Howdy Howdy Howdy
American here, planning on visiting China for the first time at the end of the year.
Specifically wondering if anyone here has any advice on the visa process for American citizens -- I've been researching myself but I keep finding either conflicting or outdated information since things seem to change rapidly.
From what I gathered, one needs to make an appointment window to the closest Chinese Consulate and apply for a travel visa in person-- which is then good for repeat visits up to 10 years? Or are there single use visas as well?
Also I'll be happy for any advice about visiting in general-- it's a huge country and a lot of ideas to sift through. Was suggested for phone (android) VPN, sim card, WeChat, WayGo, Baidu, 12306, Didi, MetroMan, and Trip.com (missing any?)
Mighty obliged folks, yeehaw
So I did this process in 2015. It might be different now, just FYI. I did have to go to the consulate, it's huge and miserable and you wait in line for over an hour. You apply for a tourist visa with a long forum, attaching proof of airline ticket purchase both into and out of China as well as a hotel room, and have to give in your passpt as well. If all goes well, they'll shoot you an email in a few weeks and you have to go back to the consulate to pick up your passport with your new shiny 10 year 90 day multi-entey visa. They do have single use visas but usually even if you apply for that single use visa they just give you a 10 year multi entry visa to encourage more tourism. As long as your fill the forms out right, you'll be fine. It's just quite time consuming.
When you get to China it's pretty much a normal place with a different suite of apps, the only big difference being everything is reliant on Alipay and WeChat. Menus are QR codes only accessible through WeChat. All stores only take mobile payments. You are required to use these apps to function in urban Chinese society. So definitely download them. Getting money into Alipay as a foreigner without a Chinese bank account is not easy, so make sure to read up on how to do it! It also changes all the time so I don't know the current scheme of how to do it. Wonderful place though, incredible food, everybody is very helpful even if they don't speak English, get a jianbing for breakfast and go for dim sum the next.