Travel Log: Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, Hunan Province, China

 If you follow me on Instagram, you may have seen that I recently returned from an amazing trip to China. My husband and I spent 17 days (including travel days) exploring several regions of this massive country. We visited Shanghai, Zhangjiejie National Forest Park, Tianmenshan National Forest Park, Beijing, Xi'an, and Suzhou. When we were planning our itinerary for this trip, I asked my husband where he wanted to go and Zhangjiajie National Forest Park was at the top of his list. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is located in the northwestern portion of the Hunan province in central China, is the oldest national park in China (established in 1982!), a UNESCO World Heritage site as of 1992, and is known for its stunning quartzite sandstone pillars that inspired the floating "Hallelujah Mountains" in the 2009 movie "Avatar." After a few days in the busy city of Shanghai, it was a nice change of pace to be surrounded by nature. Please continue on to see more photos and details of how we spent two days touring the different sections of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park.

Traveling from Shanghai to Zhangjiajie was not difficult or expensive, as there are nonstop flights from Shanghai Pudong International Airport (PVG) to Zhangjiajie Hehua Airport (DYG) on China Eastern Airlines (a Delta Airlines Skyteam partner, so we got a few MQDs out of the flight) with a flight time of approximately 2.5 hours. It is also possible to take a direct high speed train from Shanghai Hongqiao Station to Zhangjiajie West Station that takes about 7 hours. We opted for a nonstop flight departing Shanghai around 8:00am and arriving around 10:30am in Zhangjiajie. There are a number of smaller hotels and guest houses in this area, and we chose one called Celestial Valley with beautiful wood cabins situated right in the mountains with the most stunning views (more on the hotel in my next post). We took a Didi (Chinese version of Uber/Lyft) to our hotel, ride time was about 40 minutes from the airport and very affordable compared to Seattle pricing (~$15 USD). Our hotel was located close to the East Gate of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park (~5 minute drive) and not too far from the Southern Gate (less than 30 minutes). Since we were out of the larger cities, I had a great opportunity to practice my Mandarin (and use Google translate to supplement where needed) and coordinated multi-day access tickets to the national park plus a helicopter ride through our hotel the day we arrived. Our hotel offered free transportation to the park entrances and drove us to the East Gate, where the helicopter pad was only a short walk away. I sat in the front next to the pilot, my hubby sat in the back, and we were treated to jaw-dropping views of the forest park and surrounding area.

The hotel we chose, Celestial Valley, is classified as a "guest house" or "bed and breakfast" rather than a traditional hotel. This meant that we enjoyed a delicious homemade breakfast of local noodle soups, fried eggs, dumplings, fruit, and red beans each morning along with coffee, milk, and juice. I love noodle soups and these breakfasts were hands down some of my favorite meals during our time in China! We made sure to head to breakfast early (7:00am) so that we could enjoy our meal and then jump in our transport to the National Park gates to beat the crowds. The first day, we hustled to the East Gate in order to scan our passports and faces (tickets are tied to your passport number, so you only scan your passport once, and then facial recognition enables you to get through the rest of the entry points/gates during your visit--pretty cool!), then jump on a shuttle bus for about a five minute drive up the mountain to a cable car. This national park is massive--the area is almost 12,000 acres and one of the guides we spoke to shared that there are over 3,000 of the quartzite sandstone pillars within the park. While technically you could walk between the different sections via the roads, they are quite far apart and connected with a series of shuttle buses. We visited in low season, but due to some scheduled maintenance on the cable car that forced everyone to follow the same route the day we were there, one of the shuttle lines took 1.5 hours in a Disneyland style line. That was rough, but the balance of the lines were 30 minutes or less throughout the day. My recommendation is that if you go, plan to wait and take your patience, since this park is extremely popular with both Chinese and Korean tourists. The views were stunning, each segment of the park has plenty of space to walk around and take photos, and is absolutely worth taking your time to explore and not rush through it.

One particularly vibrant part of the park is called the "First Bridge Under Heaven" or "Tianxiadiyiqiao" where guests can purchase red ribbons with specific wishes written on them such as good health, love, and prosperity. Guests then tie their ribbons on the railings, or the trees, in order to make their wish come true. Walking through this area and seeing thousands of red ribbons fluttering in the breeze really puts in perspective how many visitors this national park receives. We went ahead and purchased a wish ribbon and found a spot to tie it, let's see if our wish comes true. This particular day we did not hire a guide, but our guide for Tianmenshan National Park (more on that another day) told us that the daily limit in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is 45,000 people/tickets. In the weeks leading up to our trip, we watched some YouTube videos of people who visited in the high season where a person could spend six hours waiting in lines to move around the park, and it makes so much more sense when you hear that the daily cap is 45,000 people. When we visited mid-November the weather was still very good (65 degrees with some sunshine) and the park was quite busy, but with a bit of patience we still could find space to ourselves to enjoy the views as you can see in these photos.

As I mentioned earlier, there were plenty of visitors in the national park, but the vast amount of space and walkways meant that everyone could spread out and enjoy the stunning views. I can see why Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is so popular during the fall season with its unique quartzite sandstone pillars, beautiful red, orange, and yellow fall leaves, and fresh mountain air. We spent a full day exploring the different sections taking in the views and I highly recommend taking your time if you visit this park.

One of the "can't miss" attractions of Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is the Bailong (Hundred Dragons) Elevator. This attraction is recognized by the Guinness World Records as the World's Tallest Outdoor Elevator and it takes just 1 minute 32 seconds to ascend or descend 1,071 feet (326 meters). You need to purchase a separate ticket for the elevator ride, but our hotel coordinated this along with our national park tickets and cable car tickets. You just need to make sure that you talk through your itinerary and what you want to do on each day to ensure that you have all of the right tickets and timing sorted. The elevator line moves fairly fast because the line sorts into three double-decker elevator cars, meaning there are multiple upstairs lines and multiple downstairs lines. We were directed downstairs to one of the bottom cars, and then packed in for the speedy ride down. Once you exit the elevator, walk out to the viewing area and look up, you really can see how high up it is and I'm glad we experienced a ride on this elevator.

After descending the elevator, we waited in a short line for a shuttle bus to take us back to the East Gate where we started our day. That bus ride was about 15 minutes, and once we exited the East Gate it was late afternoon and time to find a restaurant for dinner. Fortunately, there are many restaurants located in short walking distance from the East Gate and many of them feature a variety of local dishes such as hot pot, braised meats, and stir fried meat and veggies with hot peppers. We had a delicious meal and then coordinate for our hotel to pick us up and bring us back home to wrap up day one in Zhangjiajie National Forest Park. Day 2 started with another delicious breakfast, and then our hotel drove us to the less busy Southern Gate to explore the Huangshizhai Village and hike a popular 4 mile trail called the Golden Whip Stream. After being jostled frequently in lines and on walking paths the day before, exploring this quieter area felt wonderful. Once we quickly scanned our faces and entered the South Gate, we walked a short distance to a shuttle bus that only took a few minutes to drop us at a cable car entrance to Huangshizhai Village with more stunning views of the mountains from the opposite side of the park. Since this part of the park was quieter, we were able to have a car to ourselves and walk around with plenty of breathing room.

After descending via the cable car, we took the quick shuttle bus ride back to the South Gate entrance and followed signs for the "Golden Whip Stream" trail. When researching this part of the park, I frequently saw mention of the "Golden Whip Stream hike," but I think that "hike" is a generous term. It is a 4.6 mile (7.5km) fully paved, wheelchair accessible, and mostly flat path that winds through the forest floor along a river. Is it worth walking if you can? Absolutely! The views are stunning and you gain a different perspective looking up at the mountains from the ground as opposed to mid-mountain. I gained a better understanding of just how tall these pillars are, and very much enjoyed the stroll with the sounds of the river and the wind in the trees. One thing to note is that this area of the park has a large number of monkey residents, they have learned over time that visitors often carry food with them, and they can be very aggressive. We saw monkeys jump and claw at several people along the trail, grabbing at their bags or clothing. It is best to not carry any food with you (we did not have any and they paid no attention to us) and just avoid them. The trail ends at one of the junctions near the Bailong Elevator where grabbed a bite to eat and then jumped on a shuttle that took us back to the East Gate where we could easily get back to our hotel.

I am so glad that we allowed multiple days to explore Zhangjiajie National Forest Park, as I have read that quite a few tourists only allow one day and can only see a few areas of this massive and beautiful park. Knowing this infomration, it makes sense that certain areas are so busy and others are completely empty and we really enjoyed taking our time to explore the quieter areas. Some tour groups only take one day to visit Zhangjiajie National Forest Park -and- Tianmenshan National Forest Park, which we visited a third day after these two days. That sounds absolutely exhausting and I highly recommend staying in this area for four nights like we did: Day One was arrival, a helictopter ride, and dinner near the East Gate, Day Two was the higher East section of the park with the most popular viewpoints of the "Avatar Mountains," Day Three was the lower South section of the park more gorgeous views of the "Avatar Mountains" and the "Golden Whip Stream" trail, Day Four we did a full day tour of Tianmenshan National Park, and Day Five we relaxed at our hotel before departing for the airport and our flight to our next city. Please stay tuned for more travel logs and thank you for reading all the way through to the end. I hope you have a wonderful week!