SIM or Mifi rental?
 

I am heading to Beijing in 5 days and will be there for about 1 week, then Seoul for 3 days. I have an Iphone 6S plus with Verizon Wireless. I'd like the ability to get access to googlemaps and also skype (to see my kids) and am looking for the easiest and financially sound way to do this. Since I have verizon I can "just" pay $10 per day. Of course this will be $70-100 if I do that. I have seen renting a mifi hotspot that will give me 500MB for $40 or a prepaid 4G LTE sim card with 2GB data, 100min phone (local), 200 chinese text, and CNY10 international text credit for $34.99.

What do you guys recommend? I assume I need to have it delivered to our hotel in Beijing or get it at the airport. I'd like to avoid spending $70 if possible though.

Thanks!

I have no recommendation, however I will note that your iPhone is compatible with all of the carriers in China, I know I will personally using a SIM card with China mobile on my travels. Also if you can somewhere find a roaming SIM from China Mobile Hong Kong it would very easily get you access to Facebook Google etc.

I saw that I can get a China Sim card via Amazon for $28 that will provide 1 GB of data, 50 min local calls or 100 text. It will be here in 2 days via prime and make my life much easier. I know it's not the cheapest route but it seems pretty convenient.

The price is good, but if you go that route (using a Chinese SIM card) be aware that you won't be able to use googlemaps (or anything google-related) unless you also set up a VPN account before you leave the US.

You need access to these 24/7? You will have wifi in many place and surely at the hotel so you can Skype or Facetime with your kids. While on wifi you can also download Google maps for your area and use it offline when you leave the hotel.
Otherwise the decision on getting a local SIM or a mifi device depends on if you wish to receive calls on your US number.
You can preorder a SIM or wifi with these guys: http://www.3gsolutions.com.cn/page/simcard

Be aware though that the full "offline" function doesn't work for China (i.e. you can't download the data for offline viewing).

A workaround though is to view the area you plan to be in, and as long as you don't clear the memory cache, this should still be okay for navigation (this is what I did last week in Bangkok, where offline maps also are not available).

All of this subject also to the same caveat that you will need a VPN to access the site in the first place ...

I think I recall someone mentioned in another thread an open source map option that works for China - I'll search for that later and add the link here if and when I find it.

Yes, this is what I meant. You download your route, not the whole country or the whole city. This is not available in China.
On my last trip i have tried other maps such as mapsme but it has limited information. Baidu maps have the most information but you need to read Chinese.

Bear in mind that Skype is sometimes OK but sometimes not in China. You can't rely on it if you have to stay in touch.

Don't a lot of WiFi hotspots in China require you to verify by SMS? In which case a local SIM card would be required regardless.

Yes. To my surprise I've even stayed in hotels that required an SMS code to log on to WIFI.

Not really, just ask the staff and they get it for you with their phone.

Yes, really. No helpful staff around airports and train stations and other public wifi services.

I was in Beijing a week ago, and was able to get a china Unicom sim at the airport pretty easily at the airport (passport required). The passenger services booths that help with hotels all seemed to have SIMs as well. It worked perfectly with my Verizon iPhone 7

Also i had pretty good luck with ExpressVPN, as long as the remote location wasn't Hong Kong.

can WAZE be used in China?

Go to http://www.klook.om and go to Beijing page and rent a WIFi egg for airport pickup for $4 a day. You do need to pay a $75 deposit but no biggie. Then have a VPN downloaded before Opera VPN is free and works great in Beijing.