There are buses to jiuzhaigou valley twice every day from Chengdu chadianzi bus station and Xinnanmen bus station. Although there are only about 450km from Chengdu to Jiuzhaigou valley, as serpentine appears frequently, it takes 10 hours (almost a whole day) on the way. The bus goes along Minjiang River Valley (one of the ancient tea horse route) to its source Mt.Gonggangling.
Aftter your visiting Jiuzhaigou, you can also take the bus back to Chengdu. If you want to make further tour in Tibet area, you can also change your bus at Chuanzhusi or Songpan from where you take the bus to Huanglong or Hongyuan. Hongyuan is especially recommended by us because you can see the vast grassland there, and after that you can take the bus back to Chengdu via Miyaluo and Lixian county. By this route you can see more beautiful scenery.
After the 5.12 Wenchuan earthquake, tour buses are not allowed to drive through this way. We got the latest news that since Apr.2010, tour buses can go to Jiuzhaigou through this route Chengdu-Mianyang-Jingyou-Pingwu-Jiuzhaigou county-Jiuzhaigou Scenic area. It is about 500Km long but the road contidion is better than the quake-hit one.
Another choice is go by air, which is much more comfortable and safe. The Jiuzhaigou - Huanglong Airport is located at Chuanzhusi Township. It is 83km and 52km respectively from the Jiuzhaigou Entrance and Huanglong. Its official serves started on September 28,2003, via A319 and B737 airliners. It is easy to take a 45min flight, and then 1 1/2 hour driving to arrive there. There are more than ten-scheduled flights every day in busy seasons. The altitude of Jiuhuang airport is about 3500m.
