Taiwan and Japan in 21 days, with the outer islands as the alternative
These two countries are three hours apart by air and they are more closely related than most visitors expect. Japan governed Taiwan for fifty years, and it left the railways, a great deal of the architecture, the hot spring culture and a strand of the food. Travelling from one to the other, in that
- Duration
- 21 days
- Pace
- Moderate
- Hotel changes
- 8
- Best months
- Oct, Nov, Mar, Apr
- From
- $4,095 per person
The order matters and it is deliberate. Taiwan first, because it is cheaper, easier and less formal, and it is a gentler landing into East Asia. Japan second, because Kyoto is the right place to end a three-week trip and the wrong place to start one.
Twenty-one days, eight hotel changes, one short international flight, and five days with nothing scheduled. If you would rather stay in Taiwan for the whole three weeks and use the third week on the outer islands, that version is set out at the end.
Who it suits: travellers with three weeks who want two countries rather than one, and who are happy to move at a steady rather than a slow pace.
Your specialist: Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, with our Taiwanese partner running the first half and our own Tokyo office running the second.
A note on who is on the ground. Our own offices are in Japan, Vietnam, India and the Philippines. Taiwan is not one of them: we run it through a Taiwanese partner we have worked with for years. Japan is ours, staffed by our own people in Tokyo year round. On this trip you are handed from one team to the other at Taoyuan airport, and the handover is arranged rather than assumed.
Day by day
Taiwan, days 1 to 11
Day 1: Arrive Taipei. Airport express or private transfer, about 40 minutes. Nothing scheduled. Dinner at Ningxia night market.
Day 2: Taipei, the old city. A guided morning through Dadaocheng and Dihua Street, the nineteenth-century merchant quarter, then the afternoon free. Longshan Temple at dusk, and Raohe night market in the evening.
Day 3: The museum and the hot spring. The National Palace Museum with a specialist guide in the morning, which holds the imperial collection moved from Beijing in 1949. Afternoon at Beitou, where there are volcanic hot springs inside the metro system, and where the Japanese connection is at its most obvious: the bathhouse from 1913 is now a museum and it is a Japanese building.
Day 4: Taipei to Hualien. Two hours on the east coast line, seaward side. Three nights on the Pacific. Afternoon at Qixingtan beach.
Day 5: The gorge day. Taroko if it is open, which we confirm at the time of quoting. The April 2024 earthquake caused severe damage through the gorge and the park has been reopening in stages. If access is limited, the alternative is Mugua River Gorge and the Sanzhan river south of town, which has marble walls, cold green pools and very few people.
Day 6: The East Rift Valley. Inland by car: the rice terraces at Chishang, a hot spring at Ruisui, and the Amis villages of the valley floor.
Day 7: Down the coast to Taitung. By train in two and a half hours or by car along Highway 11 with stops at Shitiping and Sanxiantai, which takes the day and is better. Two nights.
Day 8: Taitung, free. Nothing scheduled. The National Museum of Prehistory, the Rift Valley by bicycle, a hot spring at Zhiben, or the sea.
Day 9: The south-link line to Tainan. Around the bottom of the island by rail, three to four hours in total, on the least-travelled and best section of the loop. Afternoon at Anping in Tainan: Fort Zeelandia from 1624 and the banyan tree house.
Day 10: Tainan. A guided food walk that is also a history lesson: beef soup at dawn, danzai noodles, milkfish congee and coffin bread, with the Confucius temple from 1665, the Grand Matsu Temple and Shennong Street between them. Afternoon free.
Day 11: Tainan to Tokyo. High speed rail to Taoyuan airport, about an hour and three quarters, and the afternoon flight north, three hours. Our Tokyo office meets you. Evening transfer into the city.
Japan, days 12 to 21
Day 12: Tokyo. A slow first day after the move. A guided morning by neighbourhood rather than by sight: Yanaka and the old low city, or Shibuya and Shimokitazawa if you would rather have the modern one. Afternoon free.
Day 13: Tokyo. The Tsukiji outer market early, then Asakusa and the Sumida river, or the Edo-Tokyo Museum for the context. Afternoon free, evening in a small counter restaurant that our Tokyo office books, because it requires a Japanese phone number to do so.
Day 14: Tokyo, free. Deliberately empty. Our document sets out six options by neighbourhood and you choose on the day.
Day 15: Tokyo to Hakone. An hour and a half by rail. A ryokan night with a private open-air bath, kaiseki dinner and, if the weather cooperates, Fuji from the lake. Weather-dependent, so we build in the alternative.
Day 16: Hakone to Kyoto. The Shinkansen from Odawara, a little over two hours. Luggage forwarded ahead so you travel light. Afternoon walk through Gion and along the Kamo river.
Day 17: Kyoto, east. Early at Fushimi Inari before the crowds, which means being there by half past seven and is worth the alarm. Then Kiyomizu and the Higashiyama lanes, and the afternoon free. Kyoto rewards early mornings and punishes the middle of the day.
Day 18: Kyoto, west and north. Arashiyama at opening, the bamboo and the temple gardens, then Ryoanji and Kinkakuji, or the Philosopher’s Path if the leaves are doing something. Afternoon free.
Day 19: Nara. Half a day rather than a rushed morning: Todaiji, the deer, and Kasuga Taisha’s lanterns. Back to Kyoto by mid-afternoon.
Day 20: Kyoto, free. Nothing scheduled. A tea ceremony, the Nishiki market, a craft workshop, or nothing at all.
Day 21: Departure. Transfer to Kansai airport, about ninety minutes.
What is included
Accommodation with breakfast throughout, one ryokan night with dinner and breakfast, all Taiwanese rail legs in reserved seats, all Japanese rail legs in reserved seats including oversized-baggage spaces where the Shinkansen requires them, the Taipei to Tokyo flight, private air-conditioned cars with English-speaking drivers on the Taiwanese mountain and coast days, licensed local guides on seven days across both countries, restaurant reservations that require a Japanese phone number, luggage forwarding between Japanese cities, all entrance fees on guided days, a stored-value transport card in each country, a day-by-day document with train numbers and flight details, and a WhatsApp group with your consultant, our partner team in Taiwan and our own Tokyo office for the whole three weeks.
The outer islands ending instead
If you would rather spend the whole three weeks in Taiwan, days 1 to 11 stay as they are and the third week goes to the islands.
From Taitung, Green Island is a short flight or a rough ferry, and it has the best snorkelling in Taiwan and one of only three known saltwater hot springs on earth. Orchid Island is further out and is the home of the Tao people, whose culture is unlike anything on the main island and who ask visitors to behave in specific ways that we brief you on properly. From Kaohsiung, Penghu is an archipelago of basalt columns and empty beaches, superb between May and September and unbearably windy in winter.
All of them depend on the sea and on the wind. Ferries cancel, flights cancel, and we build a fallback into every island leg rather than treating it as a booking. That is the honest reason the Japan version is the default.
Visas, and what to check
Taiwan is currently visa-free for most Western passports for tourism, commonly for 90 days. Japan gives most Western passports a 90 day visa exemption on arrival. Neither of those is a rule we can promise on a web page, and both countries operate online arrival paperwork that saves a queue.
We confirm the current requirement for your specific passport, for both countries, before we quote, and we send the correct current links with your final documents rather than publishing them here, because they move.
Honest notes
Eight hotel changes in twenty-one days is a moderate pace rather than a slow one. If you want fewer, the honest answer is to remove Taitung and one Tokyo night rather than to compress the travel days.
Day 11 is the long one: rail to the airport, a flight, immigration and a transfer into Tokyo. There is no way to shorten it and we keep the evening empty.
Japan will feel more expensive than Taiwan and the difference is mostly hotels. A room in Kyoto in October costs roughly double the equivalent in Tainan. We set the two halves at the same standard rather than the same price, and the guide explains what that means in your proposal.
October and November are the best window for both countries at once, which is convenient and also means Kyoto is at its busiest. We book the Japanese half six to nine months ahead for autumn dates, and the bottleneck is never flights, it is the small properties and the restaurants.
Typhoon season, roughly July to October, affects both countries. Taiwan takes the storms first and Japan’s southern and western half takes what is left. Between our partner in Taipei and our own office in Tokyo, the affected days get reworked on the ground rather than by a helpline.
Built by Asaf Zamshtein, our Southeast Asia and China specialist, with our Tokyo office on the Japanese half, and checked before it goes out.
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