People nowadays, especially around my age, love to travel. It seems like we get a feeling of freedom or a sort of relaxation by traveling. As for me, I save all my money during the semester and when the semester is over, I just leave the city to go somewhere else. I love to explore and experience the different cultures but more than that, I love the feeling of being mixed in the society that I actually do not belong to. Therefore, I usually do not make specific plans when traveling but instead just wander around by myself. That is why I have never considered of taking a package tour until I decided to travel to Zhangjiajie. Package tours are not the perfect way for what I pursue when traveling, but I was already so attracted to the city and since it is nearly impossible to travel there alone as it does not have good transport links, I decided to give it a try. Was it worth it? Definitely. Although I never had the chance to meet and get along with the locals, I was overwhelmed by its magnificent landscapes and could feel all the freedom and relaxation. Now, I am back home and I thought I needed to tell people how attractive the city was and, if you are not into package tours, why it is worth giving a try.

To give a brief explanation of the city, Zhangjiajie is located in the northwest of Hunan Province, China. It has become a famous and popular tourist destination after the movie, Avatar, since the hallelujah mountains in the movie are known to be inspired by the mountains in Zhangjiajie national forest park. It was also the purpose of my trip to Zhangjiajie, to see the mountains in person.

On the first day, I flew to Changsha from Incheon. There is no international airport in Zhangjiajie so you should land in Changsha and then move to Zhangjiajie. It took about five hours from Changsha to Zhangjiajie by bus for me. Since I took the package tour, everything was planned and I just followed the plans. I cannot even imagine how to get there from Changsha if I had been alone. Moving from one place to another in the area took a lot of time as well. Because of the long travel time, we had the same bus for our tour group during the entire time of the journey. I stayed there for six days, but even that was too little time to see around the whole area. Plus, the schedule of the tour was really tight. It started at 6:00 in the early morning every day and I usually tried to catch up on sleep in the bus.

A picture is worth a thousand words. Now I would like to show you some pictures of the destinations I have been to and describe what I felt along with an explanation and some must-do things I highly recommend.

- Tian Men Mountain

The very first destination was Tian Men Mountain. I took the cable car to go up to the mountain and I had to wait in a queue. It really made me frustrated because It was really hot and these people kept jumping in the queue. This actually happened all the time during the entire of the trip. I kind of get used to it in the end. Plus, since I could not have enough sleep, I was not really in a great mood. But when I finally took the cable car, it made me forget all the annoyance.

It is the longest cable car ride in the world and it is really fast as well. It actually really scared me at first. I have not taken a lot of cable cars in my life but I can tell you this is the most scenic ride you can take.

Getting off the cable car when I got on the top, I also walked on the glass Skywalk. I was really looking forward to this, but it was too foggy that day and I could not really see anything under the glass. It was all dark so I did not take any pictures of it, which was so disappointing.

- Tian Men Mountain Show

In the evening after dinner, I went to see the show about a fox fairy and a woodsman falling in love with each other. It is an outdoor performance with Tian Men Mountain being used as the stage background. It is a large-scale musical drama and there were Korean subtitles so I could understand the show without any problem. The show itself was so touching that I almost cried.

- Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge

The next day, I went to the world-famous Zhangjiajie Glass Bridge. There were a lot of people and it actually was not as terrifying as I had thought it would be. But still, the scenery I saw on the bridge was really beautiful.

- Enchanting Terrace in Yuanjiajie and Tianzi Mountain

There are a lot of places to visit in the Zhangjiajie national forest park. While there I visited Yuanjiajie and Tianzi Mountain. I took an elevator first to get to Yuanjiajie, which was the highlight of my trip. As I said, Yuanjiajie was the main reason why I decided to travel Zhangjiajie. A camera cannot capture the beauty of this place; it is so much better in reality than in these photos. I still like the photos I took but it is nothing compared to what I saw with my eyes. When I was standing where I took the photos looking at the scenery, I became speechless. After taking a few pictures, I tried to capture it with my own eyes so that I could remember the feeling I had.

After Yuanjiajie I moved to Tianzi Mountain. I took another cable car on the way to the mountain and there I saw a lot of cute monkeys. Those monkeys were so aggressive that they pulled my clothes and I almost got beaten but it was still fun to see monkeys in the mountains.

- Bao Feng Lake and Yellow dragon cave

I took a small boat on Bao Feng lake. It was so beautiful and peaceful, as you can see in the photos. This sightseeing is operated by a Chinese minority race, and they sang their traditional songs to the tourists as well.

Then I moved to see Yellow Dragon cave. Personally, Yellow Dragon Cave was nothing much to see. It is just a huge cave but it did not really attract me that much. First of all, there were so many people I could not even move well. Second, it was so big that my legs hurt very badly. The only thing I liked about the cave was the temperature. It was cold enough that I had to put my light jacket on. Nevertheless, the reason why I mention this cave is because the park where this cave is located is so beautiful. I was so caught up with taking pictures in the park that I made everyone wait for me in the bus.

Besides those destinations above, I did many other things on my trip, too. On the second day, after all the scheduled items, I went to get a full body massage and it was very relaxing. I went to many different shops as well. I got myself a really cute ring, earrings and a bracelet. It was fun to bargain over prices with the vendors, too.

However, the tour was very tough. I had to get up early and even if they fed me Korean food, it was not to my taste. Walking all day was a problem, too. Because of too much walking, I had a terrible muscle pain in my legs. The internet was so slow and since the Chinese government does not allow you to access certain applications, I had to install a VPN, which enabled me to access those applications. I had to turn the VPN on all the time to keep in touch with my friends and family. Therefore, if you want to take a slow-faced comfortable trip, maybe it is not a good idea for you to travel Zhangjiajie on a package tour. However, it really is worth it. I was worried so much before the trip but now it is one of the most unforgettable experiences of my life. I also got to learn how to appreciate nature during the trip. I am not just saying it but I seriously got so inspired and I thought we must preserve nature so that we can let our future generations enjoy nature as well.

Cho Aruem  aruemcho@gmail.com

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