Zhangjiajie travel info

At 7am on the Yuanjiajie viewing platforms, there's nothing below the railing but white. Cloud fills the valleys, then drains slowly as the sun climbs, and one by one the sandstone pillars surface, each with a few pines clinging to its top. There are more than 3,000 of them, some hundreds of metres tall. Plenty of people think of the floating mountains in Avatar, and one pillar in the park now carries the name.

A trip here means shuttling between two places. Downtown Zhangjiajie (Yongding District), with the airport and stations, is where the Tianmen Mountain cableway lifts off between apartment blocks and climbs for the best part of half an hour to the summit, where a huge natural arch, Tianmen Cave, punches through the rock. About 40 minutes north by bus, Wulingyuan is the gateway town to the pillar forest. Hotels and restaurants crowd around the ticket gate, and many visitors base themselves there and use a multi-day ticket to go back into the park day after day.

This is a place you see on foot: bring good walking shoes, a rain jacket and more days than you think you need.

Zhangjiajie Hehua International Airport (DYG)

Zhangjiajie West Station (high-speed rail) (HSR)