eSIM and VPN? First time in China!

VPN
1

Hi all,

My girlfriend and I are going to China for the first time in September for 3 weeks from the UK. I want to make sure we get everything right in terms of eSIM and VPN before we set off. I have been looking at Airalo or Holafly as an eSim for each of us (Pixel 6a and iPhone 11), which I think offers an inbuilt IP rerouting in order to bypass the firewall and use apps like Whatsapp and Google etc. Would you recommend getting a separate VPN such as Nord or LetsVPN as a backup in case the eSIM rerouting doesn’t work? I’ve never really used either am eSIM or VPN so not entirely sure how logistically it works.

Any insights/tips before we set off in 2 weeks would be greatly appreciated! My partner speaks some Mandarin and has both Wechat and Alipay on her phone, so we are setting that up for me and linking our Monzo’s to that before we leave - it’s just the data/firewall stuff that I’m still really unsure on. Thanks!

2

Airalo is a good option as is LetsVPN as a backup as it’s cheap as chips. Nord doesn’t work at all

3

The issues I see is that some Chinese apps don’t worry without a Chinese phone number. And China doesn’t have eSIM services.

I use Astrill. I have been using them for 10+ years and they have been the recommended VPN for a long time.

4

I would recommend Shadowrocket/justmysocks for WiFi stuff. Had 1 month Hong Kong 500GB data and always worked fine on iPhone/iPad without any trouble for around 8$.

5

3HK mainland travel esim. Done.

6

I would wait till you go into China and find a ‘China mobile’ store, just have to have your passport when signing up and can get a decent plan for cheap for the month. VPN wise I used Shadowrocket, most Chinese used this when I was around. You just have to pay for a server off ccbbss or others

7

I would recommend the VPN Megathread. There’s one for every month, and each month has 50+ messages.

8

Thanks for the comments everyone! I think we might go with Holafly - even though it is a bit more expensive - to have unlimited data for the 3 weeks we are there and rely mainly on that, and maybe get a cheap VPN as a back up so it doesn’t matter as much.

9

esim or roam in china is always a better option

10

Which eSim did you use? 3HK looks really expensive for some reason!

11

I would say Nord is one of the worst options.

12

Holafly, paid around 60€ for 28 days unlimited data

13

That’s super expensive