Internet, mobile and VPN in China

The simplest solution is to use your own carrier’s roaming: traffic then leaves through your home network and blocked sites open. For anyone without roaming included, a roaming eSIM solves the same problem for less money.

What is blocked

China’s internet infrastructure filters a list of foreign services. In practice, on a local connection these will not open:

• Google and everything that depends on it: Gmail, Google Maps, YouTube, Google Translate
• Meta: WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook, Messenger
• X / Twitter, Threads and most Western social networks
• Many international news sites and streaming services without a licence in China

What keeps working with no effort at all: Chinese news and government sites, Trip.com, WeChat, Alipay, Amap and the overwhelming majority of local apps. Amazon, Booking and corporate email usually open.

Three ways to get online

1. Roaming on your own carrier. The most comfortable option: you switch on data roaming and carry on using your phone as you do at home, with WhatsApp and Gmail working, because traffic exits through your home carrier’s network. The cost depends on your plan — bundled regional allowances rarely cover China at no extra charge, so it is worth activating a data pass before you leave.

2. Roaming eSIM. International data plans sold online, installed by QR code before the flight, which route traffic outside China. They cost less than traditional roaming and keep WhatsApp working. This is our recommendation for most clients today.

3. Chinese SIM or eSIM. Very cheap data and an excellent network, including in rural areas where carrier roaming signal sometimes drops out. The trade-off is losing direct access to blocked services without a VPN. We recommend it for long stays or for anyone working with Chinese apps.

In every case, install and configure everything before you take off. App stores, VPN websites and even technical support pages can be unreachable once you arrive.

Apps worth the space on your phone

Five apps cover a trip to China:

App	What for	Works without a Chinese account?
WeChat	messaging, payments, tickets	Yes, register with a foreign number
Alipay	payments and transport	Yes, with a foreign card
Amap	maps and metro routes	Yes, with an English interface
Didi	taxis and car with driver	Yes, international version
Trip.com	trains, flights and hotels	Yes, it is the international version of Ctrip

Add Pleco if you want an offline dictionary, and Metro Man if you will be using the metro heavily in the big cities.

VPN: what actually happens

Installing a VPN is legitimate, but performance is uneven and varies from week to week — especially around sensitive dates in the calendar. It works better on hotel networks than on mobile data, and better off-peak.

Our pragmatic recommendation:

• Install two paid VPNs before the flight, never just one.
• Do not rely on the VPN for payments — WeChat Pay and Alipay work much better with the VPN off.
• Always keep an offline fallback: printed itinerary, contacts written in Chinese, and cash.

On the tours we organise, we give each client a local data SIM on arrival, configured by the guide, and we stay in touch by WhatsApp through our office number, which is staffed around the clock. For most travellers that is enough.

Arrive, connect, test: the right order

On arrival day it is worth following an order, because it is the day everything fails at once. Switch on data roaming before boarding, not as you step off the plane. When you land, first confirm that WhatsApp and email open; only then configure the rest. Open WeChat and Alipay once on a good connection, so the session stays valid when the signal is weak.

Also keep three things offline: the itinerary as a PDF you can open without a connection, the hotel address in Chinese in a screenshot, and the guide’s contact written on paper. On a long day of sightseeing, that piece of paper is what saves you when the battery dies.

Working from China

For anyone combining holiday and work, the plan is simple but has to be settled before the flight. Use roaming or a roaming eSIM, never a Chinese SIM without a VPN: a Teams or Zoom video call on a local Chinese network is unstable and on some days impossible. On international roaming everything works as it does at home, at the cost of higher data spend.

Bring a long cable and a universal adaptor, because hotel sockets are not always next to the bed, and a power bank for sightseeing days. Archive your travel documents as PDFs on the phone, accessible offline: tickets, bookings and itinerary. And share your location with someone at home, through Find My or the equivalent, because our guides do the same within China.

Contact and support during the trip

Every client travels with two numbers of ours: our office number, answered on WhatsApp at any hour, and the guide’s Chinese number, which is the one that solves the problem on the spot. Both lines are checked the day before departure and repeated in the printed dossier, because paper is what works when the phone dies.

For groups we use WeChat, which is what works on any Chinese network: we set up one group per trip with the guide, the driver and office support. That is how we warn of a delayed train before the client reaches the station.

For real emergencies, the numbers to memorise are 110 (police), 120 (ambulance) and 119 (fire). None of them answers reliably in English, which is why in any serious incident the route is to call our guide first, who bridges to the local authorities.

And always keep an offline fallback: cash in your wallet, the hotel address written in Chinese on a card, and the printed itinerary. Over fourteen days of travel, something will fail; what cannot fail is your ability to get back to the hotel.

Photograph carefully — and within the law. Drones require registration and authorisation, are banned over military zones, protected monuments and much of the urban area, and are confiscated at the borders of several provinces: our guides know where it is possible and where it definitely is not. Tripods and large lenses also attract restrictions in museums and some temples. To photograph people — monks in Tibet, market vendors, women washing clothes in the rivers — ask permission with a gesture and a smile; it is almost always granted.

Electricity and daily practicalities

The current is 220 V, 50 Hz, the same as in Europe, so chargers work without a transformer. It is the sockets that differ: China uses type A and I plugs, with some variation, and international hotels usually have universal sockets. A universal adaptor solves it, and is worth more than one adaptor per country.

Bring a power bank for long days: up to 100 Wh goes on the plane without problem, provided the capacity is printed on it, but never in hold luggage. In the cold in Harbin, keep it close to your body, because batteries drain quickly.