The Apps You’ll Actually be Using when Travelling in China

Before leaving for China, I found many articles promising to list the “Top 10 Must-Have Apps for China”. While these lists certainly lead me in the right direction, I still can’t find an absolute winner; an all-in-one article that lists everything you’ll definitely be used day-to-day minus any apps that turn out to be useless for a foreigner. I wonder if this has to do with authors prioritizing the number of apps (such as 10 or 20; for title purposes) over the apps themselves and whether each author had actually tried the apps they recommended in China itself. Whatever the reason may be, here is the list I’ve compiled, tried and tested while travelling in China (important: this is not 100% targeted at an expat, but would still be a good starting point).

The Obvious ones

If you’re familiar with these, skip to the not-so-obvious section.

WeChat | Messaging

Although the name might suggest otherwise, this is much more than just a messaging app. And the whole of China uses it. For us Westerners, some of its features, such as payments, are inaccessible (in typical Chinese fashion), but even if messaging is the only thing you’ll be using it for, that is enough to warrant an install.

Google Translate | …

Very good. Offline words translation, which is great. Also, when you have network connectivity (and your VPN is on), the voice translation has even made it possible to for me to communicate to illiterate folk in a tiny village.

Trip.com and Booking.com* | Accomodation and transport booking

Getting a ticket the old way isn’t easy. I’ll speak for what I know: railways and youth hostels, for which these 2 apps are great.

Side note on China’s Railway system:

China’s railway network is exceptional. China’s railway stations are exceptionally difficult. They are vast (think of a small airport), have little to no English signs or speakers and many Chinese people, a portion of whom whom are pushing in somewhere. Here Trip.com’s online booking system helps tremendously. Also, trains are usually full, so rather not try to get a ticket an hour beforehand (yes, I did end up spending longer than I would have liked at railway stations).

It’s also very useful for youth hostel booking, although these don’t tend to be as fully booked.

• It has to be noted that both of them have perfectly fine websites as well.
• These 2 apps are quite similar. They share some databases between them. However, only Trip.com offers train bookings.

ExpressVPN | Virtual Private Network

To access Whatsapp, Google and most services the rest of the world uses, you’ll need to go through a VPN. ExpressVPN is usually regarded as the best, although some swear by others. There’s no real cheap alternative (although I met someone with 11 VPN apps, cycling through the 7-day trial periods of each).

…and the Not-So-Obvious Ones

Alipay | Payments

Alipay is the de facto payment app in China. However, don’t think it akin to our (as in South-African-our) Snapscan. Cashless payments are very real in China. Your credit card might not work with it, but get a local to make a payment to you and give them cash in return. It’s even the only way to pay for some things, such a

Mobike | Bycicle Rental

China has numerous public bike schemes, of which Mobike is the best for many reasons: a Westerner can actually use it (you don’t need a Chinese bank account), it seems to have the most bikes available and thirdly, the service is available for a mind-bending 4 yuan (60 US cent or ZAR 8) a month requiring no deposit.

Didi | Ride Sharing

China’s taxies are pretty cheap. However, communication with the driver is extremely difficult. (Actually not that difficult, but not intuitive. What works is having the destination ready in Chinese characters — see the next app for that — and speak as little as possible; nothing except “hello”, “yes” and “no”. Many drivers just drive on if you speak any full English sentence.) However, China’s Uber, Didi, allows all the communication to happen on the app, which is the real beauty of it. And it’s cheap too, with a guarantee that you won’t be cheated.

Maps.me | Maps

Offline Maps app. Not nearly as good as Google Maps, but oh well. One of its best features is showing the location in Pinyin (Mandarin spelt in Latin characters so you can have a go at pronouncing it xD ) and Chinese characters (this allows you to show taxi drivers where you want to go).

Waygo | Camera Translation

It translates Mandarin characters your phone is looking at. Quite incredible, especially considering it’s offline, buuuut not super reliable. However, very handy when there are large signs with few characters and no English.

Moovit | Public Transport Guide

Very good for navigating China’s huge public transport system. I found it especially helpful (almost to the point of a requirement) for bus travel.

HelloChinese | Learning the Language

Duolingo’s Chinese version is downright terrible. HelloChinese, however, is excellent. Be realistic — don’t expect to be speaking conversational Chinese soon. But it certainly helps with understanding the pronunciation via Pinyin (one of the first lessons), which is essential.

As you can see, in this day and age there are many excellent apps to help travelling one of the toughest countries in the world. When I look back at how crucial these have been to me being able to navigate China, I take my hat off to the folks who wrote the original Lonely Planet about 35 years ago.