Taiwan 🇹🇼

National park famous for its old railroad and sunrises over the clouds. A VERY detailed overview of this area is in the links, so here’s a real quick summary:

It’s easiest to get here by train or bullet train to Chiayi, then transferring to the Alishan Tourist Shuttle
The park fee of $300 TWD is cut in half if you arrive here on the bus rather than driving

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The Giant bicycle stores rent bikes and allow you to return the bike in any other store. You can also take your luggage to any train station and pay a small fee to have the luggage taken to another train station.

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Small town north of Taitung. You can rent bicycles here near the train station and bike through rice paddies.

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Really popular restaurant with amazing soup dumplings. You can order your food while waiting for your table, so it’s really quick once you get it.

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Part of the Mugua River Gorge. There are a lot of hikes, waterfalls, and lakes nearby.

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Small volcanic island popular for scuba, snorkeling, and a hot spring.

⚠️ Neither of the ATM’s accept foreign cards, so be sure to stock up on cash before you come.

With a foreign driver’s license, it’s possible to rent low-powered electric scooters. But with an international driver’s license, you get access to higher powered scooters with longer range. The basic scooters have quite a short battery life and range, so it’s definitely worth investing in the license ahead of time if you plan to rent one.

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Natural hot spring in a river bank.

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A small village in the mountains located an hour drive from Taipei. There are lots of restaurants, and the A-Mei teahouse is famous for looking like the bath house from Spirited Away.

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The largest variety of dishes in the whole of Taiwan.

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Tourist town in the southernmost part of Taipei. Kenting Night Market is thriving, and the town is near several beautiful beaches.

Small island off the coast of Kaohsiung. It’s a 20-minute ferry ride, where you can rent an electric scooter for the day. Snorkeling and diving are really popular, with a large number of sea turtles.

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Night market with multiple michelin-famous restaurants.

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The most famous night market in Taipei. Hundreds of restaurants, food carts, shops.

It opens at 5pm and is a lot quieter then than later in the night.

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Coastal area with tidal pools, rock formations.

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Beautiful lake with boardwalks and trails around it. The majority of tourists here rent bikes to get around.

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Nice city with plenty to do, as well as being a good base for a day trip to the famous Sun Moon Lake.

Sleek 89th-floor observation deck offering sweeping, 360º city views & a souvenir shop.

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Chunghwa Telecom is the best for 10-30 days. Check the link for other options.

Soup dumplings (xiao long bao)
Beef noodle soup
Braised pork belly over rice (Lu Rou Fan)
Scallion pancakes
Hot pot
Boba tea
Milk tea (often with boba beads but not necessary)
Tea Egg (hard boiled egg cooked in tea. All the 7-11’s have them)
Egg Tart (looks like Portugal’s Pastel de Nata. They’re in Family Mart and KFC)

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Beautiful national park in a long gorge. There are quite a few overlooks and trails to choose from. Zhuilu Old Road requires an online reservation before visiting.

Transportation

You can book a tour from Hualien, but then you follow a large group and can’t do any longer treks. There are a number of public buses that service the park, so if you have the Taiwan Easy Card, you can use all the public buses for hop on/off. The iBus Application shows time tables and bus arrivals. The bus times change depending on the season, but I used the 302 Taroko from Hualien Bus Station. It took around an hour to get to the entrance to the park.

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Google Maps often has stale transit data for buses in Taiwan. The iBus mobile app has realtime data.

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