What to pack for China

What to pack for China fits into fifteen things, and it starts with the one almost everybody forgets: a universal adapter. China runs on 220V as in Europe, so chargers work without a transformer — but the sockets are a mix of three formats, and on the day you arrive at eleven at night needing to charge four devices, a fifteen-euro adapter is worth more than half of what you brought.

That said, the bad news is that the right suitcase for China is not the right suitcase for just any destination. Travelling in April and travelling in January in Harbin are two different lists, and the first one is shorter than people imagine.

The fifteen things

1. Universal adapter. The starting point. Buy one with USB sockets, because in Chinese hotels the plugs are often behind the bed.

2. Power bank with the 3C marking. Chinese civil aviation requires portable batteries to carry a visible 3C marking, and airlines limit them to 100 Wh. Without the marking, it can be confiscated. In practice: a recognised brand up to 20,000 mAh sorts it out.

3. Your medication, with the prescription. Enough for the trip plus a week. Add something for diarrhoea, rehydration sachets, a painkiller you know, and an antihistamine.

4. Tissues and hand gel. Public toilets in China are frequently short of both. A pack of tissues in your bag, every day.

5. A thermos flask. It sounds like advice from a grandmother and it is one of the best items on this list: hot water is free everywhere — museums, stations, trains — and a 500 ml flask keeps it hot all day. It is also how you drink safe water in China.

6. Walking shoes that are already broken in. You will walk eight to fifteen kilometres a day, much of it over stone. Bring the shoes you already know do not give you blisters, not the new pair.

7. Layers. The temperature swing inside a single Chinese day is wide, and the heating in hotels and restaurants is strong. A base layer, a jumper, a coat you can take off.

8. FFP2 masks. Four or five. They work for the Beijing sandstorms in March and April, for the bad air days, and for the cold you pick up on the plane.

9. Sunscreen and a hat. The Chinese summer sun, with the humidity, deceives anyone arriving from Europe.

10. A light rain poncho. Not an umbrella: a poncho. In Chinese cities, when it rains, it rains properly, and there are twenty thousand umbrellas fighting over the same pavement.

11. Discreet clothes for temples. Shoulders and knees covered in monasteries, in Tibet above all. There is no general requirement, but there are places where the difference is noticed.

12. A copy of your passport, and a photograph. Printed, kept separately. And the photograph also works as the visa photo, if you need one.

13. A second phone, if you have an old one at home. It is there for the Chinese SIM, when you have one, and saves you swapping cards around.

14. A laundry bag. Hotels in China do laundry, but expensively and slowly. A bag sorts it out.

15. Small gifts. If you are going to meet anyone — and on a private tour you will meet the guide and the driver — a gift from home is received with genuine pleasure. Cakes, a bottle of wine, a piece of craftwork.

The four things not worth the space

Clothes for every occasion. China has cheap laundries everywhere, with same-day return in mid-range hotels.

A hairdryer. Every hotel has one.

A beach towel. There is no beach, and the hotels have bath towels.

Large amounts of cash. Bring 500 to 1,000 yuan with you and withdraw the rest at an ATM. And a warning: sums above the equivalent of 5,000 US dollars have to be declared on entry.

What to leave at home because it is a problem at the border

Fresh produce, meat, seeds and plants. Confiscated at customs, almost always with a fine.

Drones. They require prior registration in China and are banned in practically every area that matters: the Great Wall in its entirety, the Forbidden City, historic centres and national parks. It is not worth it.

Religious literature in quantity. Printed religious material has its own entry rules and volume limits.

The winter suitcase

If you are travelling between December and February, and especially if you are going on our Winter China route or to Harbin, the list changes:

• Thermal layers, with a merino wool base layer.
• A coat that is waterproof and windproof, with a hood.
• Gloves, a hat and a scarf, because that is where the cold gets in first.
• Thermal insoles and disposable hand warmers, which you buy there for 5 yuan.
• A power bank carried close to the body: in the cold, it discharges in two hours.
• Lip balm and moisturiser. The dry air of northern China cracks your lips in two days.

The suitcase for children

Half of what you pack for an adult, plus three things: children’s medicine in the right dose, familiar snacks for the bad hours, and one extra coat, because a child who gets cold does not recover the day.

And a piece of advice that always comes from someone who has been: pack a change of clothes in your hand luggage. Bags in China almost always arrive, but when they do not, they arrive the next day — and a child with every piece of clothing in the hold in Beijing, on the way to Xi’an, has no solution on sale anywhere nearby.

How to organise it

We often put this question the other way round. Instead of “what should I pack?”, “what will you use every day?”. The answer is short, and it should be what guides the suitcase:

• Shoes, charger, adapter, phone, passport, power bank, flask, tissues, coat.

Everything else is secondary, and almost all of it can be bought in China, with one advantage: it is cheap. A winter coat in Harbin costs 300 yuan and is better than the one you brought.

The only thing you cannot buy there

There is one item that cannot easily be bought in China: your regular medication, at the same dose and under the same name. That is why it is first on this list and last out of the suitcase.

And there is another you cannot buy, and which should always travel with you: the contact details of someone who can help, on paper, in your pocket.

For anyone who wants the complete list by category, our baggage guide has everything. And because the suitcase crosses paths with two practical decisions — how to get internet and how to pay — it is worth reading the internet and payments guides before you zip it shut.