Hey everyone,
I’m visiting China for two weeks at the end of April and I’m trying to plan ahead. I have a couple of questions regarding VPN and phone data options.
Firstly, I was wondering if there is a better VPN option for China other than the commercial ones such as NordVPN? Or is it okay to just go with one of those?
Secondly, I was thinking about using an eSim for my phone data. Does anyone know if this is possible and if so, what’s the best provider to go with? Or should I just get a tourist sim card instead?
Any advice or recommendations would be greatly appreciated! Thank you.
If you’re only there for two weeks I definitely recommend getting a travel sim from your own country with enough data and not worrying too much about a VPN. Just don’t watch any videos and save your photo dumps for when you get home.
Travel sim data goes straight to your home ISP and isn’t filtered by the GFW.
Nord is not working in China. You’ll need to use something else
Nord doesn’t work at all, Astrill seems to be the best bet out of the most commercialized ones that are the easiest to use.
I think any VPN that is advertised on YT at any point is useless in China.
I have used Express…so so, became unusable they say.
Astril also went to shit last year, but it kinda works, you just need to jump servers. And they hiked their prices for more than 70% i think, so they get my middle finger now.
I moved to a personalized solution running a few personal servers.
Ditch your VPN and use a VPS server.
Use Astrill.
I know nothing about the Sims.
Esim doesn’t work in China you’ll need to have your carrier do an international plan.
Windscribe is completely free. Not super super reliable, but it’s useable.
I don’t think it’s easy to get esim here locally though. Your phone with esim will work if you have a non-chinese plan.
Oh is that right? I didn’t know. So any travel sim would work?
Which solution do you deploy on vps? Wireguard doesn’t seem to work
This is the correct answer.
My foreign sim is an E-sim 
I’d honestly just skip the travel SIM, depending on what your current carrier provides for international plans. I’m from the US and use Verizon. From memory, Verizon charges $10 a day for 2gb of 4g data & unlimited 3g - along with unlimited texting/calling internationally. I believe it was $100 for a full month.
When in quarantine back in November (before I could get a Chinese sim) I used it without an issue.
I was extremely hesistant to invest $30 for a month with Astrill, but Express really sucks! It’s not like 2015.
Astrill is worth it, plus the annual plan comes to $15 a month, I think?
They have 200 servers too, or something like that. Works really good on my Mac. invest!
Yeah I just checked and it’s £6 per day for unlimited data. So around £84 for 2 weeks. Might see if I can find a cheaper travel sim.
So if I use my UK provider with the travel plan, I won’t need a VPN?
Were you able to use Gmail when using the international plan with Verizon wireless without going through a VPN?
Planning to go to China and using the international plan with Verizon. Was your IP showing up as in the US and / or like you were accessing data in the US?
Yes, I was. And your IP is china based - it’s just unrestricted access.
Yeah, it’s rubbish. Express has like 2 working servers? Japan and West Coast.
I use Astrill for light gaming with no problem on PC. Mobile, forget it.
