Before you book
Visa-free entry, passport requirements, the arrival card, customs, when to go and what it actually costs.
Independent publisher · localhourbooks.com
Travel manuals for people who plan it themselves.
Not encyclopedias to leaf through on the sofa. Working tools: every price checked at the source, every itinerary already assembled, every fact stamped with the date we verified it.
- Where you are · —
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- Local hour in Beijing · —
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The local hour is the moment you stop reading about a place and start being in it.
The catalogue · 01 of 01
China
Travel Guide 2026/2027
Do you know that Italian citizens enter China visa-free, and until when that lasts? That high-speed rail tickets go on sale exactly 15 days ahead? That the Forbidden City has to be booked seven days in advance, at 20:00 Beijing time, with your passport number? This guide does the dull work for you.
- Pages
- 240
- Itineraries
- 12
- Maps
- 13
- Mapped places
- 101
Coming soon
Tell me when it is out
The book lands on Amazon shortly. Drop us a line and we will tell you the day it does.
Prices, opening hours and procedures checked against official sources in August 2026.
This guide is written in Italian.The book and the online tools are currently in Italian only. An English edition is what we are working towards — write to us and we will tell you when it exists.
What is inside
Nine parts, one for each moment of the trip.
This is not a book you read front to back. It is built to be opened at the right entry: before you book, the night before you fly, or at seven in the evening in a station in Xi’an.
The digital kit
Google does not work in China. eSIM, VPN, Alipay and WeChat Pay set up step by step, with screenshots and error codes.
Getting around
High-speed rail, domestic flights, metro, taxis. Thirty city-to-city routes with mode, duration and real price in euro.
The atlas
Eleven destinations, from Beijing to Yunnan. Thirteen black-and-white maps, readable with no connection at all.
The itineraries
Twelve plans from 7 to 21 days with the transfers already worked out. Six of them broken down morning, afternoon and evening.
At the table
The eight regional cuisines, how to read a Chinese menu, what to eat in each city — with the characters to show the waiter.
Manners and habits
What is done and what is not, how much you haggle, how a teahouse works, tipping, the bill.
Safety and mishaps
The six classic scams, emergency numbers, international hospitals. Twelve concrete situations with the answer ready.
Phrasebook
Phonetic pronunciation, the characters worth recognising, and sixteen cards to show straight off the screen.
Included in the price
Two online tools, no sign-up.
The first pages of the book carry two QR codes. They are not decoration: they open these two pages, which work from a phone and never ask for your email.
Free · No sign-up
Itinerary generator
Four questions, one complete plan.
How many days you have, where you land, where you fly home from, what kind of trip you want. In under a minute you get the day-by-day plan, with transfers, durations, costs and the bookings to make in advance.
Open the toolFree · No sign-up
The map of 101 places
Every place in the book, with coordinates.
Every location mentioned in the guide with exact coordinates, entry price and a practical note. One tap opens it in Google Maps, ready to save for offline use.
Open the toolHow we work
Few guides. All of them checked.
01
Primary sources
Consular portals, China Railway, official museum sites, ECB exchange rates. No blogs, no copy-paste, no “apparently”.
02
Every fact has a date
You know the month it was verified and where to check it again the day before you leave. Entry rules change on a few weeks’ notice.
03
No filler
No chapter on the dynasties to pad the page count. If you do not need it to travel, it is not in the book.
04
The tools come with it
The generator and the map are not sold separately, do not ask for an email and have no subscription. They are part of the book.
I am not asking you to trust me. I am giving you the sources.From the introduction to China 2026/2027
What is next
One guide at a time.
Local Hour publishes little and verifies all of it. The next guide is in the works: if you want to hear about it first, send us a line. We do not run a weekly newsletter — we have nothing to sell you every Tuesday.