Boutique Taiwan in 10 days: four properties worth the rate
Taiwanese hotels are not cheap and they are not consistent. Taipei room rates sit closer to Tokyo than to Bangkok, and a great deal of what is sold as design in this market is a lobby with a concrete wall and rooms that are ordinary behind it. The properties that are genuinely worth their rate here
- Duration
- 10 days
- Pace
- Slow
- Hotel changes
- 4
- Best months
- Oct, Nov, Dec, Mar, Apr
- From
- $3,200 per person
The route is built around them. A design hotel in Taipei with the city at the window, a lakeside room at Sun Moon Lake where you are on the water before the day trippers arrive, a courtyard house in Tainan on a street of them, and a hot spring property at Beitou with a volcanic bath on the balcony.
Ten days, four hotel changes, high speed rail on the flat and a private car in the hills, and four days with nothing scheduled.
Who it suits: travellers who care about where they sleep, couples, and anyone who has done Japan at this level and wants the same standard for two thirds of the price. It is not a luxury trip in the Kyoto sense and we would rather be clear about that.
Your specialist: Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, with our Taiwanese partner team on the ground.
Day by day
Taipei, days 1 to 3
Day 1: Arrive Taipei. Private transfer from Taoyuan, about 40 minutes. Three nights in a design hotel in the east of the city or in the old Zhongshan quarter, depending on whether you want the tower at the window or the tea houses at the door. We name the specific property in your proposal, with the two alternatives and what each one gives up.
Nothing scheduled. Dinner booked, and it is a ten-minute walk.
Day 2: Taipei, guided once and then not. A private morning through Dadaocheng, the nineteenth-century merchant quarter on the river: Dihua Street and its dried goods shops, the tea merchants, and the city god temple. Two hours of context, then the guide leaves.
Afternoon free. Late afternoon at Longshan Temple when it fills with people praying, and dinner at Ningxia night market, which is the small old one rather than the big famous one.
Day 3: The museum, and the ridge. The National Palace Museum with a specialist guide in the morning, which is the difference between a great museum and a warehouse of jade. Afternoon free.
At five, the Maokong gondola up over the tea hills and a wooden tea house on the ridge with a table outside, a pot of Tieguanyin refilled for two hours, and the city going on below.
Sun Moon Lake, days 4 and 5
Day 4: To the lake. High speed rail to Taichung, fifty minutes, then a private car up into Nantou, about an hour and a half. Two nights in a lakeside room, which is the whole point of coming here.
Sun Moon Lake is beautiful and it is very busy. Coaches arrive from mid-morning and leave by five, and the reason to stay is the twelve hours at either end of that. Afternoon on the terrace.
Day 5: The lake, early, and the tea. Out on a bicycle along the western shore at seven, which is the best hour on the lake and one you cannot buy any other way. Then a Ruby 18 black tea plantation in the hills above, a hybrid of Burmese and native Taiwanese stock that tastes of mint and cinnamon.
Afternoon free. A boat across to Ita Thao if you want it, the Thao village on the far shore, or the pool.
Tainan, days 6 to 8
Day 6: Down to Tainan. Car to Taichung, high speed rail south, about two and a half hours in total. Three nights in a restored courtyard house in the old town, of which there are now several and two are excellent.
Afternoon at Anping: Fort Zeelandia, built by the Dutch in 1624, and the warehouse that banyan roots have taken apart from the inside. Shrimp rolls at the harbour.
Day 7: Tainan, with someone who knows it. A guided morning that is a food walk and a history lesson at the same time: the Confucius temple from 1665, the Grand Matsu Temple, Shennong Street, and about eight things to eat between them. Danzai noodles, milkfish congee, coffin bread.
Afternoon free. Tainan is a walking city and the pleasure of it is the alleys.
Day 8: Tainan, unscheduled. Nothing at all. A salt works or a soy sauce brewery in the flats outside town, a half day in Kaohsiung which is thirty minutes by rail, or a second run at yesterday.
Beitou, days 9 and 10
Day 9: To Beitou. High speed rail north to Taipei, then out to the hot spring valley on the northern edge of the city, which is inside the metro system and feels like a mountain town.
One night in a property with a private volcanic bath on the balcony. Green sulphur springs are geologically rare and this is one of the few places on earth with them. Nothing scheduled. Dinner in the hotel, which is the right answer here.
Day 10: Departure. Transfer to Taoyuan, about an hour from Beitou.
What is included
Nine nights in four properties chosen for the room rather than the brochure, breakfast throughout, all high speed and conventional rail legs in reserved seats, a private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on four days, private guides on three mornings only, the National Palace Museum with a specialist guide, the Maokong gondola and tea house, the tea plantation visit, bicycle hire at the lake, three dinner reservations made on your behalf, all entrance fees on guided days, a day-by-day document with train numbers and seat classes, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our partner team in Taiwan throughout.
What we would change, and when
- Want the east coast instead of the lake? Three nights at a small coastal property south of Hualien, with the Pacific in front and the mountains behind. Quieter, further, and better if you want to do nothing. It costs you the tea.
- Want a hot spring at the start rather than the end? We build it both ways. Beitou first is better for jet lag and worse as a finish, and most people prefer to end there.
- Want a fifth property? Alishan has one place we would put you, high in the cypress forest, and it adds two days and a three-hour mountain drive.
- Travelling between July and October? Typhoon season. The lake and the mountains are the exposed parts of this route. We hold alternatives and we tell you which days at the quoting stage.
Honest notes
There is no hotel in Taiwan that competes with the top tier in Tokyo, Kyoto or Bangkok, and anyone telling you otherwise is selling. What Taiwan has is a handful of small, well-run, genuinely characterful properties, a hot spring culture that is the equal of Japan’s without the ceremony, and a price point roughly a third below what the same standard costs across the strait.
The lakeside rooms and the Tainan courtyard houses have very few keys between them. Taiwanese domestic travel fills them at weekends and around every public holiday, and international bookings are not the priority. We hold rooms early or we do not get them.
Sun Moon Lake at eleven in the morning is coaches, loudspeakers and a queue for the ropeway. We are not going to pretend otherwise. The reason it is on this route is the early morning and the evening, and if you are not prepared to be on a bicycle at seven you should let us send you to the coast instead.
Service in Taiwanese hotels is warm and informal rather than choreographed. Breakfast is a buffet with congee at it. If you need the Japanese level of ritual, this is not that, and it is considerably more relaxing.
Built by Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, and checked with our partner team in Taiwan before it goes out.
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