The three ways travelers stay connected in China

Mainland Chinese networks block many of the apps a visitor leans on every day: Google services including Maps and Gmail, WhatsApp, Instagram and most Western social apps. Whether you can reach them is decided per connection, not per phone. The same phone can reach an app on one line and not on the other, in the same minute, at the same table.

A travel eSIM for China works by roaming: its data is carried back out to the network the plan is built on before it reaches the wider internet. Every China plan we sell routes that traffic out through Hong Kong or Singapore, so on the eSIM’s data those apps normally work with nothing extra installed. Hotel and cafe Wi-Fi is the trap: it is a local connection, the local rules apply to it, and no eSIM changes what somebody else’s Wi-Fi can reach. The moment your phone hops onto Wi-Fi, you are back on a local network.

The simplest version, and for a stay of up to a few weeks usually the right one. You install the eSIM at home, you land, and your usual apps keep working on its data, because the traffic exits outside the mainland. There is no counter, no paperwork and no new number to give anybody; your own SIM stays in the phone for calls and codes.

What it does not give you is a Chinese phone number, which some local apps and bookings ask for. On a holiday or a business week that rarely matters. Keep the things you care about on the eSIM’s data rather than on Wi-Fi, and the whole setup is one install and nothing else.

A local SIM is the long-stay answer: local rates for months of data, and a Chinese number for the apps and deliveries that want one. The honest half of the picture is the hassle. Buying one takes real-name registration with your passport at a counter, plans and top-ups are explained mostly in Chinese, and app stores tie some downloads to the region your account lives in.

On a local SIM the connection is local, so the apps blocked on local networks stay blocked on it. People who live there work around that on their own connections in their own ways; it is not something a data plan fixes, ours included. If your stay is measured in months rather than weeks, the trade can still be worth it. For anything shorter, it rarely is.

Most travelers end up here without planning to, because it is what a modern phone does by default: your home SIM stays in for calls, texts and the codes your bank sends, and the travel eSIM sits beside it carrying the data. Nothing needs to be swapped out, removed or forwarded.

On an iPhone the whole arrangement takes a few minutes:

1. Buy the plan and open the QR code we email you, then add it under Settings, Cellular, Add eSIM. Do this at home on Wi-Fi, before you fly.
2. Under Cellular, set Cellular Data to the new eSIM line, and leave Default Voice Line on your own number.
3. Switch Data Roaming on for the eSIM line. A travel eSIM reaches the network by roaming, so that toggle is how the plan works rather than an extra charge.
4. Leave iMessage and FaceTime alone. They stay registered to your own number and simply travel over the eSIM’s data.
5. If you want to be certain your home SIM cannot bill you abroad, switch Data Roaming off for that line only.

Android phones keep the same controls under Network and Internet, worded a little differently by each maker. The order is the same: install at home, hand the data to the eSIM, leave the calls on your own number.

Maps, messaging, translation and the occasional photo upload come to a little over half a gigabyte a day for most travelers. Video calls and a laptop on your hotspot push that up quickly, so if the trip is a working one, size up.

• A week: the China 1GB 7Days package covers a careful week of maps and messages. If you would rather not count, the 500MB/Day and 1GB/Day passes hand you a fresh allowance every day instead.
• Two weeks: China 3GB 15Days is the natural fit. Heavier use sits better on a daily pass, where one big day cannot eat the rest of the trip.
• A month: China 5GB 30Days or 10GB 30Days, depending on how much of your day runs through the phone. The daily passes stretch to any length as well.

Two details worth knowing before you choose. The daily passes with FUP in the name run at full speed up to the day’s allowance and then slow down rather than stopping, so a map still loads at the end of a heavy day. And a hotspot draws on the same allowance, so a laptop working through your phone can double what a day takes.

Validity starts when the eSIM first connects to a network in China, not when you buy or install it. Buying and installing at home the week before costs you nothing.

Read down our China list and you will meet some plans twice, the second time with nonhkip in the name at a slightly higher price. The difference is where the data leaves for the wider internet: the standard plans route out through Hong Kong, and the nonhkip versions route out through Singapore instead.

For most travelers the standard Hong Kong exit is the one to buy: it is the cheaper of the two, and the apps behave the same way on both. Some travelers simply prefer their traffic to exit somewhere other than Hong Kong, a few services read your location from the exit point, and latency differs a little because the data takes a different road out. The suffix is rarely explained anywhere, so to be plain: that is all it means.

1. Install the eSIM at home, on Wi-Fi, in the week before the flight. The QR code arrives by email after checkout.
2. Check that Data Roaming is on for the eSIM line. It is the most common reason a new eSIM looks dead on arrival.
3. Download offline maps and anything else heavy while you are still on your home Wi-Fi.
4. When you land, give the line a minute to find a network, then try the apps you care about on cellular data before you touch the airport Wi-Fi.
5. Keep the split in mind for the whole trip: on the eSIM’s data your apps normally work, and on any local Wi-Fi they follow the local rules.