Zhijin Cave in Bijie, Guizhou! Explore the Avatar-like underground fantasy world with your kids

📍Address: Zhijin Cave, Bijie, Guizhou (🚅 Take the high-speed train from Chengdu to Bijie, then rent a car for a super convenient drive—129 KM from Bijie city, about 1 hour and 39 minutes)
⏰Best time to visit: All year round! Perfect for summer heat relief (but summer vacation is really crowded, so plan ahead when bringing kids)
🏨Accommodation tips: Recommend the nearby "Zhijin Cave Wild Luxury Cloud Hotel," a top-tier wild luxury setup! The hotel is nestled in the forest, with lush mountain views right outside the window, and you can watch the evening glow over the mountains at dusk. The rooms have family-themed setups with small tents, picture books, and toys specially prepared for kids. At night, you can listen to the insects and watch the stars from the terrace. It’s only a 20-minute drive to the scenic area the next day, making it super worry-free for families!
🎫Tickets (combo):
Zhijin Cave + Grand Canyon + Sightseeing Bus + Elevator starting at 200 RMB
(Here’s a little calculation: The Grand Canyon costs 60 RMB, which includes 20 RMB for the sightseeing bus and 40 RMB for the elevator. If you visit the Grand Canyon first and then Zhijin Cave, you’ll need to pay an additional 110 RMB for the cave ticket, 20 RMB for the sightseeing bus, and 10 RMB for insurance, totaling about 200 RMB. Buying the combo ticket is more cost-effective~)
Zhijin Cave is known as the "King of Chinese Karst Caves." Walking inside with kids feels like entering an underground palace from a fairy tale. Don’t miss these must-photograph spots!
✅ Overlord Helmet 🏆
A giant stalagmite 14-17 meters tall, shaped like an ancient general’s helmet. The bottom is a hat-shaped stalagmite, and the top is rod-shaped, with a pearly surface. It’s one of Zhijin Cave’s "Three Treasures"! You can tell your kids, "This is a gemstone helmet made by nature for a general, taking 150,000 years to form," which will captivate them. It originally formed a hat shape due to heavy water flow, then the rod shape grew as the water flow decreased—super amazing!
✅ Silver Rain Tree 🌲
A 17-meter-tall "white jade tree" that everyone loves! Pure white and shaped like a pine tower, it looks like an exquisite ivory pagoda from afar and is also one of the "Three Treasures." It formed from water droplets accumulating slowly, going through tower, pine ball, and flower stages, and is still growing. When showing it to kids, you can ask, "Look, this ‘tree’ is still growing. Will it be taller next time we come?"
✅ Lingzhi Mountain 🍄
A giant "lingzhi mushroom" about 50 meters tall, bigger than any toy your kids have seen! It formed as water surface tension slowly seeped along the plate shape, creating a layered structure. Standing underneath and looking up, kids can’t help but exclaim, "Such a big lingzhi! Was it planted by immortals?"
✅ Pillar Reaching the Sky ⚡
A 37.5-meter-tall stone pillar that’s incredibly impressive! Its diameter is only 0.6-1.2 meters, making it the slimmest stone pillar discovered in the world. It formed 150,000 years ago through balanced water droplet deposition. You can play a "height comparison" game with your kids, telling them, "This pillar is as tall as stacking 12 dads," which will make their eyes widen as they compare!
✅ Sister Jade Trees 🌿
Two crystal-clear tower-shaped stalagmites, similar in height and shape, like a pair of close sisters, still growing. When showing them to kids, say, "These are nature’s twin sisters. Don’t they look exactly alike?" Kids will even greet the pillars themselves~
✅ Magnificent Landscape 🏔️
The world’s largest and most spectacular wall flow stone group, like a giant landscape painting, featuring stone waterfalls, stone curtains, and stone flags. It’s one of Zhijin Cave’s "Nine Wonders." Let kids point and guess, "Which one looks like a waterfall? Which one looks like a flag?" You can play a "spot the difference" game for a long time~
✅ Universal Salvation 🙏
Composed of large, medium, and small tower-shaped stalagmites, some look like Buddha preaching, others like Arhats listening attentively, vividly lifelike, also one of the "Nine Wonders." You can tell simple stories to your kids, who will listen quietly and ask, "What are they saying?"
✅ Upside-down Pipa 🎸
A natural stalactite shaped like a pipa (Chinese lute), hanging from the cave ceiling, as if someone is about to play a tune. It’s one of the "Nine Wonders." Let kids try to "count the strings," which is great for developing observation skills!
"After visiting Huangshan, no other mountain compares; outside Zhijin Cave, there’s no other cave paradise." Walking around with kids, you’ll truly marvel at nature’s craftsmanship, and kids will keep asking, "How was this formed?"—a perfect chance for some science education~
🚶‍♀️【Tips for visiting】
✔️The cave temperature is about 16°C, so be sure to bring a light jacket for your kids! It’s a bit cold when you first enter, but after walking a while, you’ll warm up. Easy-to-remove jackets are the most practical🧥
✔️Wear non-slip shoes! Some parts of the cave are slippery, and kids running and jumping can easily fall. Non-slip sneakers or hiking shoes are safest⚠️
✔️To avoid crowds, it’s best to enter at 8:30 AM or 3 PM. There’s also a night session after 7:30 PM when fewer people are inside, so you can stroll slowly with kids without the crowds👫 Last time we came from the Grand Canyon around 11 AM, the cave was packed with people, and it took two hours with hardly any stops. The kids got a bit tired, so don’t follow our example‼️