Arriving in China: the four hours of preparation that decide the trip

China is neither expensive nor dangerous. It is the only country in Asia where four hours of preparation, done or not done before departure, decides what the rest of the trip feels like.

Everything below has to happen at home. That is the entire point.

Three weeks out: the paperwork

Check the rule for your passport, because it is not the same for everyone and it has an expiry date. Several nationalities currently enter visa-free for up to 30 days under a scheme running to 31 December 2026; others need a visa before departure.

Two details catch people out regardless of nationality: emergency and service passports are excluded from the waiver schemes, and the passport must usually be valid six months beyond your departure from China, not beyond your arrival.

The China page gives the rule for your passport, with the government source and the month it was read.

Two weeks out: payment

Link a foreign card to Alipay or WeChat Pay now, at home.

Cash has largely disappeared from Chinese daily life. Street food, taxis, metro tickets, museum entry: all of it expects a phone. Both platforms now accept foreign cards, and both verifications go far more smoothly on a good connection than in a hotel lobby with none.

Do it once, test it with a small payment, and you have removed the single most common source of friction.

Two weeks out: the VPN

Install and test it before you fly. Google, Gmail, WhatsApp and Instagram are unreachable from the mainland — and so, crucially, are the app stores that would let you download a VPN once you have arrived.

A VPN downloaded on arrival is a VPN you will not download. Test it at home, and have a second one installed as a spare: they do not all work equally well, and the one that worked last month may not this month.

Ten days out: the trains

Chinese train tickets open fifteen days before departure, and not one minute earlier. Beyond that the train is not full — it does not exist in the system yet.

This changes how you plan: the shape of the trip is fixed at home, the tickets are bought as the window opens. On the main corridors capacity is such that two or three days ahead is enough, outside festival periods.

The full rule, with the sales hours and the passport requirement, is worth reading before you build an itinerary around rail.

The night before: maps and offline everything

Download offline maps. Save your addresses in Chinese characters, not in transliteration — a taxi driver reads the former and not the latter. Screenshot your bookings.

This is the step people skip because it feels excessive. It is the one that saves an evening.

On arrival: registration

Every foreign visitor must register with the police for their area of residence within 24 hours.

Hotels do this automatically at check-in and you will never see it happen. A private rental does not. Neither does a night with friends. In those cases the obligation is yours, and the 24 hours run from your passage through immigration, not from your arrival at the flat.

If your first night is not in a hotel, plan the police station visit for the next morning, with your passport and the exact address.

What it looks like when it is done

You land, your phone works, you pay for the metro with it, your maps are already downloaded, and your train for the day after tomorrow is booked. The country stops being complicated and becomes what it actually is: the best-connected place to travel in Asia.

What not to do

Arrive without a tested VPN. You cannot fix it from there.

Count on cash. You will find ATMs; you will not find people who want the notes.

Assume train tickets can be bought the day before a holiday. Golden Week in early October and Spring Festival are the two moments when fifteen days is not a formality.

Assume your hotel handles the registration. It does, if it is a hotel.