You should always have a VPN unless you want all of your data use to be on Cellular (which is a lot more expensive than WiFi). Given that the cost of 1GB of data is more than the cost of a paid VPN for a month, it's much cheaper to get a VPN for WiFi use than it is to use all data on Cellular.

Going with the cross-border SIM will work and will work well. The thing is, it's not cheap. But IME, cellular networks are actually more reliable than landline networks, and tunneling all the data through HK not only bypasses the Great Firewall's filtering/DNS poisoning/etc. but also a lot of the packet mirroring and packet analysis that the gateway routers do that slows foreign Internet connections down. So I often just defaulted to using my cellular Internet when I was trying to work, because it was consistently reliably fast (plus I could open another tab and Google something or check Facebook or whatever), whereas landline Internet connections (at all hotels, both cheap and expensive) were laggy and would randomly drop packets or drop out completely periodically. I didn't have much luck maintaining a stable VPN with reasonable throughput--with random congestion and dropped packets and things, it was often more frustration than it was worth.

So what you want to do will work, but be prepared to pay for it. If you want the absolute cheapest method, a local Chinese (non-cross-border) SIM will have much cheaper data, and as STS-134 mentioned, that paired with a cheap VPN will get you 95% of the way there.

On my next trip to China in a couple months, I intend to use my AT&T SIM, a cross border HK SIM, and a local Chinese SIM with a VPN. I'm really interested in seeing what's fastest and I'll report the results.

Please do--I'd be interested, too.

Thanks! I'm ok with paying a little more for more speed and simplicity.

My last point of confusion is how to handle the voice calls. If Google Voice works with the Sim there, can I be called/texted on my regular USA number? Trying to let people know here what they need to do if they want to contact me.

It looks like using the actual minutes on the card to try and call the USA wouldn't work out great.

1. Local sim + VPN isn't especially complicated

2. GV is good for texts, but not so good for voice

3. Personally, I rarely make/receive actual international calls, but both Mobile and Unicom have decent rates, and VoIP services like Rebtel are even cheaper, and work okay enough -- Skype and Wechat are fine for non-critical calls

Depending. If no one will sell you an unregistered SIM, then a cross-border SIM is the easiest to get up and running.

I'm unfamiliar with Android, but at least with the iPhone, no, they won't--unless you call-forward your US phone number to your Google Voice number before taking your US SIM out. (That's what I do when I travel internationally.) Then, incoming calls will ring in the Hangouts app, and you would need to use the Hangouts app to dial and complete the call. With a decent-enough Internet connection (either wifi or cellular), the call quality is fine. Note that GV won't work when you're on wifi in China (due to Great Firewall filtering), only on cellular with your cross-border SIM or when you have your VPN active. (GV voice call quality on a VPN will probably be pretty poor.)

Or you can provide your friends and family with your Google Voice number. Either works, but for simplicity, I just call-forward it right before taking off from the US (on the iPhone, it's under Settings>Phone>Call Forwarding; I assume it's similar on Android).

Note that call forwarding does not forward texts. There is no way to forward texts, unfortunately, so your family would need to text your GV number for you to receive them.

Can't you still buy (and register) Sims on arrival at most airports? (I honestly don't know how fast the process is, but I assume it must be relatively efficient because the sellers should be accustomed to dealing with passports.)

I hope so! I need a new one, I'll report back in two weeks.

You know, I've made many calls from China on GV from my computer. I've never used a traditional VPN for the GV calls, always an SSH tunnel and I always used the web browser to make the calls, and I have never experienced a dropped call. Not even once. I'm not sure if that's just luck or what, but I've probably done a cumulative 3+ hours of talking on GV over multiple trips, and that's one area where I never had any issues.

I don't experience dropped calls often either (by any methods), but GV is at the bottom of my goto list in terms of call quality (for calling people outside of China):

1. Direct dial from Mobile/Unicom/Telecom
2. IP phone cards (not so popular any more, but they still exist, and aren't expensive)
3. Use prefixes to do accomplish #1 (big savings over #1, but doing this ensures that you will placed in the "low priority traffic" bin)
4. Spaxtel/Rebtel/etc
5. Wechat
6. Skype
7. QQ
8. GV

On a semi-related note, I used to use ATT/MCI to call my US based credit cards collect (very good quality), but this has been seemingly impossible to do for the past ~8 years (the access numbers still work, but on the off chance you get a human, they are not able to put collect calls through).

Point, I forgot about that. I've never bought SIMs at the airport because I registered my local SIM way back when I first started getting texts about it and kept it active since.

Final thought, since I'm flying out on Friday. If VOIP services are my best bet for calling/texting home and only other use will be email and maps, would it be better to skip the Cross Border King Extra Sim and just get a data only sim?

http://www.cugstore.com/usa/prepaid-...vice-plus.html

With the Cross Border, it looks like it will be $168HKD to start, plus some activation fees, and then $68HKD for 500mb

http://www.cugstore.com/usa/data-car...0days-1gb.html

This would give me a GB for $199, and can top up another GB for $100HKD. No danger of accidentally calling or answering from my US cell number. I'm not expecting to do any local calls due to language barrier, can have hotel concierge arrange any restaurant reservations.

Most VOIP services will be blocked by the GFW, so you would need to run a VPN and then make your calls through the VPN. IME, that introduces a lot of potential for congestion and circuitous routing and will lead to mediocre call quality.

When overseas, I've actually found that GV does the best, as it a) uses the fairly robust G.711u codec and b) routes your data to the closest Google POP to you and then over Google's private global network onward to the PSTN--that is, if you are in Cape Town, your data connection is to Google's servers in Johannesburg and from there over Google's circuits back to the US, so latency and congestion are actually fairly low.

With a cross-border HK SIM, your data connection is effectively based in HK, so it'll hit Google's servers in HK with relatively low latency.

If you use GV over a US-based VPN over a China Unicom connection (say, with a Chicago endpoint), then it'll traverse the public Internet between China and Chicago (with all of the extra congestion at the GFW) and then hit Google's servers in Chicago. That's a lot of potential for jitter and packet loss and other things that are detrimental to a voice call.

So, my experience using GV overseas has actually been very good, and my experience using it with the Cross Border SIM was good as well.