About

Written from inside China

Into China Guide exists because planning a trip to China from abroad is strangely hard. Official announcements are scattered across embassy websites. Blog posts from 2019 describe a country that no longer works the same way. And the apps you'll actually depend on — Alipay, WeChat, DiDi, the railway system — are barely documented in English.

This site is run from Beijing. The screenshots in our guides come from phones in our hands; the train stations, airports, and payment counters we describe are ones we use. When China's entry policies change — and they've changed fast since 2023 — we read the primary sources in Chinese and update our tools with a visible verification date.

What we publish

• Tools — interactive checkers and calculators for visa-free eligibility, trip budgets, and crowd forecasts. Free, no sign-up.
• Guides — step-by-step walkthroughs for setting up payments, riding high-speed rail, and getting around, with real app screens.

Corrections

If you spot something outdated or wrong, pleasetell us. Entry rules affect real trips, so we treat corrections as the highest-priority work.