, make sure it’s CCC-certified (China Compulsory Certification). We had our non-certified power bank confiscated at the airport! Check the label before you bring your expensive power bank or it may be taken away on trains and flights.
Accessing Food Menus: We only were handed physical menus in maybe 25% of restaurants. Most often, we had to scan a QR code to access them and then order everything online. Open Alipay or Wechat and use the ‘Scan’ function to scan these QR codes. An online menu will pop up and you place your order and even settle your bill all online. This was really handy especially when using Alipay given that the app has a built-in translator.
Train Station Vending Machines: the ONLY time we could not use our payment apps to pay for something was with the train station vending machines. We did a bit of online research and think that it may have something to do with these machines only allowing citizens to pay because citizens had credit scores linked to their accounts and tourists do not. I’m not 100% sure if this is the reason, but again, this was the only time we could not pay for something.
Online Shopping: we noticed at our hotel that loads of people were ordering things online (Taobao) and getting them delivered to the hotel. Our hotel lobby was littered with packages! If we had more time, we would have taken this route as you can find the best prices on Taobao especially if you know exactly what you want (and most stores will not physically stock everything like phones, gadgets, electronics).
Security Checks & Passports: always have your passports on you as they are often needed in a lot of places like buying tickets at tourist locations or entering train stations. Also be aware that there are a lot of bag security scanners even on the metro, so be prepared for that. Most are really quick to get through.
Toilets: be warned that squat toilets are still heavily in use in China and in some areas will not provide tissue paper. So, always bring some with you and get working on your squatting skills!

With the right apps, a VPN-ready eSIM, and a little prep, navigating China is surprisingly easy and smooth - just make sure you don’t run out of juice on your phone!!