High-speed rail, flights, metros and ride-hailing — how to book them as a foreign visitor and which apps you need. Passport-based ticket collection has its own quirks, covered in the problem guides.
China's transport scale takes a day to internalize: 45,000 km of high-speed rail, metro systems in every major city, and ride-hailing that works inside Alipay without a Chinese app store. Trains, not flights, are the default for inter-city travel under five hours once security time is counted.
Booking is passport-based everywhere: the 12306 app accepts foreign passports, Trip.com adds an English layer with a small fee, and station windows always work. The guides below compare the channels and the classes; the problem pages cover passport-scan failures at machines and refund rules.