The invisible work
A great China trip doesn’t fail at the Great Wall. It fails at the power socket, the hotel check-in desk at 11pm, the personal QR code, the medicine customs form. This page is our working list of those details — and exactly what we do about each one, before you ever board the plane.
WhatsApp and Google are restricted on Chinese networks — solved before departure: we set up your EU/UK roaming pack or a travel eSIM on a 30-minute call, then Alipay and WeChat Pay with your own card, tested with a live transaction. iPhone users get Apple Pay Express Transit added — Beijing and Shanghai metro gates, tap and go, zero apps. Our guides carry pocket Wi-Fi as backup.
Voltage is fine (220V, like Europe). The traps: newer hotels increasingly drop European two-pin sockets, so we pack a grounded universal adapter for you. Sharper still: since 2025, power banks without China’s 3C mark are banned on domestic flights — your CE-marked one can be confiscated at security. Our kit includes a 3C-certified power bank, flight-legal end to end.
Some Chinese hotels still turn away foreign passports at midnight check-ins, despite a 2024 government directive banning it. Our rule: every property on your itinerary gets a written confirmation in Chinese that your names are accepted — 48 hours before arrival, non-negotiable. We also specify non-smoking floors (not just rooms), and if you travel December–February in the south, we pre-heat the room — buildings south of the Qinling–Huaihe line have no central heating.
China’s high-speed stations run like airports: security, ticket halls, gates that close five minutes before departure. Tickets are tied to your passport — booked under the exact machine-readable spelling, because "MÜLLER-SCHMIDT" fails gates. Your guide walks the full chain with you once; luggage over 130cm goes to end-of-carriage racks; quiet cars booked where available; lunch pre-ordered to your seat.
Printed allergy cards in Chinese (peanut, sesame, gluten, shellfish — "even a trace is dangerous", shown at ordering, not at delivery). Vegetarian means no meat stock only where we’ve phoned ahead; coeliac needs kitchen letters in advance; halal is genuinely easy — the qingzhen network reaches every itinerary city. Bottled water everywhere; ice only where filtered; the smiley-face hygiene plaque is on our restaurant checklist.
We pre-map international-standard clinics for every overnight stop and keep the direct-billing phone numbers for major insurers. A fever-clinic visit in a tier-1 city is an efficient, inexpensive process — we drive, translate and do the paperwork. Bring medication in original packaging with a doctor’s letter listing generic names; some EU-common prescriptions (strong painkillers, ADHD stimulants) are controlled in China — we check your list against the rules before you pack.
International driving permits are not valid in China — you never self-drive with us. Drones stay home (Beijing is a no-fly zone; visitor registration is effectively closed). CBD products are illegal, including cosmetics. Cannabis residue laws are strict and transit screening is real. Photography bans: military, security zones, protests. Passport with you on rail and attraction days. None of this is drama when you know it in advance — all of it is drama when you don’t.
Pocket tissues and sanitiser live in your day kit (public toilets run out). Locals queue per door, not in one line — now you know why. Cross with the herd on green; never assert right-of-way on foot. No tipping anywhere except where we tell you. We avoid the two national holiday weeks outright. And south-of-the-river winters mean a warm layer indoors — pack for rooms, not just weather.
What arrives with you
Three kits and one choreography — included in every journey, not an add-on.
In your hands at the airport: grounded universal adapter, 3C-certified power bank, pocket tissues and sanitiser, a reusable bottle, printed cards with your hotel addresses in Chinese characters, and the emergency card that answers “what happens if” before you ask.
Configured together on a 30-minute call two weeks before departure: wallets linked and tested, eSIM installed, maps downloaded offline, translation app with the offline Chinese pack, our 24/7 line saved as a contact, your family’s working channel agreed.
Airport pickup with your name in characters, wallet tested on a real purchase on day one, hotel check-in escorted (we do the counter talk), an unhurried orientation dinner, and a written “how tomorrow works” card at your bedside.
Still unconvinced?
The lost-passport, hospital and missed-train playbooks are published, not promised. What happens if… — and the practical library lives in our guides.