10 Days All Around Taiwan Travel Itinerary
Monday, May 1, 2017
Last year May, I spent 10 days travelling all around Taiwan. Well, the initial plan was to travel around the entire island but due to unforeseen circumstances (like our driver miscalculating the time to travel to the ferry terminal), we had to make some major changes to our itinerary at the last minute.
Our first stop was Taichung. Upon arrival in Taiwan International Taoyuan Airport, we took the bus to Taichung. Our initial plan was to take the HSR but we realised that travelling by bus has more economic value. The buses can be found at the basement of the airport terminal. It only cost NT240 for the trip and the journey was approximately 2hours long.
We had to lock our luggages with the luggage storage at the Taichung railway station as we were too early to check-in to our accommodation. Our first stop was the Rainbow Village.
Honestly, I felt that the place was rather small and unexciting. However, they turned out pretty well in photos so it wasn't a wasted trip. I don't see anything else you can do there besides taking photos though. It's definitely a place you can skip if time is not on your side.
The highlight for Taichung ought to be Miyahara Ophthalmology Department (宫原眼科 Gong Yuan Yan Ke). The famous bowl of ice-cream located near Taichung station. My waiting line was relatively shorter as compared to what I've seen in other blogs so we only waited for 20 minutes. There were so many flavours for the ice-cream, one can really be spoilt for choices.
A few stores away, you can actually buy the famous sun biscuits in a really pretty shop with amazing interior. As the sun biscuits do have a short expiry date, you can actually place orders for the sun biscuits to be delivered to your accommodation right before you return to Singapore. We had them deliver to our Taipei accommodation.
As our accommodation was really near Fengjia Night Market, we spent the night stuffing ourselves with street food and shopping.
And that pretty sums up our short stay in Taichung because we left for Cingjing the next day. We hired a private taxi driver to drive us all the way to Cingjing. Our first stop was to say hello to the sheep!
They also have a really good horse show in the farm too. So besides watching sheep, you can actually be wowed at the stunts of the horsemen. Besides the sheep, there are also a lot of other attractions in Cingjing including Small Swiss Garden.
We ended the day early because we've signed up for a sun rise tour at Hehuanshan. The tour started at 3am and they picked us up from our accommodation. As it was early in the morning, it was freezing on Hehuanshan so it is extremely important to bring along something to keep you warm.
After catching the sun rise on our second day of Taiwan trip, we took the taxi back to Taichung train station to catch our train to Chiayi. The train ride cost NT244 and to get to Alishan, we would need to switch to a bus to get our way there.
By the time we finished finding our way to our accommodation, it was near evening and we were all exhausted from all the travelling around. We booked a firefly tour & Yushan sun rise tour with some random person at the carpark.
I felt her tour was rather bad considering she just threw us at the firefly place and expected us to explore the place by ourselves while we watch other tours being led by a guide. So you might want to check if you would have a guide for the tour.
Once again, we had another early morning as we went to Yushan to catch the sun rise. The weather was a lot better than our sun rise the day but that's really based on one's luck with mother nature.
The rest of the day in Alishan was spent exploring around. We hopped on the nostalgic train to Zhaoping station.
Trains do not get any prettier than this.
We followed the trail into the woods from Zhaoping station. It was really therapeutic to walk among the trees but as you walk closer to the tourist attractions, the horde of tourists start shattering your peaceful moment.
We left Alishan that evening, headed towards Kaohsiung. By then, we were really exhausted because of the tight schedule we had the past 3 days, covering 3 different places. We quickly just checked into our accommodation.
I do not usually advertise my accommodations unless I really like it. Our Kaohsiung accommodation was one of the coolest airbnb place I've stayed. It was actually the attic of someone's place (no lift) but he had decorated the entire place to what looks like a music studio so it was a really amazing experience. He was also friendly to give us tips on where to visit in Kaohsiung.
And here's Kaohsiung summed up in a few photos.
I actually realised I do not have many photos of our adventures at the night markets but you can safely assume we visited night markets every night while we were in Taiwan. For Kaohsiung, we went to both Liuhe night market and Ruifeng night market. If you want to see what food we ventured into at the night markets, watch the video at the end of the post.
And our trip went down the hill from Kaohsiung. We were supposed to be headed to Green Island, off the coast of Taitung. Unfortunately for us, we met with a really irresponsible taxi driver who took us to the wrong place and we ended up missing our ferry. We had to forgo our Green Island accommodation.
Instead, our driver decided to bring us to Kenting, found us a random accommodation to stay in. Not complaining about the accommodation because the hosts were really kind and nice to us, giving us free rides to the police station because my friend lost her wallet in the midst of all the mess.
Our hosts booked us a snorkelling session and drove us there out of goodwill. The snorkelling included free photos too. But having been on so many snorkeling trips, and even a diving trip, I would say that it wasn't the most amazing experience. However, it was always nice to build new experiences with friends who have never done snorkeled before.
We spent the next day in Kenting, exploring the place with our private taxi driver. And spent most of the time snapping photos away. Ended up day in the night market, and also found ourselves watching a pole dance show.
We were supposed to spend one night in Hualien but as our plans were ruined, we ended up staying the extra night in Kenting. So after two nights in Kenting, we headed back to Taipei.
If you have followed my travel adventures since (who knows when I started penning it down on this domain), you would have known that I've been to Taipei way too many times. So this time, I spent most of my time walking around Yongkang street, exploring cafes and trying out all the food.
And of course, you can't miss out on Din Tai Fung when you're in Taipei.
However, something new I've never done in Taipei was to climb Xiangshan. So while my friends were off busy getting their hair done, I decided not to be a vainpot and climb Xiangshan alone. Found my way from the train station and climbed the flight of stairs up, all while busy fighting off mosquitoes and insects.
The view was definitely rewarding and I couldn't ask for a better last night in Taipei than to watch the entire city lighting up as the sun went down. I spent a total of 2 hours, just standing there watching Taipei 101 light up.
And that ends my really packed 10 days trip around Taiwan. There were mishaps but there were also a lot of new experiences. If you want to know more about what we did during these 10 days, check out the video below.
Till then!
Our first stop was Taichung. Upon arrival in Taiwan International Taoyuan Airport, we took the bus to Taichung. Our initial plan was to take the HSR but we realised that travelling by bus has more economic value. The buses can be found at the basement of the airport terminal. It only cost NT240 for the trip and the journey was approximately 2hours long.
We had to lock our luggages with the luggage storage at the Taichung railway station as we were too early to check-in to our accommodation. Our first stop was the Rainbow Village.
Honestly, I felt that the place was rather small and unexciting. However, they turned out pretty well in photos so it wasn't a wasted trip. I don't see anything else you can do there besides taking photos though. It's definitely a place you can skip if time is not on your side.
The highlight for Taichung ought to be Miyahara Ophthalmology Department (宫原眼科 Gong Yuan Yan Ke). The famous bowl of ice-cream located near Taichung station. My waiting line was relatively shorter as compared to what I've seen in other blogs so we only waited for 20 minutes. There were so many flavours for the ice-cream, one can really be spoilt for choices.
A few stores away, you can actually buy the famous sun biscuits in a really pretty shop with amazing interior. As the sun biscuits do have a short expiry date, you can actually place orders for the sun biscuits to be delivered to your accommodation right before you return to Singapore. We had them deliver to our Taipei accommodation.
As our accommodation was really near Fengjia Night Market, we spent the night stuffing ourselves with street food and shopping.
And that pretty sums up our short stay in Taichung because we left for Cingjing the next day. We hired a private taxi driver to drive us all the way to Cingjing. Our first stop was to say hello to the sheep!
They also have a really good horse show in the farm too. So besides watching sheep, you can actually be wowed at the stunts of the horsemen. Besides the sheep, there are also a lot of other attractions in Cingjing including Small Swiss Garden.
We ended the day early because we've signed up for a sun rise tour at Hehuanshan. The tour started at 3am and they picked us up from our accommodation. As it was early in the morning, it was freezing on Hehuanshan so it is extremely important to bring along something to keep you warm.
After catching the sun rise on our second day of Taiwan trip, we took the taxi back to Taichung train station to catch our train to Chiayi. The train ride cost NT244 and to get to Alishan, we would need to switch to a bus to get our way there.
By the time we finished finding our way to our accommodation, it was near evening and we were all exhausted from all the travelling around. We booked a firefly tour & Yushan sun rise tour with some random person at the carpark.
I felt her tour was rather bad considering she just threw us at the firefly place and expected us to explore the place by ourselves while we watch other tours being led by a guide. So you might want to check if you would have a guide for the tour.
Once again, we had another early morning as we went to Yushan to catch the sun rise. The weather was a lot better than our sun rise the day but that's really based on one's luck with mother nature.
The rest of the day in Alishan was spent exploring around. We hopped on the nostalgic train to Zhaoping station.
Trains do not get any prettier than this.
We followed the trail into the woods from Zhaoping station. It was really therapeutic to walk among the trees but as you walk closer to the tourist attractions, the horde of tourists start shattering your peaceful moment.
We left Alishan that evening, headed towards Kaohsiung. By then, we were really exhausted because of the tight schedule we had the past 3 days, covering 3 different places. We quickly just checked into our accommodation.
I do not usually advertise my accommodations unless I really like it. Our Kaohsiung accommodation was one of the coolest airbnb place I've stayed. It was actually the attic of someone's place (no lift) but he had decorated the entire place to what looks like a music studio so it was a really amazing experience. He was also friendly to give us tips on where to visit in Kaohsiung.
And here's Kaohsiung summed up in a few photos.
I actually realised I do not have many photos of our adventures at the night markets but you can safely assume we visited night markets every night while we were in Taiwan. For Kaohsiung, we went to both Liuhe night market and Ruifeng night market. If you want to see what food we ventured into at the night markets, watch the video at the end of the post.
And our trip went down the hill from Kaohsiung. We were supposed to be headed to Green Island, off the coast of Taitung. Unfortunately for us, we met with a really irresponsible taxi driver who took us to the wrong place and we ended up missing our ferry. We had to forgo our Green Island accommodation.
Instead, our driver decided to bring us to Kenting, found us a random accommodation to stay in. Not complaining about the accommodation because the hosts were really kind and nice to us, giving us free rides to the police station because my friend lost her wallet in the midst of all the mess.
Our hosts booked us a snorkelling session and drove us there out of goodwill. The snorkelling included free photos too. But having been on so many snorkeling trips, and even a diving trip, I would say that it wasn't the most amazing experience. However, it was always nice to build new experiences with friends who have never done snorkeled before.
We spent the next day in Kenting, exploring the place with our private taxi driver. And spent most of the time snapping photos away. Ended up day in the night market, and also found ourselves watching a pole dance show.
We were supposed to spend one night in Hualien but as our plans were ruined, we ended up staying the extra night in Kenting. So after two nights in Kenting, we headed back to Taipei.
If you have followed my travel adventures since (who knows when I started penning it down on this domain), you would have known that I've been to Taipei way too many times. So this time, I spent most of my time walking around Yongkang street, exploring cafes and trying out all the food.
And of course, you can't miss out on Din Tai Fung when you're in Taipei.
However, something new I've never done in Taipei was to climb Xiangshan. So while my friends were off busy getting their hair done, I decided not to be a vainpot and climb Xiangshan alone. Found my way from the train station and climbed the flight of stairs up, all while busy fighting off mosquitoes and insects.
The view was definitely rewarding and I couldn't ask for a better last night in Taipei than to watch the entire city lighting up as the sun went down. I spent a total of 2 hours, just standing there watching Taipei 101 light up.
And that ends my really packed 10 days trip around Taiwan. There were mishaps but there were also a lot of new experiences. If you want to know more about what we did during these 10 days, check out the video below.
Till then!