China’s Most Beautiful Waters | 2 Days in Jiuzhai

Jiuzhaigou (Jiuzhai Valley) is one of the most beautiful national parks in China, famous for its jewel-toned lakes and tiered waterfalls. It is named after the nine ancient Tibetan villages that are located along the length of the valley. Nearest major city is Chengdu, Sichuan.

[Some tips]

Accommodation: all hotels are outside the national park. Just use Booking.com or Trip.com to find a hotel as they definitely can host international guests. My hotel (not sponsored) was https://www.trip.com/hotels/detail/?h... and they had free shuttle bus to and from the park.

Transport: I bought my train tickets on Trip.com as well - they were gone within minutes! Definitely check in advance when the sale starts. Then I booked bus on WeChat via "远山出行" - there are probably other options but I was recommended this one. There were some drivers outside the train station as well but not sure if they are reliable.

Jiuzhaigou map: https://en.jiuzhai.com/plan-your-trip... The top right corner/peak of the trail is the most pretty park so should be prioritised if you only have one day. We felt 2 day gave us more time to enjoy it (and also buffer for the risk of a bad weather day) though you need to buy two individual day tickets.

Getting into and out of the park: A lot of people would be queueing to enter before 10am because many people are only having a day trip to Jiuzhaigou so they want to maximise the time in park. Similarly, a lot of people would be getting out right before it closes. We got out of the park at 6pm on day 2 and the traffic was just so bad that we had to walk. No taxi could get in.

Peak season: Avoid the two big holiday weeks of China (first week of May and first week of Oct). We went in the last week of Oct but it's actually when the leaves are supposed to turn golden so it's also another peak season for the park. I would probably avoid late Oct and early Nov as well unless you are going for the 🍁 leaves!

[Timestamps]
0:00 Intro & Hotel
0:26 Day 1 (Rainy ☔️)
3:42 Day 2 (Sunny ☀️)
5:30 Queueing 🧋