What a visitor's money does in China: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Chinese Yuan (CNY) · 1 EUR = 7.6 CNY · 1 USD = 6.7 CNY
China is close to cashless and runs on Alipay and WeChat Pay, both of which now accept foreign cards — set one up before you fly, because it changes the trip completely. Bank of China branches exchange cash if you want a reserve, and you will need a passport to do it.
Avoid: smaller bank machines, which frequently reject foreign cards
Use: Bank of China, ICBC, China Construction Bank
Set up Alipay or WeChat Pay with a foreign card before flying. China is close to cashless and doing this changes the entire trip.
A short ride in Beijing & the Great Wall: ¥15–35 across town — cheap
Level with the meter, and far easier than explaining a destination in a taxi.
Xi’an food is wheat, not rice, and it is the best street eating in China: roujiamo — a flatbread sandwich called China’s hamburger and older than the country that named it — biang biang noodles pulled by hand, and lamb paomo, where you tear the bread into the bowl yourself. All of it in the Muslim Quarter, all of it cheap.
Peking duck once, properly, at a place that has been doing it for a century. Otherwise jianbing from a street cart for breakfast and hand-pulled noodles for lunch. Have the name of anywhere you want to go written in Chinese.
Xiaolongbao are the city dish and the soup inside them is hot enough to hurt — bite a corner first. Shengjianbao are the fried version. Hairy crab in October and November is a seasonal obsession with prices to match. The dumpling shop with a queue of locals is always the right one.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
Beijing & the Great WallChinaAn imperial city, and a wall that runs off into the mountains
ShanghaiChinaA waterfront of 1920s banks facing a skyline from the future, with lane houses and gardens in between
Xi’anChinaEight thousand terracotta soldiers, a city wall you can cycle round, and the eastern end of the Silk Road