Welcome to China Unhurried, and why it exists

If you are reading this, you are probably thinking about a trip to China. Or you have just landed and something is not working. Either way, welcome. This is the first post on the site, so it seems right to say what the place is for.

The trouble is rarely the country

Ask people what went wrong on their first visit to China and the answers are strangely alike. It is almost never the sights, the food or the people. It is the small practical things, and they tend to arrive all at once on day one.

• The wallet. China runs on Alipay and WeChat Pay. Cash works in theory, but the taxi driver, the noodle shop and the metro gate all expect a phone. If you did not set a wallet up before you flew, the first hour is a scramble.
• The internet. Google, WhatsApp, Instagram and a good part of the web do not load on Chinese networks. The maps you rely on at home go blank. People discover this at the airport, which is the worst possible place.
• The hotel. Not every hotel is allowed to take foreign guests, and the booking site does not always tell you. Being turned away at midnight is a rite of passage nobody needs.
• The train. High-speed rail is the best way to see the country. Buying a ticket with a foreign passport used to be an ordeal, and although it is easier now, the steps are still not obvious.
• The language. Little English is spoken outside big hotels. That is fine, and part of the charm, but you need a couple of tools and a way to show an address to a driver.
• The rules. Visa-free entry has been extended to a long list of countries, then changed, then changed again. A blog post from two years ago may be confidently wrong.

None of this is hard once you know. All of it is hard when you find out on the spot.

Why we made this

Most of what you find online about visiting China is one of three things: a list of ten places you must see, a forum thread from 2019, or a sales page. The practical answers exist, but they are scattered, dated, and written for people who already know the vocabulary.

We wanted one place that does the boring parts properly. Six guides cover what actually trips people up: visas and entry, paying, staying online, getting around, where to stay and getting by in Chinese. Every guide shows the month it was last checked, because on this subject a stale answer is worse than none. When something changes, we say so at the top, not in a footnote.

Then there are the cities. Every place on the site carries its Chinese name, and every city page has a card in large characters that you can hold up to a taxi driver. The site is independent: no tourism board, no agency, no commissions. We recommend an app because it works, and we will tell you when it stops working.

Why "unhurried"

Because the usual itinerary is part of the problem. Beijing, Xi'an and Shanghai in eight days is a lot of railway stations and not much China. Pick fewer cities. Stay a third night. Order the second pot of tea. The country is kindest to people who slow down, and slowing down happens to be cheaper too.

What we would like from you

A site like this is only as good as the reports coming back from the road. If a guide worked for you, say so at the bottom of the page. If something has changed, say that even more loudly. Ask a question in the community and someone who was there last week will probably answer. If you were there last week, please be that someone. And if you know which dates you will be in a city, mark them. You might find company for dinner.

That is all. Take China slowly. We are glad you are here.