A trip plan built around your dates
Tell us when you’re going, how long you have and who is coming. We’ll send back a day-by-day plan made from the same checked, dated facts as our guides — which gate on which morning, what each ticket actually covers, where to sleep so you never cross the same ground twice.
Updated · China for Travelers Editorial
What one actually looks like
Below is a complete plan, built from a made-up request so you can see the shape of it before you ask for your own. Five days in Zhangjiajie, mid-October, two adults.
- Where
- Zhangjiajie — plus anywhere sensible on the way out
- Dates
- Tue 13 Oct – Sat 17 Oct 2026 (5 days)
- Travellers
- 2 adults, no children
- Coming from / leaving toward
- Shanghai → Changsha
- Pace
- Comfortable — one main thing a day
- Hotels
- Mid-range
- Anything else
- “One of us is not good with heights.”
Arrive · Tianmen Mountain
- Arrive Zhangjiajie West by high-speed train from Shanghai — the long one; see our Shanghai→Zhangjiajie guide for whether to fly it instead.
- Tianmen Mountain on the ¥288 combined ticket (cable car + shuttle + one escalator run).
- Night in the city — the mountain’s base station is in town, so this is the one night you are not near the park.
Sleep: Zhangjiajie city
Tianmen’s signature is the glass skywalk, and you told us one of you isn’t good with heights. The skywalk is an optional add-on, not part of the ¥288 ticket — so we’ve left it out and kept the cable car, which is a cabin, not a ledge. It also means the Grand Canyon glass bridge on Day 4 is a real decision rather than a repeat.
The park plateau — east gate, B-line
- Move hotels this morning: city → Wulingyuan town, by the east gate. Bags stay put for the rest of the trip.
- Be at the gate for the ~07:00 opening. Passport holders use the staffed lane — the self-serve gates read Chinese ID cards only — so arrive 20–30 min before your slot. ¥236 four-day pass.
- Eco-bus → Bailong Elevator (¥65) → Yuanjiajie for the Avatar pillars in morning light → Yangjiajie → Tianzi Mountain for the late-afternoon panorama → Tianzi cable car down (¥72).
Sleep: Wulingyuan (east gate), 3 nights
The elevator queue. 60–90 minutes on a normal morning, and it eats the good light. The 07:00 opening is the whole reason this day starts early — and why we didn’t put your arrival day here.
The valley, one way — south gate in, east gate out
- Shuttle (~¥8, 20–30 min) or taxi (~¥35–50) from Wulingyuan to the south gate.
- Walk the Golden Whip Stream one-way east — 7.5 km, about 3 h, flat the whole way. Keep food out of sight of the macaques.
- Free eco-bus from the Shuiraosimen junction out of the east gate, back at your hotel.
Sleep: Wulingyuan (same hotel)
The stream runs south-to-east, so walking it this way ends at your hotel with no backtracking — and avoids the south gate’s thin after-dark transport. Same pass as yesterday; just reserve a fresh slot for the gate.
Grand Canyon Glass Bridge — or a second bite of the park
- Option A — the glass bridge, ~35–40 min by taxi east of Wulingyuan, on its own timed ticket (~¥178). Book the slot ahead and arrange the ride back.
- Option B — your ¥236 pass is still valid today. Re-enter on the quiet west or north side and see what Day 2 skipped.
- Either way you are back in Wulingyuan for the evening — nothing to repack.
Sleep: Wulingyuan (same hotel)
The bridge is a glass floor 300 m up. Given your note about heights, the honest recommendation is the quiet side of the park — and it costs nothing extra, because the pass you already own covers it. Option A stays on the page because the other one of you may want it, and the plan is yours to change.
Furong Ancient Town on the way out
- Zhangjiajie West → Furong Ancient Town, 23 min on the high-speed line. Ticket ¥108, valid 3 days.
- Half a day covers the town. Its whole identity is the waterfall running through the middle of it — mid-October is past the summer peak flow but still running.
- Carry on toward Changsha the same evening, or stay the night for the lit waterfall after ~18:30.
Sleep: Onward — or one more night in the town
The line runs south-west from Zhangjiajie toward Huaihua, so the towns sit on your way out, not off to the side. Going back to Zhangjiajie afterwards would be the only wasted leg in the whole trip — so we routed the exit through it instead.
What the tickets cost, per person
| Tianmen Mountain (combined) | ¥288 |
| Wulingyuan park pass (4 days, incl. eco-buses) | ¥236 |
| Bailong Elevator (one way, up) | ¥65 |
| Tianzi Mountain cable car (one way, down) | ¥72 |
| Furong Ancient Town | ¥108 |
Trains, hotels and food are yours to choose, so they aren’t in this table. If you were taking more lifts than this plan does, the ¥238 four-ride combo (4 days) would start to win — that arithmetic is in the park guide, and it is the kind of thing your own plan works out for your own days.
Want the generic version first? The 1–6 day Zhangjiajie itinerary guide covers every length; this page is what it looks like once it’s pinned to real dates and a real answer about heights.
How it works
- 1 · You fill the formTwo or three minutes. Structured questions, not an essay — the detail you give is what makes the plan fit.
- 2 · We assemble itAn editor builds it from our verified data — not auto-generated.
- 3 · We send you a linkYour plan lives at its own web address, so you can open it on the road and print it before you go.
We can only do this properly for places we’ve actually verified in depth, so Zhangjiajie and its neighbours are where the plans are strongest right now. Ask anyway — if we can’t do your route justice we’ll say so rather than send you filler.
Ask for yours
Email is the only thing we need — that’s how the plan reaches you. We use it for your plan and nothing else.
Questions
Is it really free?
Yes. There is nothing to pay and no account to create. The site is funded by affiliate commission when readers book hotels or trains through our links — the plan contains those links, and you are free to ignore every one of them.
Do you book anything for me?
No. We are not a travel agency and we never take payment, deposits or bookings on your behalf. You get a plan; you book whatever you want, wherever you want. That also means nobody is paying us to put a particular hotel in your itinerary.
How long does it take?
We aim to send it within a couple of days. Every plan is assembled by an editor from our verified data rather than generated automatically, so we would rather be a day slower than send you a wrong opening time.
What if a price or a schedule changes before I travel?
Every fact in your plan carries the date it was checked, so you can see what is fresh and what deserves a second look. Chinese park tickets, cable-car maintenance windows and last-bus times all move — the plan says so, on the facts where it matters.
Can I get the plan in my own language?
Ask and we will try. You can fill the form in whatever language you are comfortable with — English is not required. We write plans in English by default, and in your language when it is one we can check properly. We would rather tell you no than send you a translation we cannot stand behind, because the whole point of the plan is that its numbers are right.
Do I have to give you my WhatsApp number?
No. Email is all we need to send the plan. The WhatsApp field is optional, and it is only there because some questions are much faster to answer in a chat than over email.
How this is made and paid for
Plans are assembled by an editor from the same verified dataset behind our guides — ticket prices and lift fares read from operator and official notices, distances and transfer times routed on Chinese mapping data, and queue and timing patterns drawn from current Chinese traveller reports. It is an editorial reference, not a first-hand trip report, and not a booking service: we take no payment and carry no responsibility for what you book. The plan contains affiliate links to Trip.com for hotels and trains; if you book through one we earn a commission at no extra cost to you, and it is what funds the site. It never changes what goes in the plan — the reason a hotel is in there is that it is in the right place.