Pre-trip field guide · 2026
Land in China
ready.
China is easier to visit than it has been in decades — 68 nationalities now enter visa-free. But payments, apps, and trains work differently here. These tools and guides get you set up before you board the plane.
Written on the ground in Beijing — every page dated, every rule sourced.
The fun part
Two tools that turn planning into play
Flagship toolChina Trip Planner
Tap together a day-by-day itinerary from 90+ sights, dishes, and experiences — with honest time budgets and travel times built in.
Start planning →
Interactive mapChina Travel Map
All 23 cities on one board. Zoom into any of them and 186 pins light up — hover for photos, click to open the guide.
Explore the map →Start here
Seven tools that answer the big questions
No sign-ups, no fees. Each tool cites the official policy it's built on, with the date we last verified it.
Visa-Free Eligibility Checker
Pick your passport, get your answer: 30-day visa-free, 240-hour transit, or visa required — with the official rules linked.
Open tool →02240-Hour Transit Planner
Check if your route qualifies for the 10-day visa-free transit: eligible ports, allowed regions, and the third-country rule.
Open tool →03Crowd Calendar
Golden Week and Chinese New Year turn attractions into seas of people. See exactly which dates to avoid, month by month.
Open tool →04Trip Budget Calculator
Real prices from the ground: hotels, high-speed rail, meals, and attractions — budgeted by city, days, and travel style.
Open tool →05Pre-Trip Checklist Builder
A personalized to-do list based on your nationality and trip length — apps to install, cards to bring, documents to prepare.
Open tool →06Arrival Quick Reference
Plug types, tipping (spoiler: none), emergency numbers, and the numbers gesture chart — one page to screenshot before you land.
Open tool →07Intercity Route Finder
Pick two cities, get the real distance, station names, and fare — train or flight, whichever actually makes sense for that pair.
Open tool →
Step by step
Guides written on the ground
Every guide is built from real walkthroughs in China — actual app screens, actual stations, actual prices. Not rewritten press releases.
How to Plan Your First Trip to China
How many days you actually need, which cities pair well, and four sample routes that work — plus how to turn any of them into a day-by-day plan.
02Set Up Alipay Before You Fly
The payment app you'll use fifty times a day, configured in 15 minutes with your foreign card — every screen shown.
03WeChat Pay for Tourists
The backup wallet worth having. Registration, card linking, and the verification steps that confuse everyone.
04Data in China: eSIM Guide
Land with working internet. How tourist eSIMs work, what they cost, and how to install one in five minutes.
05The 7 Apps That Make China Work
Alipay, Amap, DiDi, Trip.com and friends — the whole stack, in order of importance, installed before takeoff.
06Is China Safe for Tourists?
Very — and that's not the interesting part. The five things that actually go wrong, and the one-evening fix for all of them.
07Common Scams & How to Avoid Them
Sidestep the tea house, taxi, and art-student tricks with a few simple habits.
08Tipping in China (Don't)
The whole etiquette in one table: no tips at restaurants, taxis, or hotels — and the two exceptions that exist.
09Book Any Restaurant — or Let Us Do It
Five ways to get the table without speaking Chinese, plus our free booking-help pilot: tell us the restaurant, we make the call.
- Official sources only. Visa and entry rules link directly to Chinese government publications — never secondhand blogs.
- Every page is dated. You'll always see when a page was last verified, because a 2023 guide to Chinese payments is worse than no guide.
- Written from inside China. The app screenshots are ours. The train stations are ones we've stood in.