6- VPN's

Unless you live under a rock its pretty known worldwide that China has major issues on censorship. They censor apps, websites and news articles for a whole bunch of reasons, especially anything negative to do with the Chinese government. Trouble is, for an expat that is used to accessing a whole multitude of things on the internet, this could be quite inconvenient !

Never fear, the VPN is here. VPN stands for virtual private network and allows you to access blocked sites by essentially pretending to be in another country. When connecting to a VPN you can choose which country you wish to connect with, which is pretty handy when accessing content that requires you to be in a specific country (BBC iPlayer anyone?!).

In my opinion a VPN is essential if you will be going to China for an extended period of time. I'm not kidding - here is just a few of the things that are blocked in China:

- Facebook
- Google (including Google maps)
- Instagram
- Youtube
- Snapchat
- Blogger (This blog haha)
- and many, I mean MANY normal shopping sites/blogs

The list really does go on and its literally soul destroying at times. It also affects apps like whatsapp, that may not be blocked but certainly is slow to send media.

Now before you suddenly cancel your trip and refuse to visit China it is worth mentioning that with the right VPN and strong enough internet connection you will be able to access anything you like! Be warned though, there are so many rubbish VPN's out there that don't even work once you get to China.

My number one top recommendation would be PandaPow, its not a free service and I normally pay a yearly subscription as i'm on China quite often. I must say it is fantastic and blows all other VPN's out of the water (including Astrill which is really not as good as it seems).

You can check out PandaPow's website here.

As always, any questions please let me know!

Amie ~