Zhangjiajie National Forest Park tours sell from $59.10 for a guided day with the ticket included. The park's own four-day pass is ¥240 and pays for none of the lifts, so the real decision is who buys your elevator ride and which gate you walk through at 07:00.
Updated August 2026
Quick answer
A guided Zhangjiajie National Forest Park tour costs $59.10 for a full day inside the park with the entrance ticket included, and $185 to $205 for a two-day itinerary that adds Tianmen Mountain or the Grand Canyon Glass Bridge. Going alone, the official four-day park pass is ¥240 (about $33), but the Bailong Elevator and the three cableways cost ¥65 to ¥76 each on top, and every entry runs on a booked time slot tied to your passport.
Key takeaways
top pick The Itinerary Most People Book
Rating and review count are the operator's own figures, as published on GetYourGuide.
The highest-rated guided Zhangjiajie itinerary on GetYourGuide, and the one that bundles every headline sight into one price: Forest Park with the Bailong Elevator and Hallelujah Mountain on day one, the Grand Canyon Glass Bridge and Tianmen Mountain on day two. Entry tickets, park shuttles, cable cars, guide, driver and hotel pickup around the East Gate or downtown Zhangjiajie are all included. Mini-group (about 12 people) or private options.
Prices checked 3 August 2026 in USD.
Live availability for the $99 itinerary. Morning departures fill first in April, May, September and October, and mini-group slots close earlier than private ones.
Two of these are guided itineraries, three are tickets you use on your own schedule, and one leaves the mountains for the river towns. Read what each price includes before you compare the numbers, because entry, shuttles and lifts sit in different places on each listing.
from $99Top Rated — 4.9★, 666 Reviews 
from $59Top Rated — 4.8★, 226 Reviews 
from $59Tianmen Mountain Ticket 
from $102Best for Independent Visits 
from $199Private Day Trip 
from $59Choose Your Own Lifts Three ways into the same pillars, and the gap between them narrows once you count the lifts. A ¥240 pass looks like a third of the guided price until you add ¥65 for the Bailong Elevator, ¥72 for the Tianzi Mountain cableway and a taxi from Wulingyuan.
| Way in | Cost per person | What it covers | Book | Suits |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Guided day | $59.10 to $99 | Entry, shuttles, lifts, guide, pickup | A first visit, 1 to 2 days | |
| Official pass | ¥240 + ¥65–76 a lift | Four days of entry and eco-shuttle buses only | Long stays, repeat visits | |
| Pass, unlimited lifts | About $102 | Entry plus every cableway and the elevator | Three or four days walking | |
| Two-day guided | $185 to $205 | Park plus Tianmen or the Glass Bridge | All three sights in one trip |
The park fee list is published in yuan and changes little year to year. Converted here at ¥7.2 to the dollar, checked 3 August 2026. Guided listings fold most of these into one price, which is why a $59.10 day is closer to break-even than it looks.
Zhangjiajie is a city of about 1.5 million people. Zhangjiajie National Forest Park is one section of a larger protected area called Wulingyuan, which also takes in Tianzi Mountain, Suoxi Valley and Yangjiajie. UNESCO inscribed Wulingyuan in 1992 for its quartz-sandstone pillar landform, and the park came first in fame, so the city ended up named after it.
The numbers behind the scenery: 398 square kilometres, more than 3,000 sandstone pillars, and 243 of them standing above 1,000 metres. One ticket admits you to the whole connected area, which is why a four-day pass is not the extravagance it sounds like.
Two places people assume are inside the park are not. Tianmen Mountain rises directly above the city, 30 kilometres south, and charges its own ¥288. The Grand Canyon Glass Bridge sits east of Wulingyuan and charges ¥178. Any listing that promises all three is selling you two or three separate tickets under one price.
Yuanjiajie is where the film crew for Avatar took their reference photographs, and the pillar now signposted as Hallelujah Mountain is the reason most visitors come. It is a fifteen-minute walk from the top of the Bailong Elevator, along a paved path that also reaches the First Bridge Under Heaven and the Mihun Terrace viewpoint.
The mist is the variable nobody can book. On a clear day you see the pillars in full; after rain, cloud pours between them and half of them disappear, which is the shot that sells the destination. Guides on the $99 itinerary aim for Yuanjiajie early, before the elevator queue builds and while cloud still sits in the valleys.
Tianzi Mountain, an hour away by shuttle, gives the wider view of the same rock: the Imperial Brush Peaks, and a horizon of columns rather than a single famous one. Most people who describe Zhangjiajie as crowded went to Yuanjiajie at midday and stopped there.
Golden Whip Stream runs 7.5 kilometres along the valley floor, flat, paved and shaded, with the pillars closing overhead. It takes two to three hours at a photographer's pace and needs no lift ticket. Guided one-day itineraries often skip it to fit the summits in, which is the clearest argument for buying a longer pass and going back.
Huangshizhai sits on the opposite side of the park, reached by its own ¥65 cableway or a stair climb of about two hours. Yangjiajie, in the north west, has the sheerest walls and the thinnest crowds.
Stone steps are the constant. The park is not a wilderness hike, it is a system of paved paths, staircases and shuttle stops, and the tiring part is the number of steps between them rather than the distance.
Your first entry has to use the gate you booked, and the gates sit on opposite sides of the massif. Pick the wrong one and you spend the morning on a shuttle. After that first scan you can exit and re-enter freely for the rest of the ticket's four days.
Free eco-shuttle buses link every scenic area inside the park, so you can enter at one gate and leave from another. The three other gates, Zumugang in the centre, Yangjiajie in the west and Tianzi Mountain in the north, serve specific areas and are rarely the right first choice.
| Route | Gate | Lifts you pay for | Time | Covers |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Classic day one | East Gate | Bailong Elevator ¥65, Tianzi cableway ¥72 | 7 to 9 h | Yuanjiajie, Hallelujah Mountain, Tianzi Mountain |
| Valley day | South Gate | None | 4 to 6 h | Golden Whip Stream, Ten Miles Gallery |
| Huangshizhai | South Gate | Cableway ¥65 each way | 3 to 4 h | The plateau view over the whole park |
| Yangjiajie | West or East Gate | Cableway ¥76 | 4 to 5 h | Natural Great Wall, thinner crowds |
| Two-day combination | East then South | About ¥210 in lifts | 2 days | Everything above at a walking pace |
Guided Zhangjiajie National Forest Park tours book the gate and the time slot for you. On a self-bought pass, that reservation is your job, and it is the step people miss.
Two full days is the working minimum for the park itself: one for Yuanjiajie and Tianzi Mountain, one for Golden Whip Stream and Huangshizhai. A single day covers the Avatar peaks and nothing else, which is what the $59.10 guided day is honest about selling.
Add Tianmen Mountain and you need a third day, because it is a separate mountain with its own cable car and its own queue. The Glass Bridge takes half a day and sits 40 minutes east of Wulingyuan. Four days covers all of it without a rushed morning, and the ticket happens to run for exactly that long.
The four-day validity is the argument for the pass. Weather here turns over fast, and a re-entry on day three costs nothing when the mist that ruined your first attempt at Yuanjiajie has lifted.
Park entry is real-name. Your booking has to match your passport exactly, the passport is what you show at the gate, and facial recognition registers you on the first scan so later entries take seconds. No paper ticket exists.
Entry runs on time slots: the first is 06:30 to 07:00, then hourly through the day, with the last entry at 17:00. Book at least 24 hours ahead, and a week ahead around Chinese public holidays. Some park-ticket listings stop selling altogether during Chinese New Year, 1 to 5 May and 1 to 7 October.
What to carry:
March to May and September to mid-November give the mildest weather and the mist that makes the pillars photograph well. July and August bring heat, thunderstorms and the Chinese school holidays at once. Winter is quiet and occasionally spectacular under snow, though cableways close in high wind and Hehua Airport fogs in from November to March.
Two periods are worth rearranging a trip around. National Day, 1 to 7 October, and Labour Day, 1 to 5 May, push the park far past its comfortable capacity, and demand for the Bailong Elevator runs to nearly three times what it can carry in a day. Standing in a two-hour lift queue is the memory people bring home from those weeks.
| Season | Weather | Crowds | Worth knowing |
|---|---|---|---|
| March to May | 12 to 24 °C, frequent mist | Busy, packed 1 to 5 May | The best mist-to-clear-sky ratio of the year |
| June to August | 24 to 33 °C, storms | Heaviest of the year | Start at 06:30 or skip the summits until late afternoon |
| September to mid-November | 10 to 25 °C, stable | Busy, chaotic 1 to 7 October | Clearest long views, best light on the pillars |
| Mid-November to February | 0 to 12 °C, snow possible | Thin | Some cableways close in wind, flights delay in fog |
What the mist, the crowds and the temperature do across the year, and where the park's own calendar gets in the way.
Temperatures are typical daytime ranges in the valley. The summits run 3 to 6 °C colder, and the wind at Tianzi Mountain makes it feel colder again.
Zhangjiajie National Forest Park lies about 30 kilometres north of Zhangjiajie city, roughly 40 minutes by car or an hour by public bus. Buses from Zhangjiajie West high-speed railway station reach Wulingyuan in about 40 minutes for ¥13, and hotel pickups on the guided itineraries cover the same run.
Jiya was a fantastic and very inspiring guide! She showed us all the best places and views! And she learned us so much about the region and China! We recommend her as your guide!
It was very easy with entry via passport and we were able to explore and take our time. We took the cable car up which was an incredible way to start with the dramatic views, walked up the 999 stairs to Tianmen Cave, and did the full three hour route along the East Path at the top.
Everything is linked to your passport. We took the cablecars more than once, the elevator and saw the whole park. It gives you a lot of freedom that there is no limit. You may have to alter your time-slot for your ticket each day, but it is very easy and they help you at the park.
Reviews as published by the operators on GetYourGuide, quoted with the reviewer's country and month.
One listing's $59 buys a guided day with entry inside it. Another's buys a four-day ticket and nothing else. The word tour covers both on this SERP.
The 4.8-rated group listing advertises from $6. That is the escalator-and-shoe-covers option. Its real guided days start at $59.10 and run to $205.
¥65 for the Bailong Elevator, ¥72 for Tianzi Mountain, ¥76 for Yangjiajie, each way. Two people on a two-day visit spend more on lifts than on entry.
The park, Tianmen Mountain and the Grand Canyon each charge separately, whoever books them. A cheap two-day price usually means one of them is missing.
666 reviews on one itinerary, a single review on another. A thin count often means a new listing rather than a weak operator, so read the provider name.
Entry is tied to a gate and an hour. Guided tours handle that reservation. On a self-bought pass, an unbooked day three is a wasted day three.
Two full days covers the park itself: Yuanjiajie and Tianzi Mountain on one, Golden Whip Stream and Huangshizhai on the other. Three to four days if you add Tianmen Mountain and the Glass Bridge, which are separate scenic areas with their own tickets. The official pass runs four days for that reason, and the unlimited-lift version suits anyone staying that long.
Two fixed weeks: 1 to 7 October for National Day and 1 to 5 May for Labour Day, when the park runs far past capacity and the Bailong Elevator queue swallows a morning. Chinese New Year in late January or February is the third, and some ticket listings stop selling during all three. July and August are hot and busy but workable if you take the 06:30 entry slot. March to May and September to mid-November are the windows worth planning around.
Yes. The pass is sold to foreign passports, entry is by passport with facial recognition, and free eco-shuttle buses connect every scenic area inside the park. Two things make it harder than it sounds: each entry needs a booked gate and time slot, and English signage inside is thin. The four-day pass with unlimited lifts removes the second cost problem, and a guided day removes the planning.
¥240 buys four days of entry plus the eco-shuttle buses that link the scenic areas, and safety insurance. It does not include the Bailong Elevator (¥65 one way), the Tianzi Mountain (¥72), Yangjiajie (¥76) or Huangshizhai (¥65) cableways, or the Ten Miles Gallery tram (¥38). A guided day such as the $59.10 Forest Park itinerary folds entry and the named lifts into one price.
No. Tianmen Mountain rises above Zhangjiajie city, 30 kilometres from the park, and charges ¥288 including its 7,455-metre cableway. The 999 steps climb to Tianmen Cave, which stands 131.5 metres high, and the road below has 99 bends. The escalator that skips the steps costs ¥32 and the glass skywalk needs ¥5 shoe covers. You can buy it as a ticket with the cable car or take it as day two of a guided combination.
High-speed trains from Changsha reach Zhangjiajie West in two to three and a half hours, and buses from the station take about 40 minutes to Wulingyuan for ¥13. Hehua Airport (DYG) takes domestic flights and fogs in regularly from November to March. From Wulingyuan the East Gate is ten minutes away; from downtown it is 30 kilometres and about 40 minutes.
Gates open at 06:30 and the last entry is at 17:00, with entry running in booked time slots from 06:30 to 07:00 and then hourly. Cableways and the Bailong Elevator stop earlier than the gates, generally by late afternoon, and close entirely in high wind. Plan to be off the summits by 17:00 unless you intend to walk down.
Fenghuang and Furong ancient towns make a full day out of Zhangjiajie, three hours' drive south into Xiangxi. Furong is built over a waterfall and Fenghuang lines the Tuo River with stilt houses that light up after dark. It runs as a private day trip at $199, and it is the usual alternative to a third day of stone steps.
