Before You Go: the complete pre-trip checklist

Documents, tickets and copies

Two weeks before you fly, open a folder with these in it — printedand on your phone, because Chinese airports like paper and Chinese hotels like screens:

• Passport with plenty of remaining validity and at least one blank page
• Your onward ticket to a third country or region (if you are using the 240-hour transit)
• All hotel bookings, with the address written in Chinese characters
• Travel insurance policy number and emergency phone
• Two passport photos (occasionally useful for permits in remote areas)
• A photo of your passport's photo page stored in your email, not only on your phone

Set up money before you land

China runs on QR codes. Cash is a backup, not a plan. Doing this at home where you have reliable internet is the single highest-value hour of your preparation.

1. Install Alipay and WeChat

   Both are available on foreign app stores. Register with your home phone number — it works.

2. Bind a Visa or Mastercard

   Both apps accept international cards. Small transactions are usually free; larger ones may carry a service fee of around 3%. Have a second card as a backup.

3. Test a tiny payment at home

   Some travellers can already use Alipay for overseas merchants. If not, just make sure the card is accepted and verification is complete.

4. Tell your bank you are travelling

   Old advice, still true for plastic cards.

5. Bring some cash anyway

   €100–200 equivalent in clean, unmarked notes. Change it at a bank or airport exchange after landing.

Internet: the one thing that surprises everyone

Many everyday apps you rely on do not work on the Chinese domestic internet: Google Search, Maps, Gmail, YouTube, Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and X are all inaccessible on a normal local connection.

The simplest legitimate fix:keep using your home mobile connection. A roaming plan or a regional eSIM routes your data through your home carrier's network, so your usual apps keep working on your normal number. This is what most short-stay visitors do.

• Buy an eSIM before you fly — regional Asia or global plans are cheap and activate on landing.
• Or turn on roaming — check the daily rate with your carrier first; it has fallen a lot.
• WeChat works on any connection — it is how you will message hotels, guides and friends in China.
• Hotel Wi-Fi is fine but slow and often requires a Chinese phone number for captive portals at smaller hotels.

The apps worth installing

Health, insurance and medicine

• Buy travel insurance that covers China and includes hospital treatment. It is cheap and genuinely useful.
• Bring your regular medicines in original packaging, plus a copy of the prescription. Some common Western medicines are controlled — check before you fly.
• No mandatory vaccines for most travellers arriving from Europe, North America or East Asia. Check current requirements for your departure country.
• Tap water is not for drinking. Boiled or bottled water is standard; hotels provide kettles.
• Air quality varies a lot by city and season. If you have asthma or allergies, bring your inhaler and check AQI apps.
• Emergency numbers: 110 police, 120 ambulance, 119 fire. Save your embassy's number too.

Plug, voltage and what to pack

China runs on220V / 50Hz. Sockets accept the flat two-pin US-style plug, the round two-pin European plug and the angled Australian plug; UK three-pin sockets are rare. A good universal adapter solves everything.

• Power banks are allowed on planes but must be carried in hand luggage. Keep them within airline limits — anything large needs airline approval.
• Season matters more than style. Beijing winters are dry and freezing; Shanghai summers are humid and 35 °C+; the southwest is mild year-round.
• Comfortable shoes. You will walk 15,000–25,000 steps a day.
• A scarf or light layer for aggressive air-conditioning in summer.
• Handkerchief tissues and hand gel — public toilets frequently supply neither.

Booking hotels, trains and tickets

• Hotels: filter for properties that accept foreign passports. Most city hotels do; some very small or very cheap ones do not, and it is their legal registration, not prejudice.
• Trains: high-speed rail tickets open roughly two weeks before departure and popular routes sell out on holidays. Book via Trip.com or at the station with your passport — the physical passport is your ticket.
• Attractions: the big ones (Palace Museum, National Museum, some Shanghai and Xi'an sites) use timed-entry reservations that open days in advance and sell out. Set an alarm.
• Museums close on Mondays as a rule, though not universally.
• Holidays: Chinese New Year and the first week of October move 800+ million people. Avoid them or book far earlier than feels reasonable.

The countdown checklist

• 30 days before — confirm visa route, book flights, buy insurance, check passport validity.
• 21 days before — book hotels; check whether your route needs onward tickets.
• 14 days before — install and verify Alipay / WeChat with your card; buy an eSIM.
• 10 days before — book high-speed rail and timed attraction tickets.
• 7 days before — download offline maps, translation packs, boarding passes; print documents.
• 1 day before — charge the power bank, screenshot hotel addresses in Chinese, confirm airport transfer.