Hello from the plains of central China, where I have embarked on my 22nd trip to the country. Earlier this week I had the chance to visit Zhangjiajie, the national park in central China with its stunning quartz-sandstone pillars and inspiration for the movie Avatar.
I wanted to share some tips for visiting Zhangjiajie as there is a lot of information on the Internet and like many things, not all of it is helpful or useful.
1. The main sites tourists visit are far apart from each other. Allow lots of time to get around. Similarly, ensure you book accommodation in the right place best suited for where you would like to go. There are three major sites.
Most people will visit the Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, the main scenic area with the most stunning landscapes. The town next to the east gate of the park is called Wulingyuan (武陵源). You do not stay in the park; rather most people stay here and enter the park each day. This is about 40 minutes’ drive north of the actual city of Zhangjiajie (where the airport and train station are located). Most of the sites in the park can be seen in 1-2 days. See below for a suggested route. You might also notice the park has a south gate as well — while you will probably exit through there and then take a taxi/bus back to Wulingyuan I would not recommend staying there.
The main city of Zhangjiajie serves as the gateway to Tianmen Mountain. You can of course do this as a day trip from Wulingyuan but if you are leaving from the airport or train station early the following day it might be worth spending a night here. I spent two nights in Wulingyuan (with 1 full day and the next morning in the park) and then took a taxi to Zhangjiajie City to do Tianmen Mountain on the afternoon of the second day. It took me 5 hours in total to do Tianmen Mountain on the B route, which includes the cable car and then I paid extra for the escalator through the mountain (to avoid walking up the 999 steps). When you reach the summit of the mountain there are two routes — the west route includes all of the important sites and takes around two hours without stops (which includes a chairlift and glass walkway at extra costs). The east route is essentially the whole summit and can take up to three and a half hours. If you are spending the night in Zhangijajie definitely check out the Zhangjiajie 72 Qi Lou — a Frankenstein-like building complex which is lit each night. There are a lot of great restaurants there.
The third major site is the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon and Glass Bridge. If you have time this can be worth the visit (which takes about 2-3 hours total between walking across the glass bridge and through the canyon) but is around a 40-minute drive from Wulingyuan. The B line ticket will include both the bridge and the canyon. I sped through the park on my first day and went later in the afternoon.
2. Enter the park early. It officially opens at 6:30 and you do not need to get there right at that time, but getting there before the 9:00 or 10:00 you can help get ahead of many of the crowds. They do a good job moving people through the park and entries are capped at 53,000 each day you will still likely have to wait in line for some of the cable cars or shuttle buses. I entered around 8:30 on both days. When you book your tickets (which you should do in advance online as they can sell out) you need to book an hour-long time slot to enter the park. As each ticket is valid for four days, there are QR codes you can scan when you enter to reserve future days’ entries. Your passport functions as your ticket — there is nothing you have to pick up. When you book tickets on a site like Trip.com you specify the package for your first entry. The best way to enter is through the east gate — next to Wulingyuan — and you have 2 options: Line A for Tianzi Mountain and Line B for the Bailong Elevator and Ten-Mile Gallery. I entered my first day via Line B and second via Line A. Many hotels can often help you reserve tickets for you with a modest discount.
3. Pay for the add-ons (if you do not want to hike up and down for hours). The main ticket includes access to the network of shuttle buses throughout the park. I recommend you also add on the 3 cableways and 1 elevator transportation ticket. This will allow one ride each on the Tianzi Mountain Cableway, Yangjiajie Cableway, Huangshizhai Cableway and Bailong elevator. These offer great views and are well worth the extra cost.
4. The tourist map (while in English and Chinese) is rather useless on first glance. You might get a map like this from your hotel.
While it does accurately reflect shuttle bus and walking times, it is a series of curves that doesn’t really capture the difference between places on the valley floor and in the mountains. Ask your hotel to walk you through the best route to visit the park.
On my first day, I entered the park through the east gate and took the shuttle bus directly to the Bailong Elevator. After riding the elevator it is a short walk to another shuttle bus which will take you to Yuanjiajie. From here you will walk to see a number of important sites, including the Heaven Pillar/Hallelujah Mountain (the landscape which inspired Avatar) and the No 1 Highest Natural Bridge. From Yuanjiajie you will take a short shuttle bus to Yangjiajie. After walking around here you will take the Yangjiajie Cableway down the valley. From here it’s a shuttle bus, a 15-minute walk down stairs and another bus to the lower station of the Huangshizhai/Huangshi Village Cableway. After riding this cable car up there are a series of circular routes taking anywhere from 1 to 3 hours depending on the route. You will then ride the cable car down and it’s another short bus ride to Large Oxygen Square. From here you will then walk along the Golden Whip Stream trail and it’s a short 5-10 minutes to the exit of the park via the south gate. From the south gate it takes around 45 minutes by car/bus back to Wulingyuan.
On my second day, I entered the park through the east gate again and took the shuttle bus directly to Tianzi Mountain/Tianzishan. It’s a short cable car ride up followed by a shuttle bus and there are a number of sites to see by foot. You should also take a short shuttle bus ride to visit a settlement called Fields in the Sky — a rice paddy field on top of one of the rock formations. After returning down via the cableway, you can also visit the Ten-Mile Gallery (which features a monorail for an added price). I unfortunately missed out on this last site but if you have time it’s worth a visit. Of course there are other routes (particularly if you do not wish to take the cable cars) but this one seems to avoid much of the backtracking.
5. Don’t feed the monkeys. They will take any fruit or food items out of you rather aggressively. On the subject of food, there are many small stalls throughout the park but only a few restaurants.
