Originally Posted by
YVR Cockroach
The $1m question. Hoping that they'll expand that to make it easier for overseas visitors, language barriers aside. Not that I won't have a phone, just don't have a greater China phone number (I understand that is necessary) and refuse to buy an Apple/Google/Samsung tripoly phone (precious little available otherwise).
You do not need to have a mainland Chinese phone number to be able to use Wechat or Alipay. You only need to have access to the internet at the time you are there. Many people on this forum took the 10mn to download either or both applis and set up the payment system with our non-mainland Chinese phone numbers.
Baidu maps can be installed on your android phone as a direct .apk download (indeed that's what I've done for the dozen or so Chinese applis). Alternatively, Microsoft search and applis like Bing are available without too much restriction. And of course.
https://map.baidu.com works as a webpage.