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City guides, how-tos, and honest advice from people who actually went.

September 01, 20263 min readHow-To Guides

How to Buy China HSR Train Tickets in 2026 (Foreigner Guide)

How to Buy China HSR Train Tickets in 2026 (Foreigner Guide) Booking hsr train tickets in China used to mean a broken 12306 app that rejected your Visa, or paying a guide to do it. In 2024, that changed . 12306 quietly turned on international card payments, and in 2026 you have four ways to buy ...

August 25, 20263 min readHow-To Guides

China SIM Card for Tourists: Where to Buy & How to Set Up

China SIM Card for Tourists: Where to Buy & How to Set Up Yes, you can walk into any Chinese airport and buy a prepaid SIM card with your passport in about 15 minutes. A China Unicom tourist plan runs ¥150-250 ($21-35) for 10-20GB over 30 days . Here's the part nobody warns you about: that SIM is...

August 18, 20263 min readHow-To Guides

How to Get Internet in China: eSIM, SIM & Wi-Fi Options

How to Get Internet in China: eSIM, SIM & Wi-Fi Options The moment you land in Beijing, Google stops working. Your WhatsApp freezes. Instagram Stories upload forever, then fail. Here's the short version: you have 5 options for China internet , and only 3 of them get you past the Great Firewall...

August 11, 20263 min readTravel Tips

Best Chinese Apps Every Tourist Should Download (2026)

Best Chinese Apps Every Tourist Should Download (2026) You can't survive a China trip on Google Maps and Gmail. Both are blocked at the border. Here are the 8 chinese apps to install BEFORE you land , plus the one Western app that works with zero setup. WeChat and Alipay are non-negotiable . The...

August 04, 20263 min readItineraries

Planning Your China Trip: Where to Go & How to Prepare (2026)

Planning Your China Trip: Where to Go & How to Prepare (2026) If this is your first china trip, you need 12-14 days, roughly $3,200-4,800 per person all-in, and the Beijing to Xi'an to Shanghai Golden Triangle as your spine. Add Chengdu for pandas and Guilin for karst mountains, and you have the...

July 28, 20263 min readHow-To Guides

China Railway Map & Train Network Guide (2026)

China Railway Map & Train Network Guide (2026) The full china railway map is 162,000 km long — the world's second-largest rail network, more than twice the length of the entire US Interstate Highway System. It moves 4.31 billion passenger trips a year . Most travelers only ever see the...

July 22, 20263 min readHow-To Guides

Does Netflix Work in China? What Travelers Need to Know in 2026

Netflix has no mainland China service and its site is blocked by the Great Firewall, so a regular subscription is useless once you land. This guide covers what actually works in 2026 - offline downloads before your flight, VPNs that beat Netflix's proxy detection, the eSIM roaming exception - and why the hotel TV is a dead end.

July 22, 20263 min readHow-To Guides

Does Telegram Work in China? The 2026 Reality Check

Telegram has been blocked in mainland China since 2015, so it fails completely on local networks unless you prepare a workaround. This guide explains what breaks, why the built-in proxies are unreliable, how Telegram compares with WhatsApp, the VPN and eSIM roaming fixes that actually work in 2026, and the best backup channels for checking in with family.

July 22, 20263 min readHow-To Guides

Does Discord Work in China? What Gamers and Remote Workers Need to Know in 2026

Discord has been blocked in mainland China since 2018, so servers, DMs, and voice channels all fail on local networks. This 2026 guide covers the VPN setup that restores access, the real latency numbers for voice and video calls, the eSIM roaming exception, and what gamers and remote workers should plan for - plus the alternatives Chinese users rely on.

July 22, 20263 min readHow-To Guides

Does Spotify Work in China? The 2026 Answer + Offline Download Strategy

Spotify cannot stream in mainland China — the service never launched there and the Great Firewall blocks it — but Premium downloads play perfectly offline. Here is the pre-flight download strategy, how the 30-day offline rule interacts with a China trip, the eSIM and VPN fixes for streaming, and what local apps like QQ Music offer.

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Top authors

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Jenny Wang

Local Expert, Beijing Native

M

Michael Chen

Transport & Connectivity Editor, MyChinaGuide

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MyChinaGuide Editorial Team

China Travel Editorial Team

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