What to pack for China

Documents

• Passport (valid 6+ months beyond stay).
• Chinese visa or visa-free entitlement printout.
• Photocopy of passport main page (carry separately).
• Hotel bookings, flight tickets, train tickets — printed for the first day at least.
• Travel insurance documents.
• Emergency-contact card with your home address and embassy phone numbers.

Tech

• Phone with VPN pre-installed and tested.
• Pleco, Google Translate, Google Maps offline downloads.
• Power bank under 100Wh (anything higher is confiscated at airports and rail).
• Universal adapter — mainland uses Type A and Type C (and increasingly Type I), Hong Kong uses Type G (UK plug). Macau uses Type G mostly with some Type D and M.
• Spare USB cables, plug heads.
• E-reader rather than paper books for long rail journeys.

Cash and cards

• A few hundred USD or EUR in clean notes for emergency exchange.
• ¥1,000–¥2,000 in CNY (small notes) for cash gaps.
• Visa + Mastercard credit cards (and at least one debit card).
• Two different VPN subscriptions for redundancy.

Clothing — by region/season

• Northern winter (Beijing, Xi'an, Harbin): thermal base layer, fleece, insulated jacket, hat, gloves, waterproof boots.
• Southern winter (Guangzhou, Hong Kong, Sanya): long sleeves and a light jacket; T-shirt/shorts in Sanya.
• Spring/autumn (most of China): layered: T-shirt, long sleeves, light jacket, waterproof shell.
• Summer: lightweight cottons, sun hat, sunglasses, sun cream. Long-sleeve shirts for evening AC.
• Tibet/high-altitude: layered thermal + windproof shell + sun hat + sunglasses (UV is fierce). Even in summer.
• Hiking the Great Wall, Mt Huangshan, Mt Emei: proper hiking shoes, not sneakers. Sticks help on long descents.

Health

• Personal prescription medications (with prescriptions in case asked).
• Travel-size hand sanitiser.
• Diarrhoea remedy (loperamide) and oral rehydration salts.
• Plasters/band-aids.
• Insect repellent for southern summer.

Tickets

A printed copy of your first-night hotel address in Chinese characters. Border officers occasionally ask.