How To Plan Your Trip To China In 2025 and 2026? What Apps To Use?
My 12 Steps To Plan Your Trip to China
Make your personal bucket list for China by researching places and attractions you want to experience. Yes, write down everything that you’re interested in.
Decide how much time you have/want to spend in China. Then, shortlist the top cities you want to visit during this period.
Pick the route between your shortlisted cities and any intermediate places you want to stop at.
Narrow it down and delete any that are completely out of the logical route (if you are determined to visit that location, you might have to take a domestic flight). My advice is try not to go overboard. China is nearly the same size as Europe. A common mistake people make is to choose as many destinations as possible and only spending 1 or 2 days at each place. You won’t experience much.
Check the climate for each city that you want to visit. Take this into account when choosing the month to travel. If it’s too hot/too cold/too much rain for you, consider picking another month.
Check China’s public holidays and avoid unless you absolutely must go. Then, decide on the month that you want to travel.
Do initial research on flights and hotels. At this stage, just browse hotels in the central districts that fit your criteria. Look at the price variations throughout the months that you’re interested in. If you’re flexible, consider picking the cheapest period overall. Cross-check against your budget. If you are happy, fix the dates. (If packaged tours are your thing, do the same for this).
Use flight comparison and hotel comparison sites to get the best prices for your dates.
Once you’re satisfied and checked any restrictions, book your flights and hotels. Ideally, you should go with hotels with free cancellation. This will give you flexibility to change your mind in case your itinerary changes.
If you are not from a visa-free country/eligible for visa-free transit, apply for a visa from the Chinese Embassy. If you are, ignore this step.
Start looking into train tickets and tickets to attractions.
Train tickets are not released until 15 days before the day of travel, but you can provisionally reserve them on Trip or a third party operator, who will try to book them once they are released.
For many attractions but not all, you might not be able to book tickets far ahead - typically around 7-14 days before entry. I recommend you look at each attraction individually. You can also use a third party operator to book tickets on your behalf. This step does not apply to packaged tours if all train tickets and entrance tickets are included.
Prepare for your vacation using my Mini-Guides, Before You Arrive Guide, and Ultimate Travel Checklist For China.
6 Apps I Use To Plan My China Trip
❗This only covers apps for planning your trip. For apps to use DURING the trip, please refer to the Before You Arrive Guide.
Trip (Hotels + Tickets)
I use Trip to book hotels and tickets in China. I’ve only use other platforms to compare prices but always booked on Trip, because it gives me the best choice and prices every time, in my experience.
I also use Trip to compare flight prices with other platforms such as Skyscanner. If it is the cheapest, I will go with this platform.
12306 / Trip (Train Tickets)
I use 12306 to book my train tickets. The ticket availability is always up-to-date and it’s easy to change to a different train. Although there is an English version, it is harder for foreigners to navigate the app interface compared to a platform like Trip in my opinion. You can give it a try, or use Trip for the train bookings instead.
Amap (Itinerary + Route Planning)
I use Amap to label all the key attractions I want to visit. I also turn on the transport layer to see the location of the metro lines. This also gives me a better idea of where to stay. I do some research to get a feel of the time needed to travel between any two locations. Amap also contains reviews of attractions and restaurants, but it doesn’t cover everything on offer.
RedNote (Inspiration for Things to Do + Restaurants to Visit)
I normally use RedNote to get visual inspiration of the best attractions, activities, and restaurants to visit. Some people share walking routes, which are often decent. If I see a spectacular photography spot, I will definitely add it to my itinerary. I often find hidden gems that have been shared by other people. I avoid looking at it too much, to ensure I can keep the experience fresh.
Dianping (Restaurants to Visit)
I use Dianping to browse restaurants in the destinations I’m visiting. Often, I don’t do it until the night before or even on the day. Here is a step-by-step guide.
I’ve learned not to trust the ratings - instead I focus on the menu, the visuals, and reviews by people. I look at a few recent negative reviews to see what the problems are and judge whether they are real or not. I come from a restaurant family - there are always fake positive and fake negative reviews. Don’t focus on them too much, otherwise you’ll never pick a restaurant because no restaurant has zero negative reviews. I add any restaurants I like to my favourites within the app, which I can go back to later.
If you have a tour guide, you can ask if they have any recommendations for the areas you’re visiting.
WeChat (Attraction Tickets)
For some attractions, I search for their mini-program to check the latest opening hours, ticket availability, and reserve tickets. You need a local number for this though, so use Trip.com to buy tickets if you don’t have one. See my guide if you can’t do either.
+ iTalki (Learn Chinese)
This is an app that I have personally used and recommended to my friends. If you are looking for an online Chinese teacher to teach you some beginner’s Chinese, this is a great option. There are hundreds of language teachers for all levels.
