VPN guides for the Chinese city you are actually in.
Hotel Wi-Fi, campus networks, office firewalls, airport SIM cards, and public hotspots behave differently across mainland China. Start with your city and then test a free IT CRP key on the real network.
City guides
Each page covers local network patterns and the setup path we recommend first.
Beijing
Embassy districts, hotel Wi-Fi, campus networks, and business travel notes.
Shanghai
Hotel, campus, coworking, and mobile network notes for the most common expat routes.
Shenzhen
Cross-border work patterns, office Wi-Fi, and mobile setup notes.
Guangzhou
Trade-fair, hotel, and business-trip VPN guidance.
Chengdu
Campus, hotel, and longer-stay setup notes.
iPhone setup
What to do when VPN apps are missing from the mainland China App Store.
Related guides
Use these if your problem is about a network type instead of a city.
Why city-specific VPN guidance matters
China blocking is national, but the user experience is local. The same phone, same VPN key, and same app can behave differently on a Shanghai hotel network, a Beijing campus network, or a Shenzhen office line. These city pages are designed to narrow the first troubleshooting step.
Hotel networks
Large hotel chains often add captive portals, room-number logins, and shared evening bandwidth. In Shanghai and Guangzhou, this is a common reason a VPN seems broken even when the key is valid.
Campus and dorm Wi-Fi
University networks can be stricter than mobile data. Beijing, Chengdu, and Shanghai guides include campus notes because students often need app-store workarounds and a client that can import a subscription URL.
Office and trade-fair access
Business travelers usually care about Slack, Gmail, Google Drive, WhatsApp, and video calls. Shenzhen and Guangzhou pages focus more on office Wi-Fi, trade-fair traffic, and fast setup under time pressure.
Mobile data fallback
If a hotel or office network is hostile, mobile data can be the cleanest fallback. The city guides point users toward the setup pages when the issue is app installation rather than routing.