my first 48 hours

hi, i’m brandon. in spring 2024 i landed at shanghai pudong for my first ever trip to china with a carry-on, about 200 words of mandarin, and a level of confidence i had not earned.

i’ve been back about four times since, and china has gotten way easier for visitors. but those first 48 hours? a comedy of small, avoidable mistakes. here’s every one of them, plus what i’d tell a friend to do instead.

landing at shanghai pudong: the visa-free bit

back then, americans weren’t on the 30-day visa-free list (we still aren’t, as of late 2026). so i came in on the transit visa-free policy, which was 144 hours at the time. the catch: you need a confirmed onward ticket to a third country. i was flying los angeles → shanghai → seoul, so that counted.

at immigration there’s a separate lane for transit visa-free entry. i stood in the regular foreigners line for 25 minutes first, obviously. an officer eventually spotted my printout and waved me over to the right desk. the actual check took maybe five minutes: passport, onward ticket, hotel address, done.

these days the transit window is 240 hours (10 days), and you can fill in your arrival card online before you fly. the rules shift a lot, so read our visa-free china guide and check official sources before you book anything.

mistake #1: i thought my internet “would just work”

i’d bought a cheap data plan that, it turned out, connected through a chinese network. so the moment i turned off airplane mode: no google maps, no gmail, no instagram, no whatsapp to tell my mom i’d landed. i stood in the arrivals hall refreshing a blank google maps tile like it owed me money.

what i didn’t know yet:

• local chinese sims and esims follow china’s internet rules. google, instagram, whatsapp and most western apps are blocked
• roaming esims (the kind from travel esim companies) route your data through another country, so those apps just work. no vpn needed
• apple maps works fine in china and was sitting on my phone the whole time. i didn’t think to open it for 40 minutes

the airport wifi was free, but it needed a text code sent to a phone number. that went about as well as you’d expect.

now i set up a roaming esim at home, every single time, and it’s on before the wheels touch down. full breakdown in internet in china.

mistake #2: alipay was downloaded, not set up

i had alipay. i had installed alipay. i had not linked my card, verified my identity, or tried a single payment.

my first purchase in china was a bottle of water at an airport convenience store, about 60 cents. i scanned the qr code, got an error, scanned again, got a different error, and the cashier and i watched my phone in silence while a queue grew behind me. it was my bank’s fraud system freaking out about a charge from china. i paid with a ¥10 note from the stash of cash i’d almost not brought.

how to not be me:

• download alipay at home, link your visa or mastercard, and finish the passport verification before your flight
• make a tiny test payment (alipay lets you top up a phone or buy something small) so your bank sees it
• tell your bank you’re traveling, or at least have its app ready to approve a flagged charge
• know the fees. as of late 2026, payments of about $30 and under are free with a foreign card. above that, alipay adds a 3% fee on the whole amount, and your bank may add its own fee on top

step-by-step setup is in our alipay & wechat pay guide. once it works, it’s honestly smoother than paying back home.

pudong to the city: maglev + metro line 2

this part went well, mostly because it’s hard to mess up. i followed the signs to the maglev, the magnetic train that floats over the track at about 300 km/h. a one-way ride is about $7.50, or $6 if you show a same-day boarding pass. it takes about 8 minutes to reach longyang road station, and it runs roughly 6:45am–9:40pm.

i pressed my face against the window like a kid. the speed readout on the screen is the whole show. lowkey the best $6 i’ve spent in china.

the cheaper option is metro line 2 straight from the airport. it’s around $1–1.50 and takes about an hour-plus to people’s square. if you land late or you’re on a budget, it’s totally fine.

mistake #3: holding up the metro gate at longyang road

at longyang road you switch to metro line 2. this is where i became a public spectacle.

in 2024, the standard move was scanning an alipay transport code at the gate. i didn’t have one activated. so i stood at the gate, opened alipay, searched “transport,” picked shanghai, agreed to the terms, and scanned while a very patient uncle behind me sighed in a way i still think about. (alipay would humble me again on a later trip — the night my alipay froze.)

it’s easier now. as of mid-2025, every shanghai metro line takes contactless foreign cards (visa, mastercard, amex, jcb and unionpay), including via apple pay or google pay. you just tap the gate like in london or new york.

my advice: set up the alipay transport code anyway as a backup, before you’re at the gate. more on metro options in our china travel apps guide.

mistake #4: typing my hotel’s english name into didi

night one was fine because i took the metro. on day two, i opened didi (china’s uber, which runs inside alipay in english) to go to a restaurant. i typed the place’s english name, picked the top result, and confidently got in.

twenty minutes later i was at a completely different restaurant with the same english name, across the river.

then on the ride back, the driver called me to say where he was. i answered with “wǒ… uh… bù dǒng” (i don’t understand) with tones so bad i might have said something else entirely. he hung up, texted me in chinese, and somehow we found each other.

what actually works:

• paste the chinese address or name. copy it from your booking, a map app, or have your hotel write it down
• check the pin on the map before you confirm. big malls and stations have a dozen entrances
• use the in-app chat. didi in alipay has built-in translation for chat messages, so you and the driver can text instead of call
• screenshot your hotel’s chinese name and address and keep it as a favorite photo for showing to taxi drivers

mistake #5: booking the cheapest hotel without checking

the hostel-ish place i booked for night two turned out not to be able to register foreign guests. that used to be pretty common, and it still happens. the front desk was super kind about it and helped me find a place nearby, but it cost me an hour and a bit of dignity. these days i also pick the area first — shanghai neighborhoods breaks down where to stay.

these days i book on trip.com, where listings are clearer about whether they take foreign passports. if a deal looks suspiciously cheap, read the reviews for other foreigners staying there.

the good parts (because there were a lot)

i’m making this sound like a disaster. it wasn’t. some highlights from hours 12 to 48:

• breakfast. a paper bag of shengjian bao (pan-fried soup dumplings) for around $1.50–2. i burned my mouth on the first one. you will too
• walking the bund at night. free, and the skyline across the river is unreal
• the auntie at the noodle stall who watched me point at a picture, say “zhège” (this one) like a toddler, and gave me extra chili oil with a thumbs up
• how safe it felt. i was wandering around at 1am jet lagged, and it was busy, bright and completely chill

if you want a full plan for those first few days, our shanghai guide has neighborhoods, food and day trips.

what i’d do differently: my first-trip checklist

if i could redo hour zero, here’s what i’d have done before leaving home:

a backup vpn on your laptop is worth it too, if you need work sites that a roaming esim doesn’t cover on hotel wifi.

the vibe check

my first 48 hours in china were chaotic, and almost all of it was my fault. the country itself was easy, safe, fast and delicious. i was just showing up unprepared.

do the boring setup at home: esim, alipay, a chinese address, a little cash. then the only surprise left is how good the dumplings are. trust.

next up: the shanghai guide for where to go, and china travel apps for the full app stack.

heads up: some links above are affiliate links. if you book through them we earn a small commission at no extra cost to you — it keeps this guide free. more on that.