Originally Posted by STS-134

You can always buy a card before you leave. This card is only HK$118 per 1GB, with a $18 per month administration fee: http://cugstore.com/usa/prepaid-sim-...vice-plus.html Supposedly, data is passed through HK even when you are in Mainland China, which avoids the need to run a VPN on your phone 24/7.

Then there's this site: https://www.mychinaunicom.com/ which sells Unicom SIM cards for Mainland China only. 6GB can be had for just US$80. If you are in the US, you can buy the same card from Amazon with 6GB of data *and* 50 minutes of local calling on it, for just US$72. Amazon.com: China SIM Card 6GB 4G LTE data + 50 mins local calls or 100 texts, Free Shipping! Free Incoming Calls and Texts: Cell Phones & Accessories You'll obviously need to use a VPN 24/7 with that card though.