China is one of those countries where a bit of preparation pays off far more than usual. You can arrive in plenty of places with nothing but a passport, a bank card and blind optimism and somehow muddle through. China can be less forgiving. The trains are excellent, the cities are fascinating, the food alone is worth the flight, but some of the everyday systems work differently enough that it helps to sort a few things out before you land.
I first realised this on one of those travel days where nothing had technically gone wrong, yet everything felt slightly harder than it needed to. My phone was doing something strange, I was trying to work out whether I had the right station, a booking confirmation would not load properly, and the person I needed to contact was in another country. None of these was a disaster. Put them together, though, and suddenly you are standing in a huge station wondering why you did not prepare any of this the night before.
So this is not a “top ten attractions” kind of guide. It is about the small practical things that can make travelling through China much smoother.
The first thing I would deal with is connectivity. Your phone becomes absurdly important while travelling in China. You may need it for hotel details, maps, translation, train bookings, payments, ride-hailing, messages and the occasional emergency search for “why am I at the wrong railway station?”
A travel eSIM can make mobile data much easier, particularly if your phone supports one. Otherwise, buying a local SIM can work well too. Whatever you choose, do it before you are standing outside an airport trying to understand a setup screen after twelve hours on a plane.
Also download the things you absolutely need before travelling. Save your hotel address in English and Chinese. Screenshot your booking details. Keep your passport information somewhere secure. Download any train confirmations that might be needed offline. I know it sounds overly cautious until the exact moment you have no signal, and then suddenly you feel like a genius.
One thing people sometimes forget is that having data is not exactly the same as being able to make an ordinary international phone call. Messaging apps are fine most of the time, but you may occasionally need to call a bank, airline, relative or company back home. If the United States is one of the places you need to reach, SayFone has a straightforward guide on how to call the United States from China, including the numbering format and country code. It is the sort of information that feels boring before the trip and suddenly very useful when you actually need it.
Then forget about your phone for a while. You did not fly all that way to stare at it.
The distances are easy to underestimate.
Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guilin and the far west are not places you casually string together because they happen to be in the same country. China is enormous. Trying to cover too much can turn a brilliant trip into a sequence of stations, airports and hotel check-ins.
High-speed rail makes travel much easier than it would otherwise be, and it is genuinely one of the pleasures of travelling around the country. But even very fast trains still take time when the distances involved are enormous.
I would choose fewer places and stay longer.
If you have a week, do not try to “see China.” Pick one or two regions. If you have two weeks, you can start joining cities together without spending half the holiday in transit.
Chongqing is a perfect example of somewhere that deserves time rather than a hurried stop. It is massive, vertical, slightly bewildering and very easy to underestimate on a map. Roads cross at different heights, metro lines disappear into buildings and what appears to be a short walk can involve an impressive number of stairs. We have written before about how gloriously chaotic Chongqing can feel for a first-time visitor, and trying to squeeze it into one afternoon would be missing the point.
The same goes for Beijing. Yes, you can race between the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and a handful of famous sights, but some of the best bits of a city happen once you stop moving quite so aggressively.
You do not need to become fluent in Mandarin before your holiday. That would be a rather ambitious requirement for a two-week trip.
But learning a few phrases helps.
Hello, thank you, how much, where is this, I do not understand, and the names of basic foods are all worth having. Numbers are particularly handy!
Translation apps are excellent now, but they work better as backup than as your entire communication strategy. Sometimes you just want to point at something and ask a very simple question rather than produce your phone, open an app and conduct an international diplomatic summit over whether you want noodles.
Save important addresses in Chinese characters as well. Showing a taxi driver an English hotel name may not get you very far, particularly if the hotel uses a completely different Chinese name locally.
This is one of those tiny travel habits that solves problems before they happen.
This catches people out.
The digital tools you use every day at home may not work in exactly the same way in China. Before travelling, check which services you rely on and whether you need alternatives.
That includes maps, messaging, email and anything you use for work.
Do this before the trip rather than discovering it after landing.
I would also avoid building the entire holiday around one app. Keep addresses somewhere else. Save copies of tickets. Write down important phone numbers. If one service stops working, it should be mildly annoying rather than trip-ending.
There is a broader travel lesson here too. Phones have made travelling much easier, but we have also become very good at putting every single piece of useful information onto one device.
Then we panic when the battery reaches 4%.
Bring a power bank. Seriously.
Chinese high-speed rail is fantastic. Chinese railway stations can also be absolutely enormous.
Do not arrive five minutes before departure because that would be perfectly reasonable at your local train station.
You may need to find the correct entrance, pass security, work out which waiting area you need and then get to the platform when boarding begins. At large stations, this can involve a fair amount of walking.
The names can also catch visitors out because cities often have several major stations. Beijing Railway Station, Beijing West and Beijing South are not interchangeable. The same principle applies elsewhere.
Always check the exact station before leaving the hotel. Not “the station.” The station. Your future self will be grateful!
Chinese food in China is obviously not one single thing. The differences between regions are enormous, and that is part of the fun.
If you travel from Beijing to Sichuan, then down toward Guangdong or across toward Xinjiang, the food can feel completely different.
The easiest approach is to be curious without pretending you are fearless.
Try things. Ask what people recommend. Go somewhere busy. Point at somebody else’s dinner if necessary. But if you know you cannot handle very spicy food, do not let pride convince you that a bowl of aggressively red Chongqing noodles is going to respect your boundaries. It will not.
Also remember that menus outside heavily touristed areas may not always have English. Photo menus help enormously. Translation apps help too.
And sometimes you simply order something without knowing exactly what is coming.
This is either exciting or terrifying depending on your personality.
Your passport can be more useful in China than you may be accustomed to elsewhere.
Accommodation, trains and certain attractions may require identification, so keep it secure and accessible rather than burying it beneath every piece of clothing you own.
I also keep a digital copy stored safely in case the original disappears.
That will not replace the passport if you actually need the physical document, but it can make dealing with a problem easier.
Whenever travelling with important documents, split things where possible. Do not keep every bank card, every piece of cash and your passport in one wallet that can disappear in a single unfortunate moment.
Basic advice, yes. Still worth repeating.
China can reward wandering.
That does not mean you should turn up with no bookings at all. Certain trains, accommodation and popular attractions are much easier when organised in advance.
But an itinerary where every hour has been allocated becomes exhausting very quickly.
Leave some gaps.
Spend another evening in a neighbourhood you liked. Get on the metro without turning it into a mission. Sit somewhere and watch the city for a while.
Some of my strongest memories from travelling have little to do with major attractions. They are usually strange meals, unexpected conversations, getting lost, finding somewhere nobody told me to visit or watching an ordinary street slowly become busy in the evening.
Those moments require time.
You cannot schedule spontaneity for 14:30 between two museums.
That is probably the biggest tip.
Things may be organised differently. Apps may be different. Railway stations may feel oversized. Food may arrive in a form you were not expecting. Communication occasionally becomes a game of pointing, typing and smiling.
That is not a flaw in the trip. It is the trip.
Prepare the boring things before you arrive. Sort out connectivity, save your addresses, understand how you will get between cities and keep important information offline.
So this is not a “top ten attractions” kind of guide. It is about the small practical things that can make travelling through China much smoother.
Sort Your Phone Before You Need It
The first thing I would deal with is connectivity. Your phone becomes absurdly important while travelling in China. You may need it for hotel details, maps, translation, train bookings, payments, ride-hailing, messages and the occasional emergency search for “why am I at the wrong railway station?”
A travel eSIM can make mobile data much easier, particularly if your phone supports one. Otherwise, buying a local SIM can work well too. Whatever you choose, do it before you are standing outside an airport trying to understand a setup screen after twelve hours on a plane.
Also download the things you absolutely need before travelling. Save your hotel address in English and Chinese. Screenshot your booking details. Keep your passport information somewhere secure. Download any train confirmations that might be needed offline. I know it sounds overly cautious until the exact moment you have no signal, and then suddenly you feel like a genius.
One thing people sometimes forget is that having data is not exactly the same as being able to make an ordinary international phone call. Messaging apps are fine most of the time, but you may occasionally need to call a bank, airline, relative or company back home. If the United States is one of the places you need to reach, SayFone has a straightforward guide on how to call the United States from China, including the numbering format and country code. It is the sort of information that feels boring before the trip and suddenly very useful when you actually need it.
Then forget about your phone for a while. You did not fly all that way to stare at it.
China Is Huge, So Stop Treating It Like One City Break
The distances are easy to underestimate.
Beijing, Shanghai, Xi’an, Chengdu, Chongqing, Guilin and the far west are not places you casually string together because they happen to be in the same country. China is enormous. Trying to cover too much can turn a brilliant trip into a sequence of stations, airports and hotel check-ins.
High-speed rail makes travel much easier than it would otherwise be, and it is genuinely one of the pleasures of travelling around the country. But even very fast trains still take time when the distances involved are enormous.
I would choose fewer places and stay longer.
If you have a week, do not try to “see China.” Pick one or two regions. If you have two weeks, you can start joining cities together without spending half the holiday in transit.
Chongqing is a perfect example of somewhere that deserves time rather than a hurried stop. It is massive, vertical, slightly bewildering and very easy to underestimate on a map. Roads cross at different heights, metro lines disappear into buildings and what appears to be a short walk can involve an impressive number of stairs. We have written before about how gloriously chaotic Chongqing can feel for a first-time visitor, and trying to squeeze it into one afternoon would be missing the point.
The same goes for Beijing. Yes, you can race between the Forbidden City, the Great Wall and a handful of famous sights, but some of the best bits of a city happen once you stop moving quite so aggressively.
Learn a Few Practical Chinese Phrases
You do not need to become fluent in Mandarin before your holiday. That would be a rather ambitious requirement for a two-week trip.
But learning a few phrases helps.
Hello, thank you, how much, where is this, I do not understand, and the names of basic foods are all worth having. Numbers are particularly handy!
Translation apps are excellent now, but they work better as backup than as your entire communication strategy. Sometimes you just want to point at something and ask a very simple question rather than produce your phone, open an app and conduct an international diplomatic summit over whether you want noodles.
Save important addresses in Chinese characters as well. Showing a taxi driver an English hotel name may not get you very far, particularly if the hotel uses a completely different Chinese name locally.
This is one of those tiny travel habits that solves problems before they happen.
Do Not Assume Your Usual Apps Will Behave Normally
This catches people out.
The digital tools you use every day at home may not work in exactly the same way in China. Before travelling, check which services you rely on and whether you need alternatives.
That includes maps, messaging, email and anything you use for work.
Do this before the trip rather than discovering it after landing.
I would also avoid building the entire holiday around one app. Keep addresses somewhere else. Save copies of tickets. Write down important phone numbers. If one service stops working, it should be mildly annoying rather than trip-ending.
There is a broader travel lesson here too. Phones have made travelling much easier, but we have also become very good at putting every single piece of useful information onto one device.
Then we panic when the battery reaches 4%.
Bring a power bank. Seriously.
Railway Stations Require More Time Than You Think
Chinese high-speed rail is fantastic. Chinese railway stations can also be absolutely enormous.
Do not arrive five minutes before departure because that would be perfectly reasonable at your local train station.
You may need to find the correct entrance, pass security, work out which waiting area you need and then get to the platform when boarding begins. At large stations, this can involve a fair amount of walking.
The names can also catch visitors out because cities often have several major stations. Beijing Railway Station, Beijing West and Beijing South are not interchangeable. The same principle applies elsewhere.
Always check the exact station before leaving the hotel. Not “the station.” The station. Your future self will be grateful!
Carry Some Patience Around Food
Chinese food in China is obviously not one single thing. The differences between regions are enormous, and that is part of the fun.
If you travel from Beijing to Sichuan, then down toward Guangdong or across toward Xinjiang, the food can feel completely different.
The easiest approach is to be curious without pretending you are fearless.
Try things. Ask what people recommend. Go somewhere busy. Point at somebody else’s dinner if necessary. But if you know you cannot handle very spicy food, do not let pride convince you that a bowl of aggressively red Chongqing noodles is going to respect your boundaries. It will not.
Also remember that menus outside heavily touristed areas may not always have English. Photo menus help enormously. Translation apps help too.
And sometimes you simply order something without knowing exactly what is coming.
This is either exciting or terrifying depending on your personality.
Carry Your Passport More Often Than You Might Expect
Your passport can be more useful in China than you may be accustomed to elsewhere.
Accommodation, trains and certain attractions may require identification, so keep it secure and accessible rather than burying it beneath every piece of clothing you own.
I also keep a digital copy stored safely in case the original disappears.
That will not replace the passport if you actually need the physical document, but it can make dealing with a problem easier.
Whenever travelling with important documents, split things where possible. Do not keep every bank card, every piece of cash and your passport in one wallet that can disappear in a single unfortunate moment.
Basic advice, yes. Still worth repeating.
Leave Enough Room for Things You Did Not Plan
China can reward wandering.
That does not mean you should turn up with no bookings at all. Certain trains, accommodation and popular attractions are much easier when organised in advance.
But an itinerary where every hour has been allocated becomes exhausting very quickly.
Leave some gaps.
Spend another evening in a neighbourhood you liked. Get on the metro without turning it into a mission. Sit somewhere and watch the city for a while.
Some of my strongest memories from travelling have little to do with major attractions. They are usually strange meals, unexpected conversations, getting lost, finding somewhere nobody told me to visit or watching an ordinary street slowly become busy in the evening.
Those moments require time.
You cannot schedule spontaneity for 14:30 between two museums.
China Gets Easier Once You Stop Expecting It to Work Like Home
That is probably the biggest tip.
Things may be organised differently. Apps may be different. Railway stations may feel oversized. Food may arrive in a form you were not expecting. Communication occasionally becomes a game of pointing, typing and smiling.
That is not a flaw in the trip. It is the trip.
Prepare the boring things before you arrive. Sort out connectivity, save your addresses, understand how you will get between cities and keep important information offline.
Then leave enough space for China to surprise you - because it probably will! (Photo credit: Theodor Lundqvist)
