travellingwineO

We are a family of four (two kids, aged 12 & 14) planning our first trip to Taiwan over the Christmas holiday. We are not luxury travelers, but are definitely not low budget travelers. Comfort and efficiency are important to us. When we travel, we are not interested in frenetically paced itineraries. We would rather miss a few sites than exhaust ourselves attempting to see everything possible. Food is an important part of why we travel and was certainly a factor in choosing Taiwan. We also enjoy hiking and the outdoors, so are interested in seeing some of what Taiwan has to offer in this department. Our children have never been to Asia, so this will be a first for them. They are otherwise seasoned international travelers.

We have a total of just less than 10 days in Taiwan. As it stands, we arrive in Taipei late morning of day one (after three days in Hong Kong, so jet lag shouldn’t be an issue by the time we arrive at TPE) and have booked five nights in Taipei, giving us 4 1/2 days in Taipei and leaving us with five additional days worth of itinerary to flesh out. Our first day in Taipei, for what it’s worth, is New Year’s Eve.

This being FlyerTalk, I might as well include some of the details FlyerTalkers care about: flights are BR in J, booked with ANA miles, SEA-TPE, return TPE-LAX, then LAX-BOI on UA in revenue economy. Flights to HKG are not booked

My thoughts so far:

Plan on a day trip to Jiufen during our stay in Taipei. It seems like it would be doable primarily by train and could include Shifen, with a visit to the waterfall, visiting Jiufen itself, and then a stop in Keelung to visit the Keelung night market, prior to returning by train to Taipei. It seems like a full day, but a manageable one. The remainder of our time in Taipei would be centered on food (night markets, Din Tai Fung, of course!, etc.), temples, National Palace Museum, possibly Yangmingshan National Park and/or Beitou (folk museum, hot springs).

At the end of our time in Taipei, leave by train for Hualien with a plan for two nights in Hualien. This would allow for a visit to Taroko Gorge.

This plan would then leave us with three more days (need to be back to Taipei on the third night to catch our flight back to the US the next morning). After doing a moderate amount of research, Hualien/Taroko Gorge seems like a “must see” for us. This is what I am basing the proposed remainder of our itinerary on.

I have come up with two possible approaches to those three days:

1) Continue down the East coast to Yuli with a hike on the Walami Train and a visit to Antong Hot Springs on the first day. On the second and third days, visit Taitung, Shihtping, Dulan. At the ned of the third day, fly from Taitung to Taipei. Would I need to rent a car for these three days? Hire a driver? Take buses?

2) Take the train from Hualien to Tainan, via Taipei. Spend the remainder of day one and all of day two in Tainan. Plan on Tainan Flowers Night Market. Day trips? Use day three to head back to Taipei- any worthwhile stops along the way that would be doable if we are taking the train?


Tainan sounds like a great place, but I don’t know if we would get more out of a West coast itinerary. My guess is the West coast itinerary would be considerably more “involved”, since going to Tainan would allow for almost all of our travel to take place on trains, which I would anticipate are easier to navigate for non-Mandarin speakers than car rental/bus routes.

I am fairly set on spending several days in Taipei. I also feel like Hualien/Taroko Gorge is "must see". I am very interested in hearing thoughts on the Tainan area vs. Yuli/Taitung aspect of the trip.

I would also be very interested in any great food experiences or sights not to be missed.

Thanks in advance.

msb0b

Since you are interested in both the south west and the east coast of Taiwan, combining both objectives into a round-the-island trip makes a lot of sense. There are many guided tour or you can DIY.

You might want to do it clockwise so you can end the the trip at Taoyuan airport. Adding in your POIs, here's how you might do it:
Day 1: Taipei to Taroko to Hualien
Day 2: Hualien to Walami to Taitung
Day 3: Taitung to Kaohsiung/Tainan
Day 4: Kaohsiung/Tainan to Taoyuan on HSR
Optional: Sun Moon Lake or Alishan

There are two options for getting around the east coast: train or car (hire or rental). I would avoid car travel on mountain passes. There are many hairpins and switchbacks that are at best slow, at worst carsickness-inducing. Plus the traffic in Taiwan can be chaotic, and parking is hard to come by in the cities. Taipei - Hsueshan Tunnel - Yilan - Hualien - Taitung will be fine, but i would not try the southern island crossing route.

Taiwan Rail Administration operates the Puyuma Express between Taipei and Taitung and the Taroko Express between Taipei and Hualien, in addition to the Tze-Chiang limited express and Chu-Guang express trains. There are about 12 southern loop trains daily and take 2.5 to 3 hours to go from Taitung to Kaohsiung.

There is a whole thread about Kaohsiung. Personally I enjoyed Cijing and Sizihwan for the ocean, the kitchy Love River cruise and Fo Guang Shan monastery. Night market wise, Liuhe is the oldest and most well known but tourist trappy. Ruifeng night market near the Kaohsiung Arena is more popular now but take Mondays and Wednesdays off.

Taipei

Plans look fine. Just one point of warning, East Coast train seats can be very hard to buy (reserve) on weekends, and other holiday periods. Often seats sell out as soon as a few hours after (midnight a few weekend before) they go on sale. (to/from Kaoshiung is easier than Taipei but still need buy in advance). As for a car, back from Ilan to Taipei Sundays back to Taipei should be avoided as traffic can add hours to your trip. From Kaohsiung there is a nice drive to Taitung with a lot less traffic, often going this on weekends from here in Kaohsiung. One last thing, mostly in cities its hard to drive because of the traffic and scooters and lack of traffic law enforcement.

travellingwineO

Thanks for the responses, both of you.

We have three days and I am uncertain as to how best to spend those three days. As such, my question is actually quite binary:

Yuli/Walami/Taitung? or Tainan?