The hook
The sacred mountain of Taoism and the legendary birthplace of tai chi: misty peaks strung with Ming-dynasty temples, a bronze hall on the highest summit, and monasteries where you can still learn breathing, meditation, and internal martial arts.
01Why it's worth it
Wudang, in Hubei, is to Taoism what Emei is to Buddhism, a whole mountain of shrines, but its draw is as much practice as sightseeing. This is where the internal martial arts (tai chi, and the "Wudang" styles) are said to have taken form, and the mountain still runs schools and short retreats where travellers join morning qigong and taiji on the stone terraces. The temple complex, built as an imperial project in the early 1400s, is a UNESCO site, culminating in the Golden Hall, a gilt-bronze shrine on the 1,600-metre summit. Compared with China's busiest mountains it stays comparatively quiet and contemplative, and the appeal is the pace: slow days, mist, vegetarian meals, and morning practice rather than a summit-bagging rush.
02How to experience it
Take the park bus and cable car or climb, and, above all, stay overnight on the mountain so you get the halls in dawn mist and after the day-trippers leave. If it appeals, book a few days at one of the taiji or Taoist retreat schools. Spring and autumn are best; it's reached via Shiyan in Hubei.
From the locals
The quiet is the point, and visitors feel it: "I spent a few days on Wudang Mountain for a small meditation retreat," one wrote, "life there moves at a slower pace, morning breathing practice, a bit of taiji, and quiet walks on misty stone paths."