Romantic Taiwan in 9 days: hot springs, a quiet coast and tea
Taiwan does not sell itself as a honeymoon country and it should. It has volcanic hot springs of the kind Japan is famous for, at half the price and with a fraction of the ceremony. It has a Pacific coast where the mountains come down to the water and nobody is there on a Tuesday. And it has tea hil
- Duration
- 9 days
- Pace
- Slow
- Hotel changes
- 3
- Best months
- Oct, Nov, Dec, Mar, Apr
- From
- $2,880 per person
This route uses those three and almost nothing else. Nine days, three hotel changes, four nights with a private bath in the room, and three days with nothing scheduled at all.
Who it suits: honeymoons, anniversaries and couples who would rather have four good rooms than eight average ones. It suits people who like to eat well and walk a little. It is not a full sightseeing programme and it is not trying to be.
Your specialist: Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, with our Taiwanese partner team on the ground.
Day by day
Beitou, days 1 and 2
Day 1: Arrive Taipei, stay at Beitou. Private transfer, about 50 minutes from Taoyuan to the hot spring valley on the city’s northern edge. Beitou is inside the Taipei metro system and feels like a mountain town, which is one of the odder and better things about this city.
Two nights in a property with a private volcanic hot spring bath on the balcony of the room. The water here is white sulphur or green sulphur depending on the source, and green sulphur springs are geologically rare. Nothing scheduled. Dinner in the hotel.
Day 2: Taipei, at your own speed. Twenty-five minutes on the metro into the city. A private guided morning through Dadaocheng, the old merchant quarter: Dihua Street, the tea houses and the dried goods shops that have traded since the nineteenth century. Then the guide leaves and the afternoon is yours.
Late afternoon at Maokong: a gondola up over the tea hills, then a wooden tea house on the ridge with a table outside, a pot of Tieguanyin that is refilled for two hours, and the whole city laid out below as the light goes. Back down for dinner, or eat up there.
The east coast, days 3 to 5
Day 3: To Hualien. Two hours on the east coast line, seaward side, through the Yilan plain and then along the Pacific. We book reserved seats the morning the window opens because this route sells out.
Three nights at a small property on the coast south of town rather than in the city itself: eight or ten rooms, the sea in front, the mountains behind and no traffic. Afternoon doing nothing.
Day 4: The gorge, or the river. Taroko if it is open, which we confirm at the time of quoting rather than assuming, because the April 2024 earthquake caused severe damage and the park has been reopening in phases.
If access is limited, and it may be, the alternative is genuinely better for a trip like this one: the Sanzhan river and Mugua River Gorge south of Hualien, marble walls and green water with almost nobody in them, and a picnic at the end.
Day 5: Highway 11, or nothing. The coast road south with a car and driver, as far as Shitiping and back, stopping wherever the light is. Sanxiantai and its eight-arched footbridge. A lunch of Amis food in a village on the way.
Or stay where you are. This is the day we build the option for and expect you not to take.
Yilan, days 6 to 8
Day 6: Hualien to Jiaoxi. An hour and a quarter back up the coast. Jiaoxi is the other great hot spring town, and its water is odourless, clear and bicarbonate rather than sulphur, which some people much prefer.
Two nights in a property with a private bath. Afternoon at Wufengqi waterfall, twenty minutes’ walk from the town, and the rest of the day in the water.
Day 7: Yilan, unscheduled. Nothing. Options in the document: a cold spring at Su’ao, which is naturally carbonated and 71F (22C) and is a shock worth having, a whale-watching boat off Turtle Island between roughly March and October, or a distillery and a tea plantation inland. Most couples take one and abandon the rest.
Day 8: Pinglin, and back to Taipei. Out of Yilan through the mountains and down into Pinglin, the Baozhong tea district an hour from the capital, for a proper tasting with a grower: two hours, six infusions of the same leaf, and an explanation of why the third pot is the best one.
Then Taipei, one last night in the city, and dinner somewhere we book for you.
Day 9: Departure. Airport express or transfer to Taoyuan, about 40 minutes.
What is included
Eight nights in four properties chosen for the room and the bath, breakfast throughout, all rail legs in reserved seats, a private air-conditioned car with English-speaking driver on four days, a private guide on two mornings only, the Maokong gondola and the tea house, the Pinglin tasting with a grower, two dinner reservations made on your behalf, all entrance fees on guided days, a day-by-day document with train numbers, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant and our partner team in Taiwan throughout.
What we would change, and when
- Want a fifth place? Sun Moon Lake fits with two extra days and a lakeside room. It is beautiful and it is very busy, and we would put you there midweek with an early morning on a bicycle and nothing at noon.
- Prefer the south? Tainan for two nights instead of Yilan, for the eating and the heritage streets, with a hot spring at Guanziling on the way. Warmer in winter, and a completely different city.
- Travelling between July and October? Typhoon season, and the east coast is where it lands first. We hold alternatives, we keep the coastal nights flexible and we tell you at the quoting stage which days are exposed.
- Travelling in December or January? Taipei and Yilan are damp and grey in that window, at around 63F (17C). Hot spring towns are at their best in exactly that weather, which is not a coincidence, but if you want sun we would move the trip south.
Honest notes
Two of the four properties on this route have fewer than fifteen rooms and the ones with private outdoor baths are a subset of that. For weekends and public holidays they are gone months ahead, and Taiwanese domestic travel fills them, not international. We hold rooms as soon as your dates are fixed.
Hot spring etiquette here is more relaxed than in Japan. Public pools are usually single sex and unclothed, private rooms and in-room baths are the norm for couples, and tattoos are much less of an issue than across the strait. We book private baths where it matters.
The east coast is quiet in a way that some people find perfect and others find empty. There is one good restaurant near the coastal property and a handful of others within a short drive. If you want choice at dinner, stay in Hualien city and drive out during the day, and we will build it that way.
Taiwan is not a place for a grand romantic set piece. There is no candlelit terrace culture and the good restaurants are small, bright and loud. What it has instead is privacy, hot water and a coastline nobody has built on. We think that is the better deal and we would rather you knew the shape of it in advance.
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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