China is different from any other country I've ever traveled to. Everything, and I mean everything, runs through your phone. No cash. No credit cards. No cashiers in a lot of places. Just your phone.
If you're planning a trip to China, there are some things you absolutely need to know before you go, or you're going to feel pretty lost when you land. I'm breaking down the 12 things I wish I'd known before our trip so you can skip the learning curve and hit the ground running.
1. Alipay is Your Lifeline
China is a cashless and cardless society, at least in the major cities and definitely in Shanghai where we visited. You don't need to get any cash. You don't need to pull out your credit card at any point. You pay for everything through an app called Alipay.
Alipay connects to your credit card on the backend. You set it up once and you're good. The way it works is simple: you either scan a QR code or they scan yours, you approve the purchase, and it charges your credit card. That's it. That's your payment method for about 95% of everything you buy, whether it's shopping, food, coffee, or transportation.
One important tip: verify your Alipay before you get to China. If you don't verify it ahead of time, your transactions might get declined, and that's not a fun experience when you're standing at a register with nothing going through.
A lot of people also set up WeChat Pay as a backup. I've heard Alipay can sometimes fail, though we were there for a week and never had that issue. Still worth setting up just in case.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Download Alipay, connect your credit card, and verify your account before you fly. This one app will handle nearly every payment you make in China.
2. Don't Expect a Cashier
This one caught me off guard, even though I kind of expected it.
A lot of places in China, especially coffee shops and smaller restaurants, have no cashier at all. Nobody's going to acknowledge you or take your order. You walk in, there's a QR code posted up front, and you order entirely from your phone.
But don't just open your phone camera and scan the QR code. It won't work. You have to open Alipay (or WeChat) and scan it from within the app. It opens what's called a "mini app," which is basically a little program that runs inside Alipay where you can browse the menu, place your order, and pay.
The first couple of times, someone saw us struggling and helped us order on our phone. But once you get the hang of it, it's actually super easy. I honestly wish more places did this, you just order exactly what you want without having to talk to anybody.
3. Alipay Has a Built-In Translate Feature
This is one of my favorite things about using Alipay for ordering. When you scan a QR code and the menu pulls up in Chinese, there's a little sidebar button that says "translate." It translates the entire page on screen, right there.
This is so much better than the alternative. Without it, you'd be taking a screenshot, switching over to Google Translate, uploading the screenshot, waiting for it to process, then switching back to the menu. And doing that for every single page. With Alipay, it's all translated right within the app. You don't have to leave, you don't have to switch between apps. It just works.
Game changer, especially when menus have 50+ items and you have no idea what anything is.
4. DiDi for Rides: Get Comfort or Premium
The Uber equivalent in China is called DiDi, and the easiest way to use it is through the DiDi mini app inside Alipay. It's all in English and you pay with Alipay, so it's seamless.
One thing I learned the hard way: always select Comfort or Premium when requesting a ride. We selected the regular option a couple of times, and the quality and cleanliness of the cars varied a lot. Some were dirty, some smelled heavily of smoke.
The upgrade is only a few extra cents on most rides, and it's worth it. We had consistently good experiences with Comfort cars. My recommendation is to have both Comfort and Premium selected and let it match you with whatever's available first.
5. Get a Chinese Phone Number (My #1 Tip)
This is my number one recommended tip, and I wish I had done it sooner. Get a Chinese phone number.
Here's why it matters: a lot of the best apps in China, like Meituan for food delivery and Taobao for shopping, require two-factor verification via text message. I was told you should be able to use these apps with a US phone number through Alipay, but I could never get it to work reliably. Sometimes the text would go through, sometimes it wouldn't, and most of the time it wouldn't. I couldn't verify my phone number to order through the Meituan mini app or anything like that. And I'm pretty tech-savvy, so if I'm having trouble, I think a lot of people will too.
So we went on a side quest to get a Chinese phone number. Here's what you need to know:
China doesn't do eSIM. You need a physical SIM card. If you have a newer iPhone bought in the US in the last four or five years, it doesn't have a physical SIM slot. It's eSIM only. So even if you wanted a Chinese number, your phone can't accept the SIM.
Your options:
- Bring an old iPhone (or any phone) that has a physical SIM slot
- Buy a cheap phone in China (what we did)
I went to a Xiaomi store and bought one of their cheapest phones for about $150-$160. It's honestly a really nice phone. Then we went to a cell phone provider and got a physical SIM card for about $24. All in, around $200 for a Chinese phone and phone number.
The process is a bit extensive as a foreigner. They check your passport, take a photo of it, log all your information into their system. I also had to take a selfie and do a facial recognition scan for the SIM card. So if a foreign government didn't have my information before, they definitely do now.
But the store associate helped me set up the phone, got it all in English, and it was super simple to use. Once we had that Chinese phone number, everything worked more reliably. No more failed two-factor texts. We could order on Meituan, use Taobao, and make reservations without issues.
Bonus: having two phones was actually really convenient. We'd pull things up on the Xiaomi and use the iPhone as a dedicated translator when needed.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Budget about $200 and an hour of your time early in the trip to get a Chinese phone and SIM card. It unlocks Meituan, Taobao, and makes everything work more consistently. Or bring an old phone that has a SIM slot. This was the single best thing I did on the trip.
6. Meituan Food Delivery is Incredible
This is where having that Chinese phone number pays off. Meituan is the food delivery app, and it's amazing.
You can order pretty much any food and have it delivered. We used it constantly, especially traveling with a kid. When you put them down for a nap and want a late night snack, some dumplings, or a dessert, you just open the app and it's at your door.
Here's what became my favorite move: when we'd walk around during the day, if I saw something that looked good, a restaurant, a street food stall, whatever, I'd just take a photo of it. Then later, I'd search for it on Meituan and order it from the hotel.
The upcharge for delivery is minimal, so it felt totally worth it. You're scouting things out as you walk around town, but maybe you're too full to eat right then, or you can't stop, or you have the baby with you. So you scout it out, snap a photo, search it up on the app later, and order from your hotel. That was honestly one of the best parts of the trip.
7. Taobao: The Amazon of China
Taobao is essentially the Amazon of China, and again, having that Chinese phone number made this possible for us.
You can find a huge range of products on there. The main challenge is sorting through everything since it's all in Chinese and requires a lot of translating. But we ordered luggage from Taobao and it was worth it. Nice quality, came right on time, worked exactly as expected.
The funny thing is, when you try these services for the first time, you kind of expect something to fail or arrive the wrong way. When it all works exactly as planned, you're almost surprised. That's how we felt. Just impressed that it worked exactly like it should.
8. Get the Right eSIM for the Great Firewall
This one is critical. China has a Great Firewall that blocks access to a lot of US services: Gmail, YouTube, Facebook, Instagram, US TikTok, and more. If you don't prepare for this, you'll land and suddenly have no access to your email or social media.
Getting the right eSIM solves this. I used Airalo, and it was seamless. I landed and still had access to everything on my phone. No VPN required. No extra setup. It was as if I was traveling to Japan or anywhere else where these services aren't blocked.
Not all eSIMs work this way in China, but I can confirm that Airalo worked for me. I didn't notice any difference from traveling anywhere else in the world. It just happened to be in China.
KEY TAKEAWAY: Get an Airalo eSIM before your trip. It bypasses the Great Firewall without needing a VPN, so you keep access to Gmail, YouTube, Instagram, and everything else.
9. Expect a Lot of Translating
I want to be upfront about this. If you've been to Hong Kong or Taiwan, you can get by without much translating, especially in the main tourist areas. Mainland China is different.
Even in Shanghai, which is a major international city, a lot of people don't speak English. I was honestly a bit more surprised by this than I expected. But it's not a dealbreaker. It just means you'll be pulling out your translate app frequently. Think of it as a minor inconvenience, not a reason to skip the trip.
10. Apple Maps Works (and Try Amap Too)
You can't use Google Maps in China, but you can use Apple Maps and it's decent. If you want a quick, simple solution in English, it'll get the job done.
That said, a lot of locals use an app called Amap (also known as Gaode Maps). I used Amap a lot during our trip and found it pretty intuitive, even though it's in Chinese. It gives more accurate results, especially for public transit and walking directions.
My recommendation: use Apple Maps if you want the easy English option, and Amap when you want more detailed, local-level accuracy. We used a combination of both and it worked well.
11. Fly Into SHA, Not PVG
Shanghai has two airports: SHA (Hongqiao) and PVG (Pudong). We tried both, and SHA was significantly closer to the city center and more convenient.
Most major international routes fly into Pudong, but a few fly into SHA. If you're booking with points and miles, look specifically for options routing through SHA. Next time we visit Shanghai, we're definitely flying into SHA. It'll save you a solid chunk of travel time getting into the city.
12. The Visa Process
You're going to need a visa to visit China. There are 10-day free transit visas, but they require a specific itinerary where you're transiting through China. That means flying in from one country and out to a different country. Our itinerary was Japan to China to Japan, the same two countries, so the transit visa didn't apply.
We got a visa through the Chinese consulate, and the application process is involved. They want a passport photo, five years of work history, educational history, and family background. It takes about 15-20 minutes per person to fill out.
Once approved, you visit a Chinese consulate in person. There are only five in the US: San Francisco, LA, DC, New York, and Chicago. You drop off your passport, they review it, and you come back to pick it up. That's two trips.
Processing took me about two to two and a half weeks total. Not slow, but having to visit the consulate is what takes up most of your time.
One tip: I used ChatGPT to help navigate the application. Some of the wording is unclear, and it helped me understand exactly what the Chinese government is looking for and what people commonly get wrong.
The Bottom Line
China is an incredible place to visit, but it requires more preparation than most international trips. The biggest thing to understand is that your phone is your lifeline. Get Alipay verified before you go, consider getting a Chinese phone number early in your trip, grab an Airalo eSIM for firewall-free internet access, and get your visa sorted well in advance.
Once you have those pieces in place, everything else falls into place. The food delivery is world-class, the ride-hailing is easy, and the cashless payment system is actually more convenient than what we have in the US once you're set up.
If you have any questions about visiting China or want to share your own tips, drop them in the comments below. And if you want to see all of this in action, watch the full video at the top of this post.
