What was great about Taiwan is how easy it is to find things organically, especially if you’re taking a walking-heavy approach. There’s a ton of cute alleyways, neighborhoods, and shops, that we would often stumble upon on our way to some other landmark or viewpoint.
For an overview of the trip, checkout this video!
After 2 weeks in Taiwan, here’s a compiled list of all our Taiwan research:
Taipei
General
- Taipei 101 and Xinyi area – we didn’t go up Taipei 101 but it was cool to see it up close.
- Huashan 1914 Creative Arts Park – one of the cuter creative arts parks (there’s a few in Taipei) with pop-up shops and a few bars. Lots of young people hanging around here, which gave it a cool vibe
- Elephant mountain – iconic hike in the area. Very crowded, and steeper than we expected, but a lovely place to watch the sunset.
- Chiang Kai-Shek Memorial Hall – built in 1980 to honor the former dictator. Cool area and very magnificent building
- Ximen shopping area – crowded and overwhelming, but lots of good food here (Ay-Chung flour rice noodle, Xingfutang, crispy milk donuts)
- Temples – there’s a bunch of temples throughout Taipei; one of the favorites we went to was Taipei Tianhou Temple.
- Night markets – Ningxia night market was super crowded in a tiny, narrow street. Taro balls stuffed with pork floss and egg yolk there was the snack of my dreams. There are sooo many markets throughout Taiwan though, you can’t really go wrong
- Others that we didn’t go to, but people seemed to like:
- Taipei Fine Arts Museum
- Maokong Gondola
- Night markets: Shilin, Raohe (black pepper buns), Tonghua, Huaxi
- Day trips: Yilan (Kavalan distillery), Yehliu geopark, Maokong, Beitou hot springs
Day trips
- Jiufen – a must. Alleged old street inspiration for the Spirited Away bathhouse. It gets crowded, so worth trying to go on a weekday
- Houtong – on the way to Jiufen, a cat village where apparently 200x more cats than people live here. It was a little underwhelming, but go if you love cats!
- Shifen – on the way to Jiufen, old street with quaint.local shops, famous for its sky lanterns
- Tamsui – old street and water boardwalk. You can rent a bike and ride around, but it was a bit too crowded for that when we went. Lovers Bridge and the boardwalk were the highlights – it was so nice to watch the sunset here.
Food/Drink
- Hibori – Japanese Taiwanese fusion retro style bar. One of the coolest bars I’ve been to, everyone in the bar felt way cooler than me. Food was fantastic
- Tian jin onion pancake – stall selling scallion pancakes with optional fillings. Fresh, local, delicious
- Ay-Chung Flour Rice Noodle – stall in Ximen shopping area, fresh and hot noodles.
- Moon Moon – amazing sesame noodles
- Xingfutang boba
Alishan
To get to Alishan, we spent a night in Chiayi because we got in late from the airport. There wasn’t much to do in the evening, and it really was just a stopover to Alishan.
Transportation
- Forest Railway – scenic railway to/from Alishan. Hard to book and a longer route than the bus, but beautiful and historic
- Shuttle bus – easier option
Hikes
- Forest walk path – not sure what this is called, but once you check in to any hotel, they’ll recommend you the main path through the forest. It’s a 2-4 hour easy walk, and really pleasant.
- Zhushan sunrise hike – take the shuttle bus up to Zhushan and watch the sunrise, then hike back down to the main area
Tainan
Note that Tainan was one of the less walkable cities in Taiwan – we ended up taking an uber most places, both because of the lack of sidewalks and the heat.
General
- Hayashi department store – one of the oldest department stores in Taiwan with different shops and a cute retro gift shop on the top floor. The rest of the mall is a bit expensive, but great for window shopping.
- Anping tree house – old salt warehouse that got aggressively taken over by a banyan tree. It was our first time learning about banyan trees and this place was pretty mindblowing as a result.
- Blueprint culture and creative park – old prison dorm turned into cute shops and murals
- Tainan garden night market aka “food rave”
- Others that we didn’t go to, but people seemed to like:
- Salt mountain / salt fields
- National Museum of Taiwan History
Food
- Du Hsiao Yueh Restaurant – the noodles and taro cakes are still making me drool
Kaohsiung
General
- SKM Park outlet mall – we spent the afternoon here, mostly at the amusement park area. We went go-karting, which was super fun
- Central Park had some nice Christmas decorations when we went
- Shinkuchan shopping district
- Liouhe night market – highlights were the sausage in sticky rice bun, grilled mochi with salted egg flavoring, fried dough pocket with egg, and this “custard apple” fruit. We also went to this fruit juice stand on the east end of the market, where 3 generations of women have run it – we talked to the great grandma about how the fruit in Taiwan was better than America 🙂
- Pier 2 art center – lots of murals, temp exhibits, and a flea market. At the end of the flea market, get a free pineapple cake and tea at Sunny Hills
- Cijin island – very touristy, felt a bit high effort low reward to get there
- Fo Guang Shan giant Buddha – really cool, and had a cute park and butterfly zone nearby
Food/Drink
- Jinlianfa boba – my partner’s favorite boba of the trip: matcha almond milk with boba and red bean cheese foam. In his words: “life changing”
- Buns for breakfast at 果貿來來豆漿
Taichung
We only stopped by briefly on our way to Hoshino resort, but worth mentioning specifically for the….
Boba
- Chi Cha San Chen flagship store – ok this changed me. I was never a boba girlie, but this is the best boba I’ve ever had / probably will have.
- This flagship store is the only Chia Cha in Taiwan (which is nuts given the amount of boba we saw there – everyone had a reusable bubble tea holder bag).
- They handpick their tea leaves on Lishan mountain. Each leaf needs to have one bud and two stems.
- Very careful brewing process: 3g of leaves, steep for 6 min at 95 degree temp
Other
Listing out a few other places we didn’t get to go to, but when researching seemed like people quite liked:
- Hualien – quaint city with Amis indigenous peoples. Main things to do will be Taroko park or spending time in the city. We really wanted to do this, but Taroko Gorge was still closed after an earthquake earlier in the year
- Taitung – little city that’s nice to bike around.
- Pingtung – Kenting national park is a highlight here. Village / night market seemed nice but touristy
Fin. Typing this makes me want to go back, and at the very least makes me very hungry.