Data for Beijing, Shanghai, Chongqing and the fast trains between them, installed before you fly. China is on the Asia plan, so the same eSIM carries on into Hong Kong and Macau. Set up the payment apps at home: the country assumes you already have.
The China plan covers China only.
The same 10 GB in a package that keeps working past China.
20 other countries share the package with China. A few of them:
What's included, when it starts, and how to get connected.
Most of the friction on a first trip to China happens before the plane lands: the entry rules, the payment apps, the maps. Do them at home and the arrival is the easy part.
Install your onesim eSIM over Wi-Fi and leave the line switched off. Then check what applies to your passport: a 30-day visa-free scheme for a long list of countries runs to 31 December 2026, and 240-hour visa-free transit covers 57 nationalities travelling on to a third country or region. Since November 2025 you can fill in the arrival card online, in the NIA 12367 app.
Once the plane has parked, open Settings → Mobile Data, choose the onesim line for mobile data and switch data roaming on for that line only. That first connection starts the package. Your home SIM stays in the phone with its data roaming off, so texts from your bank and the payment apps still reach your usual number.
Many foreign apps and sites are blocked on the mainland — Google, YouTube, Facebook and X among them — so set up the local ones at home. Alipay and WeChat Pay both take a foreign phone number and a Visa or Mastercard, and QR-code payment is almost universal. Download offline maps and a translation app with Chinese, and save your hotel’s address in characters.
In Shanghai, the maglev covers the 30 km from Pudong airport in about eight minutes, then drops you at Longyang Road to change to the metro: a thrill ride with a transfer. Outside the big cities cards are not always accepted, so take some yuan from an airport ATM. Hotels register your stay with the police; in a private flat, you or your host must do it within 24 hours, now online.
Black Myth: Wukong sold millions of copies within days of its release in August 2024, and players soon noticed that its temples were real: 27 of the 36 main sites scanned for its scenery are in Shanxi province, about 500 km from Beijing. Within days the featured sites had a tourism rush. The monkey was the draw; the centuries-old temples and statues are the reward.
The myth is older than spaceflight, and NASA says the wall is barely visible even from low orbit, in perfect light. Yang Liwei, China’s first astronaut, said after his 2003 flight that he could not make it out. From the ground it is hard to miss: Badaling, 80 km from Beijing, is the most visited section; Mutianyu has a toboggan down; Jinshanling is the one for a long walk.
Liziba station on Line 2 sits on the sixth to eighth floors of a 19-storey residential building, and the trains glide straight through it. It was no accident: the flats and the line were planned together in the late 1990s. So many visitors came to film it that a viewing platform went up on the street below in 2018. Stand there for a few minutes and watch a train vanish into the building.
China had about 48,000 km of high-speed line by the end of 2024, the longest network in the world, with trains at up to 350 km/h. Book on the English 12306 site, which takes foreign passports, or at the station. You show the same passport to board, and ticket checks close before departure, so arrive with time to spare.
Northern doufunao comes savoury, with soy sauce and a thick gravy; southern douhua comes with sugar or syrup; Sichuan adds chilli. A Weibo post on the subject in 2011 drew more than 160,000 views and comments in two days, one of which called the salty kind an abomination. The zongzi, the sticky-rice parcel, flips the map: sweet in the north, savoury in the south.
Answers about data, coverage and setup for China.
Yes. Mainland China, Hong Kong and Macau are listed separately on the Asia plan, and all three are on it, so the package carries on when you cross at Shenzhen or Zhuhai, with the same allowance; the phone picks up a local network a minute or two later. Each has its own entry rules, so check them for your passport. Mongolia, Nepal and Myanmar are not on the plan.
Yes. Both register with your own mobile number, and foreign numbers are accepted; any verification text goes to your home SIM, which stays in the phone for calls and texts. Add a Visa or Mastercard at home before you fly. After that they run on data: scan the shop’s QR code or show yours. Foreign cards work where the till shows their logo, but outside the big cities the QR code is the safer bet.
Mostly. Coverage follows the local network along the line: usually fine on the open stretches, with gaps in long tunnels and on remote mountain sections, as on any SIM. Download maps and save your booking before a long day on the train. Tickets bought on the English 12306 site are tied to your passport, which you show to board, so you need no signal at the gate.
