Zhangjiajie National Forest Park (Avatar Mountains)

You can easily reach Zhangjiajie by train from a lot of places around China. Once in Zhangjiajie, I would recommend staying in the village of Wulingyuan. This is around 30 minutes by car from Zhangjiajie, and will make it a lot easier to reach the National Park early in the morning. You can order a Didi (taxi) for around 10 euros, or take a public bus for the cheaper option to reach Wulingyuan.

Once in Wulingyuan, you are close to one of the entrances of the national park. All the accommodations in this area are 100% accommodated to help you visit the National Park. When we arrived at our accommodation, we made a whole day by day plan of what we wanted to see and do. They also advised us on which tickets to buy, and even bought the tickets for us.

There are multiple ticket options, depending on how many days you want to visit, and how many cable-ways you are planning to take. But the people from the accommodation can help you with this.

Inside the park there will be free buses bringing you around the highlights, this is the only way to get around the different areas in the park.

We decided to stay 3 days in this area, and visited the National Park for each of these days, and by doing so almost saw everything in the National Park. If you want to see everything I would recommend staying 3 days, but if you want 2 days can also be enough to see all the highlights. How many days you need also depends on how much you are walking, versus how many cable-ways you are taking.

There are many highlights around Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, and like I described before, the people from your accommodation can and will help you with choosing a good route.

Some of the highlights which you should visit are:

• Golden Whip Stream: a flat area between the mountains, where you walk among the limestone mountains. This hike will be around 6 kilometers long, and gives you an amazing few from below.

• Yuanjiajie: the part that is known for the most famous “Avatar Mountain” view. You can walk along boardwalks and view the quartz-sandstone pillars. This is best reachable from the East gate of the National Park, and you will need to take the Bailong Elevator.

• Huangshi Village: aerial plateau which you can reach by cable-way or by foot. This is close to the South gate of the National Park.

The weather can be tricky in this area, because you are between the mountains. We had rain, fog and sunshine on the same day. Make sure to bring the correct clothes and shoes. You have the option to walk a lot, but you can also skip a lot of walking by taking all the cable-cars.

Bring your passport, because you need this for the tickets. Also know that this area can be incredibly busy, especially during holidays or weekends. I would recommend entering the park early.