Mount Fanjing in southwest China

Cloudy with a chance of enlightenment. Take the Stairs Day

In honor of Take the Stairs Day, we're here in China's Guizhou province peering over at Mount Fanjing. Visitors will need to climb almost 9,000 steps to reach the summit of the mountain, the highest peak of the Wuling Mountains. Look closely at the image and you can see how the stairs wind up, up, up around stone outcroppings and through a gorge.

The buildings you see perched at the top are two Buddhist temples—the Temple of the Buddha and the Temple of Maitreya—linked by a small footbridge. For visitors who can't fathom walking the 8,888 steps to the top, there's a cable car that will take them two-thirds of the way there. Wherever you are today, we encourage you to forgo the cable car, the elevator, or the escalator, and take the stairs instead!