Zhangjiajie
Zhangjiajie is best known as the inspiration for the floating mountains of Pandora in James Cameron’s Avatar. The Blue Mountains is quite well known in Sydney, but this is like The Three Sisters on steroids - it is on a whole other level!
There are two main areas in Zhangjiajie. Wulingyuan is a 45 minute drive up north, where the national park is. The city down south is where the airport, train stations and Tianmen Mountain are located.
Zhangjiajie National Forest Park
Rating (in Michelin stars out of 3): ★★★ (worth a special journey)
Zhangjiaje National Forest Park is very large, and there are multiple entrances. The primary one is the east entrance, where most people (including ourselves) stayed.
- March 5: high speed train from Chengdu East to Huaihua South, before transferring to Zhangjiajie West station, followed by a Didi to our accommodation near the east entrance of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park
- March 6: explore (primarily) the lower section of the park - Ten Mile Gallery, Golden Whip Stream and Huangshi Village in the upper section (the weather cleared up towards the end of the day). We exited via a secondary south entrance, taking a Didi back to our accommodation.
- March 7: explore the upper section of the park - Yuanjiajie, Yangjiajie, Tianzi Mountain
There are two parts to the park. A lower section, as well as an upper section. When you enter the park, there are buses that take you around the lower section. The roads are windy, and the buses go fast - so be careful if you get car sick! The lower section is nice for a forest hike, but pales in comparison to the upper section, which is where all the Avatar-esque views are.
To get to the upper section, there are three cableways and a glass elevator you can take. These are priced separately to the park tickets, and we bought an unlimited rides pass (both are valid for 4 days). They aren’t just modes of transport, but attractions in themselves offering lots of scenic views. Because the crowds were thin in early March, we were often able to get a cable car to ourselves, and so we rode them multiple times just for the views.
Visibility in the upper section is very poor when it rains, so you should plan to stay for multiple days in Wulingyuan (at least two for the park, and probably a third for the attractions around Wulingyuan), and adjust your schedule accordingly. On our first day, we initially went up, but the visibility was so poor we couldn’t see anything, and came straight back down.
There are plenty of food options throughout the park, though they weren’t as nice as Jiuzhaigou’s food hall. There are monkeys around some parts of the park, which will steal your food if given the chance.
More around Wulingyuan
Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon
Rating (in Michelin stars out of 3): ★ (worth a stop), ★★ (worth a detour if you enjoy thrills)
Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon is around a 40 minute car ride north east of the main Wulingyuan area (we took a Didi).
Its primary attraction is a very large glass bridge. There’s also a zipline you can take to cross the canyon back, which is not my cup of tea, so I went for a significantly tamer VR experience around the canyon, as well as a glass elevator.
There’s also two fun slides you can take down - one is for those who took the zipline, and the other for those who took the elevator. Once you get down, there’s a boat ride and pleasant hike.
The views are pleasant, but not nearly as impressive as Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. From memory, it took us around 4 hours.
Baofeng Lake
Rating (in Michelin stars out of 3): ★ (worth a stop)
Baofeng Lake is a chill, short (< 1 hour?) boat ride around a very deep lake, with decent (but not incredible) views, nearby the Wulingyuan area.
We did this on our last day in the afternoon after visiting Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, before returning to Zhangjiajie city. It’s a nice way to relax, and provided extra flexibility in our schedule to ensure we could get good views in the upper section of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park.
Food around Tianzi Road
Rating (in Michelin stars out of 3): ★ (worth a stop)
We really enjoyed wandering around the intersections of Tianzi Road (天子路) and Wuling Road (武陵路) in the evenings, and I would highly recommend it - we had ~80 RMB Peking-style duck (though the skin wasn’t very crispy), nice dumplings and incredible Xinjiang lamb skewers.
Places I can’t vouch for
Xibu Street (溪布街) has a seemingly-popular night market I didn’t discover until we were about to leave.
On Jundi Road (军邸路) close to the east entrance of the park, there’s some street stalls which I presume get busier in peak season.
Tianmen Mountain National Park
Rating (in Michelin stars out of 3): ★★ (worth a detour if visibility is good)
Tianmen Mountain features a half hour cable car ride from the middle of town, which is pretty cool, as well as amazing but temperamental views.
We stayed really close (walking distance) to the cable car station the night before, so we could be there at 8 am when it opened. Because it’s so popular, there’s a secondary cable car that covers a portion of the journey.
There are three ticket types:
- A: primary cable car there, bus + secondary cable car back
- B: bus + secondary cable car there, primary cable car back
- C: bus + secondary there and back
Naturally, their popularity decreases with their position in the alphabet, though A and B are effectively the same.
I’d seen advice online that if it was raining, visibility would be so poor as to make the trip not worthwhile, so we were prepared (and I would recommend) to skip this if necessary, and rebook our train tickets to leave earlier. Fortunately Tianmen Mountain ticket cancellation would have only incurred a 20% penalty.
We got to the cable car station at 8 am, which is also where the buses depart from, and it was quiet. Once you get off the bus, and off the subsequent cable car, it’s a short walk to the base of the iconic stairway to heaven, followed by an absurd amount of escalators to take you to the top, where we hiked the circumference before heading back down.
Altogether, it took us around 4.5 hours from the start to finish during off-peak (leave more time to wait for the cable car during the peak). The cable car lines were significantly busier on the way back down, so it is beneficial to start early in the morning when they open at 8 am. We also had to slow down because some of the paths were icy and dangerously slippery to walk on.
To get to our next stop, we transferred via Changsha South because there’s only one non-stop service between Zhangjiajie and Guilin, in the morning. Note that depending on your train service from Zhangjiajie West, you may also need to transfer stations from Changsha (main) to Changsha South station.
72 Strange Towers
Rating (in Michelin stars out of 3): N/A
72 Strange Towers is a really popular place in Zhangjiajie city for night life, and as you can see from the photo, it does indeed look pretty cool!
I would advise against going during the day, since the vibe is only there at night. It gets very crowded at night, with traffic jams around the area.
There were shows in the main square that were quite interesting in that they weren’t limited to a single stage, but probably not as meaningful to foreigners.
The food options were okay, but I assume there are better places elsewhere that aren’t as touristy. I would recommend going elsewhere for night life if you can find an alternative, as it wasn’t worth the entry fee to me.