China is creaking open the door to international travel, but getting into the country comes with a cost—thousands of dollars for a flight. Michael Hart this summer made his first trip from China since the pandemic began. The country maintains some of the world’s toughest pandemic border controls. After visiting family in the U.S. and dropping his son off at college, he paid $3,000 for his return flight, which required a stopover and quarantine stay in Hong Kong before an onward flight to China, where he quarantined again.