Essential Apps and tools
- Access: Sims & VPNs
- Payments: Alipay & WeChat
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Navigation: A-map & Baidu
- Transportation: Didi, Trip, Railway12306, & Alipay
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Accommodations: Trip.com
Extras
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Food Delivery: Meituan takeout
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Coupons: Meituan
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Luggage forwarding and delivery: Jindong
- Ride-sharing: Shunfengche
Etiquette and observatons
- Dining
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Noise Levels
AccommodationsJust like ride-hailing options, there are also many ways to book hotels. However, I’d stick with Trip.com to keep things simple. Both the web and mobile interfaces are easy to navigate, and they’ve been very reliable during all my travels so far.
A few tips on booking accommodations in China:
Many hotels allow smoking indoors. Although there are non-smoking rooms, I’ve found that smoke can still travel through vents; this can be very annoying!! International and well-known chains on the pricier end is a good (but not always reliable) way to avoid this, but most hotels will also let you switch rooms if it’s an issue.
A good tip from my cousins: newer buildings (2022 and after is my preference) will generally be more pleasant. This info is available on listings within Trip.
Just like with restaurants, guests can be incentivized to rate a hotel on the higher end in return for things like goodie bags. Try to read a few of lower-rated reviews and see if there are any patterns, and note the recency of problems that guests had.