Zhangjiajie National Park🚠

To get to Zhangjiajie National Park from Xi’an, we decided to catch an evening flight, rather than catching the High Speed Railway. This gave us two full days in Zhangjiajie, however, we would recommend spending three or four days instead. This will give you enough time to visit all the main sights without rushing!

What is Zhangjiajie National Park

Zhangjiajie National Park is the first National Forest Park in China, famous for its towering sandstone cliffs and deep ravines, which inspired the floating mountains for the ‘Avatar’ movie. The National Park as a whole is huge, with so many viewpoints, attractions and places that you must visit. We definitely were not prepared before we arrived, so our first full day was pretty chaotic trying to figure out where to go. We only went to two spots within the National Park, however there are a few other areas that you might want to visit, so make sure to do your own research beforehand to make the most of your days! The most popular areas to visit are:

1. Yuanjiajie & Tianzi Mountain - most famous sections, with the ‘Avatar’ Hallelujah Mountains, Bailong Elevator and Cable Car down Tianzi Mountain.
2. Tianmen Mountain - famous for Tianmen Cave/Heaven’s Gate and incredible panoramic views over the mountains and valleys. It has different walking routes and glass bridges, which take you along the side of the mountains.
3. Sanguansi - famous for the Zhangjiajie Grand Canyon, where you can slide down a chute on the mountain side. It is also near to the famous Glass Bridge, which you can visit and also bungee jump off if you are brave enough. If you don’t want to do that, you can zip line across instead.
4. Yangjiajie - less crowded spot, famous for its natural stone ‘Great Wall’.
5. Huangshi Village - high-altitude viewing platform offering views of the surrounding mountains.

How to Book Tickets

We booked all of our tickets through Trip.com. Tickets are available one week in advance to when you are planning to visit, so make sure to set a reminder. We got two separate tickets for Hallelujah (Avatar) Mountains and Tianmen Mountain. For Avatar Mountains, our tickets came with a four day pass. I think the four day pass is for most tickets, which is pretty good as it allows you to go up as many times as you want within the four day period. Trip.com also offers 1 day VIP passes, which I think includes skipping queues. However, for Tianmen Mountain, the tickets are strict with a specific one day time slot, following either A, B or C routes. I will explain the routes we took in the sections below.

Buying tickets on Trip.com was pretty confusing, as there are so many different choices to select, so we ended up just getting the standard admission tickets. However, if you want to add on extras, such as the Bailong Elevator or the Cable Cars down Tianzi Mountains, you can select them when purchasing your tickets. If you don’t, don’t worry you can buy them on the door when you arrive, which is what we did! Just make sure to buy your park entry in advance!

When to Go

The best time to visit Zhangjiajie National Park is during spring (April & May) and autumn (September & October). If you visit in Spring, the weather is mild and the scenery is beautiful, with bright green surrounding mountains. The only worry is there is a higher chance of rain and fog, which can cause mist to cover the mountains in the early mornings. If you go in September or October, the weather is a lot cooler and there is better visibility with less chances of fog all day.

It is also best to avoid holidays, such as China’s Labour Day, Golden Week and Chinese New Year as these dates will be extremely busy with locals, not just in Zhangjiajie but everywhere around China. Also try to avoid July and August, as it is prime summer in China, so it is horribly hot, humid and packed with children on school holidays.

Typically, we planned to visit at the end of our trip, which was at the beginning of August, so we were expecting it to be super busy and it was! However, it wasn’t as bad as we thought it was going to be. I think because China is super efficient and has everything organised really smoothly, we never felt too overwhelmed with crowds or long queues, so we were really lucky! The only ever time we were let down with the weather was our days in Zhangjiajie. Both days started really cloudy and rainy, but by 2pm, the weather brightened up and we had blue skies. Sadly, as our tickets were booked for the morning slots, we didn’t have the best of weather for Tianmen Mountain, however, as we were able to go up Avatar Mountain twice, we managed to go up again when the weather was better!

Where to Stay

🏨Zhangjiajie Jijiehao Hostel, Wulingyua

We stayed at this hostel in Wulingyuan, rather than staying in the main town of Zhangjiajie, and it was about a forty minute drive from the airport. This hostel was perfect and we were kindly upgraded from a dorm to a private room for no additional cost. This was definitely needed after an 3:00am start to the airport. The room also came with free breakfast, there was a nice social area and the hosts were incredibly kind! We chose to stay in Wulingyuan, which is a more vibrant town, full of shops, brightly lit up restaurants, boutiques and street food stalls. You can easily spend one evening browsing the streets and popping into all the different shops to buy souvenirs! The hostel is also a twenty-five minute walk or a seven minute taxi from the entrance to Avatar Mountain, so was pretty handy for us!

Hallelujah (Avatar) Mountains

Hallelujah Mountains are one of the most popular spots to visit when in Zhangjiajie, famous for being the inspiration to the incredible movie, Avatar. These mountains were created over 300 million years ago from extensive water erosion, weathering and tectonic plates moving. The mountains were first caused when the earth’s crust rose upwards millions of years ago, lifting huge, flat stone beds. Over the years, rain caused water erosion to occur, causing the softer surrounding rock to fall away leaving behind tall, isolated stone pillars. Depending on the weather, low clouds frequently hide the bottom of the pillars, creating the optical illusion that they were floating in the sky, hence the name and inspiration!

As mentioned before, our tickets for Avatar Mountain were for a four day pass following Route B. Route B started with a shuttle bus to Bailong Elevator and ended with the Cable Cars at Tianzi Mountain, whereas Route A does it the opposite way.

As we didn’t purchase tickets for the Elevator or Cable Cars with our admission tickets, we had to buy them on the door for 140 Yuan each. Both of these rides are 100% worth it. The elevator is famous, as being a 1 minute 30 second journey where you are stunned with gorgeous views of the surrounding ‘floating’ mountains. You can book return tickets down if you prefer, but we continued straight from the top and walked to various different viewpoints along the way, which is what we would recommend doing.

Once you have bought your Elevator tickets, you will have to walk up a few flights of stairs, where you can see the surrounding mountains even better. From the lookout, you will have to go through the ticketing process and join the queue. For us we didn’t necessarily have to wait for too long, maybe around ten minutes on both occasions. The queues lead you to the top or bottom Elevators; both showing the same incredible views at the top. You ideally want to be at the front or towards the front of the queue before getting into the Elevator. This is because the glass Elevator has windows on all sides, so you want to be able to see the views as you go up. If you are at the back, you sadly most likely will not get to see the view from the Elevator. If this happens, don’t worry, you will be able to see the exact same views from the top.

Once you have reached the top, which is the Upper Station of Bailong Elevator, you are graced with the most insane views ever. From all angles, you will be surrounded by these ‘floating’ mountains, it was pretty spectacular! There is a small viewpoint here, which you can stop at, before walking to other spots.

From The Upper Station, we walked to the next bus stop to catch a small shuttle to the Enchanting Terrace Station, which is where the Hallelujah Mountains are, the ones that inspired the movie. At this viewpoint, you will see the mountains go on for miles around you, all different kind of shapes and sizes.

From the Enchanting Terrace Station, we followed the path all the way along the various different walking routes until The No.1 Bridge in the World Station. As you go, there are so many incredible viewpoints and photo opportunities, where you can stop and see the mountains.

The walk to the No.1 Bridge took around an hour or so as we constantly kept stopping at all the viewpoints. The Bridge is this massive natural stone arch, spanning across two sandstone pillars at a scary vertical height of around 400 meters. We decided to cross the bridge and it was pretty nerve wracking as everyone was doing the same. I honestly don’t know how the bridge withstands it all day, everyday!

From the Bridge instead of continuing the walking route, we decided to catch the shuttle bus to Tianzi Mountain. Sadly we were running out of time, so we missed a few stops in between. If you have time you should definitely stop at the Grand Viewing Appointing Terrace Stop and Shentang Bay!

The shuttle bus from No.1 Bridge to Tianzi Mountain Station took around thirty minutes. Once you arrive, you will need to walk ten minutes to Helong Park Station to catch a second shuttle bus. This bus will take you to the Upper Station of Tianzi Mountain Cableway, where you will have to queue to get the Cable Cars down the mountain. This is where you can buy your tickets as well.

Getting to the Cable Cars can take quite a bit of time, especially if you go around sunset. The rules are the last Bailong Elevator goes up at 5pm, from then on you are allowed to stay in the National Park, watch sunset and walk the different paths. You can spend as long as you want, but you ideally want to be heading down before it gets too dark. Luckily, the Cable Cars will run until the last person has left the National Park. The views as you go down are also incredible, and were a huge highlight of the day, so the wait is worth it! The Cable Car ride takes around ten minutes to get to the bottom, and once you have arrived you will need to walk another ten minutes to the shuttle bus stop. This shuttle will take you back to the entrance of the National Park, where the Black Pagoda stands.

Our first time down Tianzi Mountain was pretty relaxed. Before sunset it took us around twenty minutes from arriving to the Cableway Station to getting into a Cable Car. Be aware that people will push in front of you and it is not frowned upon, everyone does it and it’s very annoying!

However, on our second time, as we went later in the day, the queues around sunset were incredibly long, taking us probably two hours to get from the No. 1 Bridge to Tianzi Mountain back to the entrance of the National Park. As the queues are so long for sunset, they group everyone into sections, offering drinks, snacks and a fan to make the wait more bearable. On any other day, we would have been happy to wait, but for this specific time we had to get back to the entrance and our hotel quickly as we had an evening flight to catch that same day! The queues were never ending, so we had to ask if it was possible to go with the next group because we were worried the wait would be too long. If we hadn’t asked or shown them our flight tickets, they wouldn’t have let us go first and we would have been cutting it very close! Just take this into account if you are planning to catch an evening flight the same day!

Tianmen Mountain

Tianmen Mountain is another must visit and is located near to the main town of Zhangjiajie. We got the early morning tickets, taking Route A up the mountain. Our route included taking a Cable Car up the first part of the mountain, before getting a shuttle bus the remainder of the way. Routes B and C are another combination or just getting the Cable Car, which is one of the longest alpine Cable Cars in the world. However, at the time we went, it was closed for maintenance!

Once you reach the top of the mountain, you can see incredible views of the town below! There are also a few shops here for food, coffee or drinks. When you are ready, you can either walk up the 999 steps to Tianmen Cave also known as Heaven's Gate, or you can book the escalators pass, for 32 Yuan. To avoid killing yourself from those incredibly steep steps, you would think everyone would be buying the escalator pass because it was so cheap. However, everyone seemed to want to walk up them for a challenge, which was very impressive, especially in the humid heat!

Once you are at the top of the stairs, you can see the Tianmen Cave a lot closer. Tianmen Cave is the highest, natural rock arch in the world, standing at 131.5 meters high and 57 meters wide. You can also see the incredible views of the base, the winding roads which lead up to the mountain and the distant views of the town below.

From Tianmen Cave, you will need to take a few more escalators up to the summit. As soon as you get off the escalators at the top, there are more cafes, food spots, coffee stands and even a Burger King, much to Ned’s delight! We quickly grabbed some food before following one of the walking routes on the East Line.

Below is a map of the different routes and viewpoints that you can stop at. There are a lot and we missed quite a few because of the bad weather. Do also note, that at the time we went, the Upper Cable Car route and the Glass Skywalks were closed for maintenance. Sadly, we weren’t able to do either of those things, but because the weather was pretty cloudy at the top, we wouldn’t have seen any views anyway. Means we just have to come back again when the weather is better!

From the food section, we were right outside the Transmountain Escalator, where we were lucky enough to see the surrounding views! We then followed the East Line to Fairyland Corner, which took us along the edge of the mountain where we could also see the views below as we walked across.

We then somehow made our way up to the Forest Siteseeing Cable Car/Chair Lift. It was pretty gloomy, but it was a cool ride through the forest, taking us towards the Tianman Mountain Temple. From the temple, we followed the West Line, over the Suspended Bridge and back to the Transmountain Escalator. Sadly, the weather was not on our side, and was cloudy the entire time, covering all the views, which I know would have been incredible otherwise! We debated whether or not to stay and see if the weather would change, but decided to go back down and visit Avatar Mountains instead, as the weather over there was clear skies!

From Transmountain Escalator, we headed back, walking down the 999 steps to the bottom, before catching the Tianmen Cave Express Cableway. Before you reach the Cableway, you will walk along the path in the photos below, where you will see the views of the winding roads with Tianmen Cave in the background! Pretty cool views if you ask me!

Getting the Cableway down was pretty easy, the Cable Cars are a lot bigger than at Avatar Mountain, so they fit in more people, making the queues go quicker. Once you are at the bottom, you will need to walk to the shuttle bus stop, which will take you back to the entrance of the National Park, where you can order a taxi! Pretty incredible way to spend two days exploring both of these sights!

Overall, Zhangjiajie National Park is a must visit when in China! When you see the Hallelujah Mountains in person, you can see how it became the inspiration for Avatar, they are just as cool, as they look in the movie! Even though we have now been, we already know we will be coming back here on our next trip, because it was that good!

Definitely take the weather and time of year into account when planning your trip, as it can genuinely make or break your experience! Too many crowds or humid heat can be a real killer, especially with the amount of walking you will be doing, so you don’t want that you ruin your time there!