7 things to know before you travel to China! from buzai232's blog

7 things to know before you travel to China!

While we’re not travelling internationally right now, and we wait for the vaccines to halt the disease, we can still dream of what we’ll do when the borders open, right?To get more news about China travel advice, you can visit shine news official website.

So if you’re thinking you about, or even in the planning stages of visiting China, this post is a must-read with 25 essential tips for what you need to know before you go.I have visited China three times and honestly, I’ve barely scraped the surface of all the incredible things to do and see in this vast country with a history that stretches back so far you can see artefacts that are older than Jesus.

But one thing is true, there are some very important things you need to know if you’re planning to visit China, so I’ve got you covered!

China is breathtakingly old and at the same time shiny and new. You can see artefacts in museums that are up to 3000 years old, then go to cities like Beijing and Shanghai and you’ll see skyscrapers and shopping malls that have been built last week and the Maglev (magnetic levitating) train that is so fast you literally will blink and miss it.

AI technology is huge (more on that below), solar and hydro power are big players, bullet trains and tuk tuks whiz and tootle along in the same town.

But the history and culture of China is what people come here for, and as this country is so so huge, you could live here for ten years and never see it all.
1 Getting a visa for China
Good news: if you are visiting for less than 144 hours (six days) you now no longer need a visa for China. This is great news for those of us who just want to dash over for a bit of shopping and was increased from three days in 2019. Visas for China are expensive ($140), so a good thing to note.

The other thing to be aware of is that if you are visiting another country, then coming back to China to take your flight home or continue on with your travels, you’ll need a multi-entry visa. Don’t get caught out! More on passport and visa requirements for a bunch of countries in this post.
2 It’s very crowded in China!
Over 1.4 billion people live in China with 21 million in Beijing and 24 million in Shanghai! Consequently tourists are mainly Chinese people from other parts of the country making a pilgrimage to these great cities. If you are a westerner you’ll be quite the celebrity and can expect people to surreptitiously take photos of you, or even come up and ask for a selfie with you!
3 China is so cheap!
I was pleasantly surprised to find a lot of things are very cheap in China. Hotels are way cheaper here than in the west. We’re talking 4 and 5 star hotels with huge bedrooms and en suites for less than $200 per night. The food is delicious and affordable, and I mean at the restaurants not just the street food – which is well worth trying by the way. Of course you can haggle at markets when buying local goods, but not at malls or food outlets.
4 China time zones
This is a fascinating fact you might not know: China has one time zone, even though the land mass stretches across five geographical time zones. That means that at 7am it was nice and light in Shanghai, but still dark 1300km west in Xi’an – and that’s only a third of the way across this massive country!
5 Cell phone coverage, internet and VPNs
If you plan on using the internet in China, you should buy a VPN. A VPN (virtual private network) allows you to log in to a server in another country and bypass the Chinese government’s censored sites.
6 Download WeChat
If you’re going to be in China for a while, you might want to use WeChat. Although you’ll need a current user to validate your account, so unless you have a friend at home who is already a member, you may have to wait until you are in China to activate it. WeChat is used to message, to pay for goods and as search engine – because Google doesn’t work in China…
7 What currency do I need to take to China?
You’ll need to bring the local Chinese currency, the yuan. Or RMB which is what you can look up for exchange rates. They don’t accept other currencies and don’t expect to find ATMs everywhere to give you local currency. For my last two-week trip, which already had the hotels and meals pre-paid, I brought the equivalent of NZ$500 with me, which was about 2000RMB. I drew some more out from an HSBC bank ATM in Shanghai – for my shopping!