Sup /trv/,Was informed that USA citizens can stay like 144hr-240hr visa free in China and want to explore it this summer with some time off I have. Can anyone give me the breakdown because I constantly have conflicting info with new/old documents or websites that speak to EU citizens. AFAIK I have to do this:>Fly in from country Taiwan>clock begins ticking at midnight on day I land>in this case 5ish days>Have hotel prebooked and exit flight booked>Register hotel after checking in>Fly out to another country(this case Hong Kong)Is that it? I just have to make sure I leave within 240 hours? Seems fairly straight forward unless I am missing something heard a lot of people complaining about flights and such, but I always have all that shit prepaid and booked before hand. I've only "been" to china precovid which was largely me going through long transit overlays and not leaving the airport/airporthotel
>>2865829kek, only anglo country that doesn't have 14 day visa free nowSucks to be a burger some days I guess New visa system is so fucking good
>>2866022I really don't care to stay too long, getting a china visa isn't hard but I have to be back in the USA to do it. About 1 week in China is good enough for me to see a friend or two and have a weekend drinking.
>>2865829You dont have to 'register' anything if you stay in a hotel, they do it for you. Airbnb or stay with friends you register yourself. Otherwise everything you wrote is correct and it should be smooth sailing.
>>2866088Huh okay, makes sense I guess. Saw a lot of people complaining about hotel shit being complicated, but wouldn't surprise me if that's just people trying to spin the "I'll just find a place to stay when I get there" crowd.
>>2866022>Burgers btfo! Only 10 days instead of 14!!!Who gives a shit? It's fucking China, and it's a massive headache plan. I went when it was 3 days and that was more than enough for me to ever want to visit it again. There are way better options in E/SE Asia.
>>2866022>Hong kong 90 day visa free>Taiwan 90 days visa free>KEKAROO ONLY 10 days in REAL CHYNA!Yes anon it's such a detriment to only have only 10 days visa free in the mainland compared to the carbon copy shit that taiwan and HK offer! think of the smog you miss out on!
>>2866163I think what happens is begpackers try to stay at local hole in the wall "hotels" which are really more like dorms for migrant workers, which are not equipped to register foreigners. Then they complain about hotels being a pain.In 10 years staying at hotels in big and tiny cities thruout the country I've never had a single issue. Though Ive also never stayed somewhere which was <$20/nt
>>2866180I don't know why but I almost always see exclusively german randos doing this shit.
>>2866022I see my opinion has rustled a few jimmys
>>2866200I mean a US citizen can get a 5 year visa for little to no effort, you can do it entirely by mail
>>2866201You don't understand, anon. Think of the *four* extra transit visa days our Anglo brethren get to spend in glorious Beijing.It's unironically over, Yankeebros.
>>2866207>implying Americans even get 2 weeks of holidays to use each year There's a reason the rest of us think 14 days isn't enough
>>2866180LMAO. Ignorance always speaks with the most confidence. You just said you never stayed in the cheap hotels, so how the fuck do you know what their conditions are like? You don't know anything. Classic sour grapes syndrome. >>2866201>mailing in an application for a visaThat sure as hell doesn't sound like "little to no effort".
>>28665761) I dont think you know what sour grapes means2) Ive stayed in plenty of hotels in the $20-50/nt range which I would definitely consider cheap...maybe I have warped perspective because Im not dead broke. Is this not cheap? How does one have money to get to China but not enough for a $20/nt hotel they need to stay in manual laborer dorms?
>>2866576>That sure as hell doesn't sound like "little to no effort".I get this is most likely bait but if you think mailing in a packet to an agency to get a 5 year visa is too difficult, trv might not be for you. Try >>>/int/ for shitposting iyc
>>2866564>being a lazy bum is something to brag aboutThere's a reason you're a US proxy state and geopolitically irrelevant
Not the OP but I am a bit confused by the free 10 days visa for Americans. It says I need the boarding pass into China and out of China and hotel reservation. Well, I have the arrival ticket and hotel but my airline doesn't allow me to print the departure boarding pass within 1 day of departure. Do I just give them the ticket? Planning to fly to Shanghai then to Seoul btw if it matters
>>2866755AFAIK you just need to provide a proof of ticket/booking out of the country that falls in line within the 240hr window. Essentially, you can't show up with a "I pinky promise to buy a ticket out of the country".
>>2866194lol true they LOVE doing that>>2866180proper hostels are usually well equipped to take foreigners tho>>2866659200rmb/night is mid-range100rmb/night is cheapunder 100 is very cheap
>>2866163>Saw a lot of people complaining about hotel shit being complicatedIt's a combo of picking cheap lodgings and being a foreigner.There's a bit of extra paperwork for foreigners that has to be uploaded online. Technically they all have to accept laowai nowadays, but good luck making them do so. Many hotels don't have the software set up and of those that do, the reception staff sometimes has no idea how to use it. I had to go behind the desk and fill the fucking Chinese forms myself on occasion (I can speak and read a little) and in one random city I stopped along the way I got turned away from multiple hotels, including fairly decent ones, until someone finally took me in.For your reservations, use Trip, it works a lot better in China than Booking and the like. Make it a rule to never book a place that does not have at least one foreign language review on the platform and you're golden.
>>2866776you can also use chinese platforms like meituan and filter for hotels that take foreigners. Worst case scenario give them a call and ask if they take foreigners.
>>2866780Filters are cool until they aren't. Back when I got turned away all of these places were specifically marked as "Accepting foreigners". Turns out they don't, they just checkmarked everything on the profile page because why the fuck not. Hence the 1 review rule, it actually confirms somebody did manage to stay there.That or yeah, just give them a call.
>>2866776I mean I just booked on hotels.com 400 bucks for a week was decent for the place I am staying
>>2866772literal hostels yes as theyre almost exclusively FOR foreigners. peasant dorms which could maybe reasonably also be called hostels despite serving a very different purpose and clientele, no100 rmb = 15/nt not far off from my 20 so I feel like Im not wrong to say Ive stayed in cheap hotels
>>2866768Thanks. Do I need to fill out anything on the plane or just go to the kiosk for entry?
>>2866835AFAIK, keep in mind this launched like late last year so why I am a bit uncertain, there is a digital card/tourist registration online for arrival 72hrs before taking off, you're going to need to show your booking+flights.https://s.nia.gov.cn/ArrivalCardFillingPC/entry-registation-homeNot sure if anyone here from the USA has done this before but yeah seems straightforward compared to the do all the desk talking like before.
Not doing the shit with the hotels again just for a whiff of chink pussy.Do not show up in China thinking its like Thailand or something.
>>2866781oh, my experience was actually the opposite, lots of hotels that didn't mark the "takes foreigners" thing were actually fine with me when I called. I only got turned away from one hotel because I was dumb and didn't call to check. Another time I had to stay in a small rural mining town in Hebei and I was the first foreigner to ever use the hotel there and they had to get the police to come and help them set up the registration system.>>2866838the arrival card thing is a massive pain to do online, they used to let you handwrite it but now it's digital only>>2866885if you want to sexpat or degen, stay away from Chinawe don't need your kind giving foreigners an even worse name there
>>2866921The only reason to go to China is for chink pussy. Everyone has already seen neon lights and crowds in Japan.You're just not that interesting.
>>2866939>China is just big flashy cities Filtered by propaganda designed to wow thirdies lol
>>2866885God thank you China for filtering the retards that plague Thailand Japan and Korea
>>2866921>the arrival card thing is a massive pain to do online, they used to let you handwrite it but now it's digital onlyNo one likes the paper shit, time to stop traveling unc
It’s funny that the average 5/10 skinny fat 4channer who doesn’t speak Chinese thinks he’s getting laid by a decent girl for free on like a 3 day trip. You need to work the apps perfectly in advance and have a roster built and ready with dates planned upon landing. As a skinny fat autist, that’s already impossible for you. Girls on the street or bars are socially dysfunctional and don’t speak English on average. So what’s your plan as a fat retard?This is coming from a 7/10 white guy who had some success in Shanghai but was not nearly as easy as countries like the Philippines or Thailand. Even girls who imply they want to hook up expect a date at a nice place first
>>2866976I'm sorry I liked writing my passport number down on paper instead of having to take 50 fucking photos for it to "automatically" write my information (never works) and I also liked being able to just write down my name instead of being told that it's "too long" (yeah fuck me for having a middle name right)The paper arrival card took two minutes the online one takes twenty. >>2866977China is difficult to "hook up" per se (they don't really have the same culture of that as the west, unless you're gay) but it's easy to get a girlfriend
>>2866977True you cant be a total slob like SEA and theres no p4p scene (that can be accessed without language/local guide anyway, and with legal risk that makes it not worth it) but its also not entirely true that you can't just wing it. If you are not fat and not horrifically ugly there are unofficial-official foreigner hookup bars in almost every city that if you show up on a given night and competition isnt too fierce the odds are well in your favor to go home with someone.
>>2866997Name one such bar
>>2866999Easy>Revolucion in Shanghai, Chengdu, and Guangzhou (or any other city its now opened in)>The Drinkery in Shanghai (two locations)>The Irish pub by sanshajie station in Nanjing (forgot name but desu any Irish pub is a safe bet)>Jellyfish or one of its reboots in ChengduNot giving you any more freebies
>>2866988>take 50 fucking photos for it to "automatically" write my information (never works)unc upgrade your phone from iphone 4, stop drinking for 3 days to get the shakes away and take it in a well lit room.> I also liked being able to just write down my name instead of being told that it's "too long" (yeah fuck me for having a middle name right)What is a middle initial, who's middle name is too long or longer than 16 characters are you hindi?
>>2866988>China is difficult to "hook up" per se (they don't really have the same culture of that as the west,An anon with an overweight body, bad hairline, and brown hands typed this
>>2867003Unreal that I dropped such alpha for free and you kneegroes are going to let the thread die
>>2866780These don't fucking work by the way, the hotel workers are retarded at most of the smaller hotels and will, in fear of doing something wrong, turn you away instead of try to input a passport. I will never forget walking around Beijing hutongs for several hours and getting turned away by four of these hotels "accepting foreigners". That being said, when I traveled in central China no one gave a fuck that I was a foreigner and half the time didn't even ask for a passport.
Why do people ITT talk like hotels are a big issue? I just booked through booking.com and got confirmation I am good to arrive and stay. WTF are people talking about this headache with hotels and shitty service regarding booking? Am I missing something?I booked a week holiday inn express with breakfast buffet for like ~500 with tax and all, am I missing something? Kinda got me second guessing after reading the thread
>>2866776Okay so somehow skimmed over this comment.Basically, what my takeaway is that something like a chain, Holiday Inn Express in this instance, probably will do this by the book and shouldn't be anything to worry about. Guessing this is more of a worrisome thing where people are showing up trying to haggle prices with the person up front or showing up with <500 dollars for all 10-14 days they intend to stay for as close to $100 as possible. I feel like I am overthinking this and don't need to worry as much as I am.
>>2868994it's probably people who travelled there 10 years ago, while I was there 2024-2025 I only ever had one hotel turn me away (I probably stayed at like 50 while I was there)
>>2868994Two possibilities>>2869014or>>2866180
>>2868994>I booked a western hotel chain through a site only westerners use and paid 3 times the usual Chinese priceRelax, you'll be absolutely fine. This is specifically targeting foreigners. You won't have any issues checking in whatsoever.>>2869014I've been to China in 2024 for about 5 weeks, got turned away thrice. Which is not a bad score but there's no rhyme or reason to this stuff sometimes, I had zero issues staying at a mom'n'pop absolute dump where the kid sitting at the reception desk literally jumped up from his chair with a look of shock on his face the moment he saw me. Then a fancyish $50/night hotel with a massive modern lobby told me "sorry no foreigner software please try elsewhere" in their best Google Translate.
>>2867025You're very bad at your job, wumao. Your job right now is to convince people to come to China. Being a mean and confrontational retard is not how you do that.
>>2869197>Which is not a bad score but there's no rhyme or reason to this stuff sometimesComplaining someone paid 500 dollars for a week then "got turned away no rhyme or reason" sounds like you went to some run-down places. 500 for a week is fine, for a western style hotel with a quality buffet included.
>>2866786Jesus Christ, you're paying America tier weekly stay suite rates in China? A country whose GDP per capita remains lower than the national average? It better be a fucking five star suite at that price
>>2866661In a world of e-Visas for 100+ countries, I still have to scrounge up paper copies of everything, buy an envelope and stamps, get some kind of money order god knows how, then walk several miles to drop the whole mess off at the post office bound for someplace 2000 miles away. It's ridiculously antiquated.
>>2866976Digital arrival cards are now the norm all across Asia.
>>2869234Please consider rereading the post until you understand it.
>>2869263you are not staying at any hotel in America for $400/WEEK
>>2869263NTA but I did 10 days for 500 Holiday Inn, that's maybe 1/6th my average biweekly paycheck so it's nonissue. Besides I am right downtown where I can train hop without a second thought, has a decent gym from the photos and a breakfast buffet+bar attached. Says it does rides to the airport too but not sure on that front.I looked at some of those 7Days and similar places and they just looked like trash.>>2869268There are plenty of Extended Stays, Best Westerns, La Quienta's, etc for 400/wk easily
>>2869265Good, dont come
>>2869269Hmm even Best Westerns near me Ive never seen <$100/nt but if Im wrong Im wrong. Even still. Im sure the hotel in China at $400/wk will be nicer
>>2869272>NTgreat, why would I care about Taiwan retard? Dude clearly said the USA... are you drunk or "merely pretending".
>>2869273are YOU drunk or merely pretending? nt is common shorthand for "night"
>>2869276Yeah most people I know especially in a China thread would have NT = New Taiwan Dollar. usually 100/day is the going rate for a BW
>>28692697Days is fine, it's just a generic hotel room. The biggest issue is that chinks just don't give a single fuck about "No Smoking" signs.
>>2869278thats silly New Taiwan Dollar would obviously be NTD, not NT, and not in a sentence that also uses /wk to denote "per week"
>>2869289okay ESL, we get it you're not from an anglo country
>>2869290Do you also refer to renmimbi as RM instead of RMB?also I wont take ESL slander Im a mutt who got an 800 on the English portion of the SAT, Ill have you know
>>2869292Most people who speak english as a native language and travel don't refer to hotel prices for a single day as NT, they just say /day or /wk.
>>2869304Hotels aren't priced in days, they're priced in nights, and nt as shorthand for night is standard in other travel forums like flyertalk
>>2869280if the room smells of smoke you should just ask them to change the room (hotels in China are almost never full occupany apart from during public holidays) Lifeng 丽枫 is a very reliable chain that always takes foreigners and has high-quality rooms that never smell of smoke (but they might be a bit small in big cities like Beijing)
>>2866201>>2866207My screen is oozing seethe rn
So question since this thread exists, I know the great firewall is a thing wondering if it will bother me.I have google fi, need to access my gmail, 200GB hotspot abroad, will I be fine accessing everything? From what I gather my personal wiregaurd VPN should work to my home and my phone should have data+access to gmail, it's only local sims/data/internet that will have issues. AFAIK as long as I have a foreign esim google functions should not be an issue
>>2871390I recommend LetsVPN, it's cheap and works pretty well. Install it before going to China, otherwise you will have a bad time. But if you have an eSIM or something that routes your traffic to Hong Kong or a neighboring country, you should be fine.Don't forget to disable your VPN when you use AliPay otherwise AliPay will think you are trying some kind of scam. It happened to me because I use roaming data. Not a huge deal, I had to upload a picture of my face with my passport, but it was annoying and stressful for a little while.There are a few things like this to plan before going, but otherwise enjoy China, it's an unique country, if I could stay one more month I would.
>>2871464>"I recommend LetsVPN, it's cheap and works pretty well. Install it before going to China, otherwise you will have a bad time. But if you have an eSIM or something that routes your traffic to Hong Kong or a neighboring country, you should be fine. Don't forget to disable your VPN when you use AliPay otherwise AliPay will think you are trying some kind of scam. It happened to me because I use roaming data. Not a huge deal, I had to upload a picture of my face with my passport, but it was annoying and stressful for a little while.">all this bullshit just to buy a bottle of water in chinaI think I'll just go to a neighboring country and use my credit card like everywhere else on the planet lmao
>>2871466China has its caveats, but I find AliPay pretty convenient, I leave my wallet in my hotel room at this point. Even when my account was temporarily suspended, I could take the subway with the app, and the problem got fixed pretty quickly once I uploaded the right documents.I have also met a few people who only use cash, and apparently it's doable, it's just less convenient and sometimes they don't give you the exact change back.Traveling to China can seem pretty scary from afar, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes quickly seamless. If you've ever tried to get a bus in a remote part of a country like Albania or Georgia, China is easy mode.You have to navigate through a few hops, but that's a thing when traveling anywhere. In South Korea sometimes my Visa card didn't work and I couldn't withdraw cash everywhere because some banks are only for domestic accounts.Nobody is forcing you to go to China anyway, I'm just posting this info so this anon can avoid those little pitfalls. You can go to Thailand instead like the rest of the nu-/trv/ for all I care, it's not my problem.
>>2871390get a vpn installed on your phone as a backup, but apart from that you should be set>>2871466if you weren't an iToddler, you could have turned on split tunnelling in the VPN settings to let alipay and wechat bypass the vpn and not get blocked, which is what I do, so I never have to turn my vpn off.>>2871479quick tip, if it's bank of [place] it probably will not work with foreign cards, but if it's bank of [abstract thing/China] then it most likely will
>>2871483>get a vpn installed on your phone as a backup, but apart from that you should be setI mean I have my own personal wiregaurd and GoogleFi VPN.>>2871464>Don't forget to disable your VPN when you use AliPay otherwise AliPay will think you are trying some kind of scam.I'm just going to use a credit card, most any place I intend to eat at accepts it
>>2866755you'll be asked when you check in for your flight to show your visa and when you tell your check in person you are doing the transit visa they should ask for your onward flight details, but this only needs to be the email confirmation. the immigration desk for transit visa will accept the email confirmation of your onward flight too. they will also want your hotel booking info, but just to glance at it. they don't check or follow up.
>>2866977>some success in Shanghaiman who can't shoot fish in a barrel says fish can't be shot
>>2871569I befriended a girl at the hostel, this might go somewhere, but it will probably not go anywhere because Chinese people seem a bit autistic about relationships, she started to ask me about marriage twenty minutes after we started talking about our past relationships.She said she will "teach me pinyin" tomorrow and I start to get butterflies in my stomach like a gullible emotional moron, but honestly, if you want to get your dick wet on easy mode, China isn't the country for that.I feel like women here want something rather long-term, from what she told me. Appreciate the country for the beauty and the chaos, the women are cute but like don't count on that one bit, it's pretty rare to find one who can speak English comfortably anyway.
I posted in the dttdtot but got no answer so going to post here.Anyone from the UK going to China? What's the deal with the Visa? I know I don't have to pay but do I still fill anything out? They don't explain anything
>>2871569It is fair for anon to temper expectations by saying its not Thailand or Philippines tier though>>2871591No you have to understand you are just naive or autistic.> if you want to get your dick wet on easy mode, China isn't the country for that.Only relative to countries that literally revolve around being so easy you could do it in your sleep like above mentioned. Otherwise it is by far the easiest in E Asia. Shooting fish in a barrel as other anon said.
>>2872548you fill out a form when you arrive and usually have to show them proof of return flights (or other way of leaving the country) and a hotel booking when going through customs>>2872568ehhh Japan has gaijin hunters and prostitution so it's significantly easier than Chinamore people in Taiwan speak English and are generally more "open" (read: promiscuous). It also has much easier access to prostitution.so I would say China is only third easiest. Few people speak English and prostitution is impossible for non-Chinese speakers to use, and very difficult in the first place
>>2872587Thank yoouuuuu, now I can breathe easy and relax. I'm truly ready
>>2872589https://www.gov.uk/foreign-travel-advice/china/entry-requirements for further informationthere will be people in the airport who speak English to help you fill out the arrival card, but it might take a while because it is annoying.
>>2872587if you think TAIWAN has more and easier access to prostitution than mainland China you are genuinely clueless. likewise Japan has somewhat easier (read:legal) prostitution sure and gaijin hunters exist but if you think that they are anywhere near as plentiful or agressive as their Chinese counterpart (laowai hunters?) you are, again, clearly inexperienced in China
>>2872595non-Chinese speakers can't access prostitution in China and there is significant legal risk involved. In Taiwan nothing's gonna happen.90% of the women who would be laowai hunters in China can't speak English, if you speak Chinese ofc it's a different game but that's not a fair comparison with other countries where you can't speak the language
>>2872596crazy how non Chinese speakers can't access prostis and yet all the prosti bars are full of foreigners, the foreigner bar streets get troll'd by streetwalkers, and ISG has thousands of pages of advice on SPAs throughout the countryregarding laowai hunters you must have had a frustrating personal experience with lack of english, because literally every T1-3 city has unofficially designated laowai hunter bars ( >>2867003 ) where they all speak passable english. personally that's me in Japan fwiw I find english in Japan far worse than T1 Chinese cities.
This is a faggot thread, I don't know how you anons are using it. Op please go back to Redit.Someone make another one
Do women even exist in china? According to reddit experts they were wiped out cause of le heckin partriarchy and not the one child policy and they just make these fags in cloning factories now
>>2866022Vat's ze petrol price today, Klausenshtein?
>>2872587>prostitution is impossible for non-Chinese speakers to useI had success with those card they slide underneath your hotel room door. Just have a translation app ready to go and call them
Any tips for Lijiang that aren't extra obvious?
