Taiwan

What a stunning place to visit! With almost 300 mountain peaks and a fantastic nightmarket culture, Taiwan is great for nature-lovers and foodies alike.

General information

Taiwan is an island with a population of about 23 million people. The currency is the New Taiwan Dollar (TWD) and the language spoken is Mandarin Chinese. Their capital city is Taipei. Famous for its amazing street food, stunning landscapes, and for being the birthplace of bubble tea.

Safety tips

Emergency number: 112

Japan is generally considered to be safe for travelers. Nevertheless, always check your home countries’ travel advisory before heading off. In addition, it can be good to also read other countries’ advice, just to get a better idea (see for example US, Canada, Australia & UK’s advice for Taiwan).

Budget

Japan can be a cheaper country to visit.

Low budget travelers: 25-40 EUR /day
Mid budget travelers: 40-65 EUR /day
High budget travelers: 65+ EUR /day

Itinerary

Some common tourist destinations in Taiwan are Taipei, Tainan, Sun Moon Lake, Kaohsiung and Hualien.

Taipei is a large, modern city. Famous for its street food night markets, impressive skyline with the Taipei 101 Observatory deck, and lovely daytrips to Yehliu Geopark, Shifen, and Jiufen. The National Palace Museum and Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall are excellent to visit for history-lovers.

Sun Moon Lake is a gorgous, large lake which can be visited by bicyle, foot, or with a cable car.

Taroko National Park is a beautiful region with various trails for those that enjoy hiking. It can easily be accessed from Hualien. Do check in advance whether the trails are open when you visit, because they’re often closed.

Travel tips

Flights to Taiwan can be quite expensive. There are direct routes available from various European destinations. If you’re visiting South Korea, Japan, or Vietnam anytime soon, there are often cheap flights from there into Taiwan, so the destinations are easy to combine if you’d wish to do so.

Traveling within Taiwan is very easy: there is an excellent railway and bus network.

A big part of traveling Taiwan is the street food. Definitely try local delicacies such as stinky tofu, bubble tea, dumplings, and pinneapple cake. The night markets have endless quirky foods which are cool to try.

As is true everywhere: make sure you have an adequate travel insurance that will cover you throughout your stay. Medical help might be more expensive in Japan than in your home country, so make sure your travel insurance covers medical expenses too.

Accomodation

Booking a stay while traveling in Taiwan? I usually compare prices on Booking.com, Hostelworld and Agoda. Searching on Google Hotels can also help to make an easy price comparison.

NB. This post contains affiliate links