Hey Tripsters, welcome back! Today, I'm by myself because Yvonne is actually in
London and she's enjoying the uncensored Internet! So today, I'm talking about VPNs
because if you live in China or if you're thinking about traveling to China
you will need a VPN to access most of the internet that you know especially if
you're travelling here. So if you know anything about China you probably know
that the internet here is regulated and censored quite heavily and so in order
to access many of your favorite sites like YouTube or Instagram or Facebook or
even Google products like Google if you want to search for things or Gmail or
some of the other products that are, maps, for example a lot of these are actually
blocked here in China because they have what they call the Great Firewall or the
Golden Shield Project and the Golden Shield Project is actually a
censorship project by the Chinese government and to not get too far into
that aspect of it because that's not important for you if you're just
travelling here, but basically it blocks a lot of sites including news sites and
a lot of social media sites and so if you're here in China and you want to
post Instagram or you want to post to Facebook because you have an awesome
shot of the Great Wall or you know you're at the Terracotta Warriors and
you want to pin it and share it with all your friends and say "hey yeah I'm here"
you can't actually do that without a VPN. So a VPN is a Virtual Private Network
and what that does is basically allow you to access the Internet
unrestricted. So most people in China if they live here they use it and if
you're traveling you'll probably want to get one even if you're here for only two
or three weeks. You'll find out that without the normal apps that you use on
a daily basis two or three weeks can feel like a really long time. I remember
when I first came to China I thought I don't really need a VPN I don't really
use Facebook that much but after about a month of not being able access even
Google just to do simple searches or use maps. I started to realize like oh this
is actually something that is really
restrictive and so even if you think oh I only be here for a week or two I
probably don't need a VPN there's a good chance that you will end up feeling
isolated and feel like a lot of the things on your phone don't work because
they won't work. So buying a VPN before you come to China is really important
because once you're in China it's more difficult to purchase and access because
of course the VPN sites are often blocked too. Because they're considered...
It's a gray area it's illegal but it's not enforced but once you're inside of
China it's much more difficult to get a VPN especially if you're not familiar
with VPNs or how they work or even anything that you should be like doing
or what you have to do in order to get it installed. So many of those sites are
blocked in so today I'm going to talk about the two that we use, Yvonne and I
use to upload our videos to YouTube to upload pictures to Instagram to use
whatsapp or any kind of messaging app like Facebook Messenger. So we use two
and it usually alternates back and forth and the reason it alternates is because
the Chinese government is always trying to stop the use of VPNs. They often crack
down on them especially during sensitive times whether it's and it's an important
meeting that the government's holding like the annual two sessions or if
there's some kind of protests going on, they'll crack down on the VPNs. So we have
to and the first thing that we use is called astrill and astrill has been around
for as long as I've been in China. So it's been a round for a really
long time and it works pretty well and we've never had any problems with it
it's about $100, I think about $100 for a year subscription. So if you are going to
be traveling here for a month or less you can buy it per month and I think
it's about $10 for the month and it's definitely worth purchasing for a month.
One month, if you're gonna be here for a couple of weeks in China. So I'll put a
link down below obviously if you purchase through our link we get a small
affiliate sale that's why I'm making this video to try
and make money. Ahhh No, but you'll see that a lot of youtubers that are in
China make these which VPN do I use or what is the best VPN or VPN review.
And so they do make some money off of that and we will make some money off of it if
you purchase through us and it helps us buy new equipment and kind of improve
our channel. As a matter of fact, I just bought a new camera which is the Sony
a6400, Yvonne bought it for me actually in the UK because I tried to buy it here
but the language on the actual camera couldn't be changed into
English long story short, Yvonne has my camera. I'm filming on an old camera and
this is hopefully the last time I ever have to film on this old gritty, not so
good camera, but so the first one is astrill, which is pretty good and the
second one that we alternate between a Astrill and ExpressVPN and ExpressVPN was
actually our go to one and actually was better for a long time but sometimes it
goes down like I said and then sometimes it comes back and a lot of times when
they need an update and causes problems. So those are the two that we use; I would
say Express is probably the better one but those are the two that we use so we
have a subscription for both and each one is about $100 for a year but if you
want to purchase for just a month you can also purchase each plan for just
like one month or three months because they have different packages and that
would be very useful if you're traveling. Again, if you're traveling here in China
pick one up might cost you $10 $20 but it's something that you just will have
and you won't have to be frustrated when you're trying to look up a place on
Google, because you're trying to find your hostel and you've you know need to
get into your email because they sent you an email with the address and then
all of a sudden you can't get into your emails because you don't have a VPN or
you want to post something to your Instagram account because you have
hundreds of thousands of followers and they're all eager and waiting for your
content from China. So pick yourself up a VPN,
we use I guess that astrill or Express. Next week, our video is going to come out
and it's going to be a big announcement. So be sure to subscribe because we are
starting our summer trip and I'm about to leave Beijing coming up like in two
days and we're gonna fly to our destination.
So check back next week and be sure to subscribe and like this video. Also if
you are Chinese and you're living here in China and you obviously are watching
YouTube videos leave a comment below and let us know which VPN you use
because we've been using these two for some time but they may not be the best
ones out there. It works for us for our day-to-day life but sometimes they do go
down and it's a little frustrating. So if you know some that are maybe free, you
can put a link or just tell us the name down below that way if somebody wants to
check out some of the free VPNs they can download them and maybe that
can help while they're here in China. We try to free one way back in the day but
the free ones never are as good as the paid ones at least in our opinion. So
check out the links below for astrill and Express and if you buy through us we'll
get a small Commission and it's really helpful for us to buy new equipment and
grow this channel. So thanks for watching and I will see you next time.
I almost said where we were going I will see you in the next video. Bye Bye!