What we would skip in Taiwan

This is the list of what our consultants remove from a Taiwan itinerary, and why. It is the article we would rather you read than any of the others.

Things we would skip most of the time

Shilin night market

The famous one, the biggest, the one every guide names, and the one most reshaped by visitors. Prices are about twenty percent above the others and the quality per stall is lower.

Raohe is compact, covered, has a temple at one end and the best pepper buns in the city. Ningxia is small and holds the most concentrated collection of old-school Taipei cooking anywhere. Tonghua is where residents shop for dinner on a weeknight. Any of the three is a better evening, and we set out what to order at each in Taipei night markets.

Jiufen on a weekend afternoon

The hillside town of stepped lanes and tea houses above the sea is beautiful in photographs taken at six in the morning and shoulder to shoulder from eleven until five on a Saturday. Lanes designed for a mining village do not absorb coach tourism.

Go on a weekday, arrive before nine or after five, or do not go. If the day cannot be moved, the northern coast at Yehliu and the tea country at Pinglin are both better uses of the same hours.

Sky lanterns on the Pingxi line

The branch line itself is a pleasant hour and the lanterns are a genuine litter problem: they come down in the hills and in the water, and clean-up is an ongoing local issue. We will tell you that before you buy one. A good many of our clients then take the train and skip the lantern, which is the outcome we would choose.

Sun Moon Lake in the middle of the day

The lake is genuinely beautiful and genuinely very busy, and both are true at once. The ropeway queue at noon on a Saturday is the version people complain about afterwards.

We do not remove Sun Moon Lake. We remove the middle of the day: stay overnight, cycle the quieter western shore before nine, take the boat early, and be somewhere else between eleven and four. Handled that way it earns its night. Handled as a day trip from Taichung it does not.

Taipei’s fourth and fifth nights

Three full days covers the National Palace Museum, Longshan at dusk, Dadaocheng, Beitou, Elephant Mountain and three night markets. Four if you like cities.

Beyond that you are choosing Taipei over Taiwan, and the country’s best days are not in it. The full argument about allocation is in how many days do you need in Taiwan.

Kenting on a short trip

Beaches and coral at the southern tip. Pleasant in winter, packed at weekends and through the summer, and on a ten or fourteen day route the coast has already been the best part of the trip by the time you reach it. It goes in when someone specifically wants a beach at the end.

Self-driving

We use a private car with an English-speaking driver on the mountain days rather than a self-drive. The roads are narrow and busy with scooters, the mountain sections close after rain, and a driver who knows which ones are shut today is worth more than the saving. Self-drive also requires an international driving permit alongside your home licence with local formalities depending on nationality.

Things we would skip on a first trip

Yushan as a fixed plan

Yushan is 12,966 feet (3,952 m) and the highest point in Northeast Asia, and the main peak permit and the bed at Paiyun Lodge are allocated together by lottery, applications open months ahead, and demand far exceeds supply.

Nobody can guarantee it. We apply in the correct window, we tell you honestly what the odds look like for your dates, and we build the trip so it is excellent either way. What we will not do is sell a Yushan summit as though it were a booking.

The substitutes are not consolation prizes. Hehuanshan, on the high road where the pass reaches about 10,745 feet (3,275 m), has several peaks walkable in a morning with no permit at all. The Tataka saddle at around 8,560 feet (2,610 m) is reached by road and puts the Yushan massif in front of you. Both are covered in Taiwan’s high mountains and how the permits work.

Taroko Gorge as a guaranteed day

This is the hardest paragraph on the page and it needs saying plainly. On 3 April 2024 a magnitude 7.2 earthquake struck off Hualien and caused severe rockfall and structural damage through the gorge. The national park has been reopening in stages, with some trails, some sections of road and some facilities available and others not, and the situation has continued to change.

We will not publish a list here that will be wrong by the time you read it. What we do is check the current position with our partner and with the park at the time we quote, build the day around what is genuinely open, and say plainly if the answer is not much.

The alternative on the same coast is good rather than consoling: Mugua River Gorge and the Sanzhan river south of Hualien, the East Rift Valley inland with rice terraces and hot springs, Liyu Lake, and Highway 11 south to Shitiping and Sanxiantai. Several of our clients who have seen both have preferred the second, and that is not a line we would write if it were not true.

The outer islands in a fortnight

Penghu, Green Island, Orchid Island, Matsu and Kinmen are all worth a trip, and all of them are weather-dependent with boats and flights that cancel. In a fourteen-day route a cancelled boat costs you two days and a hotel you cannot use. They belong in a third week, and they are the reason a three-week Taiwan trip exists.

Both Alishan and Sun Moon Lake

They are two hours apart and they are not the same thing, but on a fourteen-day route doing both means two mountain nights and a compressed south. Take Alishan for forest, tea and the railway. Take Sun Moon Lake for the lake and the cycling. Take the high road over Hehuanshan instead of either if you actually want mountains.

Times we would skip, not places

August, if you have any choice. Peak typhoon risk and peak heat together. Typhoons peak in August and September, a direct hit closes rail, ferries and mountain roads for a day or two, and Taipei runs to around 95F (35C) with humidity that makes it feel considerably worse. We build alternatives for every exposed day and we would still rather send you in November.

Lunar New Year, unless you want the festival. Late January or February, moving each year. The whole country travels, trains sell out weeks ahead, rates spike and a great many small restaurants close for several days, including the ones you came to eat at. Plan around it, or into it deliberately with everything booked far earlier than usual.

December in the north, if the trip is Taipei-heavy. From roughly late October the north-east monsoon pushes damp air onto Taipei, Keelung and the Yilan coast, and December in Taipei can be a run of grey drizzly days at around 63F (17C) while the south is sunny. We weight December trips southward rather than pretending the drizzle is atmosphere. The full calendar is in Taiwan month by month.

What we would add instead

Every subtraction buys something.

• A second night in Tainan. The oldest city and the best eating in Taiwan, and one night halves it. See Tainan in two days.
• A hot spring night with dinner and breakfast included. Beitou or Jiaoxi. Two across a fortnight is the right number and it changes how the whole trip feels.
• A proper tea tasting with a farmer. Two hours at Pinglin, Lugu or Alishan, and one of the best things we book.
• A day on the east coast doing nothing but Highway 11. The Pacific on one side, the range on the other, and three stops.
• Two genuinely free half days. In typhoon season they are the weather plan. Out of it they are the best days of the trip.

Plan this trip

Send us the itinerary you have drafted and we will tell you which parts of it we would remove, and why. That advice is free whether or not you book with us.

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Keep reading

• Taiwan: the complete guide to planning your trip
• How many days do you need in Taiwan?
• The best two-week route through Taiwan
• Tainan in two days
• Taiwan by rail in 14 days
• All our Taiwan trips

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