A country the size of a continent, where the hard part is sorted out before you fly: payment, internet and tickets
China is a country where everything difficult about the trip sits in three things you sort out before departure, not on arrival: payment, the internet and tickets. China's unilateral visa waiver covers around fifty passports — the EU, UK and neighbouring European countries among them — for stays up to 30 days, running through the end of 2026; outside that list, a visa has to be arranged in advance.
The first is payment. China has all but abandoned cash and everything goes through a phone, via Alipay or WeChat Pay. Since 2023 both apps accept foreign Visa and Mastercard, and through 2026 the three per cent fee is waived on amounts under €26. Install the app and link the card AT HOME, because registration needs a verification step that tends to fail over weak hotel wifi. Swiping a foreign card directly works mostly in four- and five-star hotels.
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The second is the internet. Google, Gmail, WhatsApp, Instagram and Facebook do not work in China. That also means Google Maps does not work, and that a two-factor code sent to Gmail will not arrive. Install and test a VPN before you leave — the sites that sell them are blocked from inside China too. As a backup, download offline maps in an app that works without a connection.
The third is tickets. Admission to the major sights and high-speed rail seats are bought in your own name against your passport, in advance, and for many of them the counter simply has none. The Forbidden City sells at most seven days ahead and never same-day; the Terracotta Army the same. The high-speed network solves the distances — Shanghai to Beijing is four and a half hours — but only if the ticket was bought before you reached the station.
China's high-speed network has passed 45,000 kilometres, longer than every other country added together. The first line opened in 2008; before that a country this size had none at all.
China spans five geographical time zones but has run on Beijing time since 1949. In the far west that means the summer sun comes up after ten in the morning by the official clock.
An official survey in 2012 added up every section from every period and arrived at 21,196 kilometres. It is not one wall but a series of defensive lines built over two thousand years, and most of it has never been restored.
Every giant panda in a zoo outside China is on loan against an annual fee, and cubs born abroad belong to China too and are returned. The practice dates from the 1980s and is known as panda diplomacy.
Chinese is written in characters rather than sounds; reading a newspaper takes about three thousand of them. Pinyin, the Latin spelling of the pronunciation, arrived only in 1958 and is what a foreign visitor actually uses.
The first week of October is Golden Week, and lunar New Year brings the largest seasonal movement of people on earth. Avoid both if you have a choice — tickets vanish, prices jump, and the sights disappear behind crowds.
This isn't a ranking — it's a route. Any one of these could carry a whole trip.
A forest of sandstone pillars in Hunan, several thousand of them, with a glass bridge and a cliff lift. The park was the visual model for the floating mountains in Avatar, which China leaned into by officially renaming one of the pillars. About two hours by air from Shanghai.
The mountain in Anhui that Chinese painting has been copying for centuries: granite peaks, pines growing out of rock and a sea of cloud below. A cable car and a staircase go up; people sleep at the top for the sunrise, and that is booked months ahead.
A walled town in Shanxi with ramparts from 1370 and streets left as they were when China's first bank operated here. UNESCO-listed since 1997. Three hours by train from Xi'an, and best with a night inside the walls.
The Potala Palace stands at 3,700 metres and the altitude is the first thing you notice. For the Tibet Autonomous Region foreigners need a separate permit — even those who enter China visa-free — and entry is only with an organised tour — arranged weeks ahead, never on arrival.
A northern city that builds an entire town out of ice and snow every January, at full scale and lit from inside the blocks. Temperatures sit below minus twenty, so clothing is a question of endurance rather than comfort.
China spans five geographic time zones and the whole country runs on one, Beijing time. In the west that means the summer sun comes up only around ten in the morning by the official clock.
Chinese is not written with letters but with characters, of which there are over fifty thousand. About three thousand are enough to read a newspaper, and the school curriculum expects some two and a half thousand by the end of primary school.
Short answers to what people ask most before setting out.
Not if your passport is one of around fifty covered by the unilateral waiver — the EU, UK and neighbouring Europe among them — for stays up to 30 days through the end of 2026. Outside that list, a visa is arranged in advance. Whatever the answer, Tibet needs a separate permit and an organised tour, arranged weeks ahead.
Through Alipay or WeChat Pay, linked to a foreign Visa or Mastercard — set up at home before you fly, since registration over hotel wifi often fails.
No — nor do Gmail, Instagram, Facebook or Google Maps. Set up and test a VPN before arrival, since the sites that sell them are blocked from inside China too.
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All photographs come from Wikimedia Commons and are used under the licence stated beside each one.
