We visited Taiwan from 30 October – 6 November 2012 for 8 days 7 nights. Here is a summary of our Taiwan Itinerary with Travel Tips and links to detailed post experiences. The Airline we took was Scoot Airlines and the flight hours was about 5 hours. Our boy was 4 yrs old then.
We toured 4 main locations: Chiayi, Nantou, Taipei, Hualien and visited a total of 25 places. Our accommodations were Alishan Tea-Garden Homestay, Doris Home, Misty Villa, Shin Shih Hotel and Hualien Bay.
Taiwan Chiayi | Nantou | Taipei | Hualien Itinerary Day by Day
8-DAY FAMILY ITINERARY FOR TAIWAN CHIAYI | NANTOU | TAIPEI | HUALIEN
DAY 1 ( CHIAYI )
*Click on Links for more detailed write-ups of the places we visited*
- Arrival Taoyuan Airport
- Chiayi – Alishan National Forest Recreation
- Fenchihu Old Town
- Homestay B&B – Alishan Tea Garden
DAY 2 ( NANTOU )
*Click on Links for more detailed write-ups of the places we visited*
- Morning Tea Garden
- Shueishe Pier at Sun Moon Lake / Ita Thao
- Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village
- Sun Moon Lake Restaurant
- Homestay B&B – Doris Home
DAY 3 ( NANTOU )
*Click on Links for more detailed write-ups of the places we visited*
- Cycling Around Sun Moon Lake
- Aowanda National Forest Recreation
- Cingjing Small Swiss Garden
- Homestay B&B – Misty Villa
DAY 4 ( NANTOU / TAIPEI )
*Click on Links for more detailed write-ups of the places we visited*
- Cingjing Farm Green Green Grassland
- Taichung HSR to Taipei HSR
- Shin Shih Hotel
- Miramar Entertainment Park
- Shilin Night Market
DAY 5 ( TAIPEI)
*Click on Links for more detailed write-ups of the places we visited*
- Pingxi Railway Line Tour ( Houtong, Shifen Old Town, Shifen Waterfall, Pingxi Old Town)
- Taipei 101
DAY 6 ( TAIPEI)
*Click on Links for more detailed write-ups of the places we visited*
- Jiufen Old Town
- Jinguashi Gold Ecological Park
- Ximending
DAY 7 ( HUALIEN)
*Click on Links for more detailed write-ups of the places we visited*
- Arrival in Hualien – Taroko Gorge
- Qi Xin Tan
- Hualien City Food and Explore
- Fireworks & Sky Lantern in Homestay B&B – Hualien Bay
DAY 8 ( HUALIEN/ TAIPEI )
*Click on Links for more detailed write-ups of the places we visited*
- Morning Sea / Farm Animals in Hualien Bay
- Back to Taipei
- Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall / Departure
Getting from One Place To Another
- Public Transport – High-Speed Rail (HSR) / Normal Taiwan Railway (TRA) / Shuttle Bus (To Miramar) / Flag a Taxi on the road/ Boat-ride / Cable-car Ropeway
- Booked Transport – Hired Taxi Drivers via email communication while we were in Singapore. Met up when in Taiwan by calling them. Booked them for at least 1 DAY to get to places we decided. We did our own tour with our own itinerary, not arranged by them but on the road, they offer suggestions too. Their contact is available in our trip report posts.
- High-Speed Rail Time-table & Fares 台灣高鐵: http://www.thsrc.com.tw/index_en.html
- Easy-Card ( 悠遊卡 ) for travelling on Taipei Metro
FREE – For children below 115cm and below 6 years old. (Was free for Dar)
Concession Cards – Senior citizens aged over 65 or people with disabilities; Children with a height between 115cm and 150cm or who are aged between 6 and 12 years old. - Ubus: 10-minute interval starting from 6:30am at Terminal 1
Fare：Adult NT$30、Children/Senior/Disabled NT$15 / Bought at U-BUS counter in Arrival Greeting Hall.
:: Tips on Travel in Taiwan ::
1. Train Booking in Advance
- Book the Taroko Express Train to Hualien in advance. We specially booked it two weeks before our day in Hualien through online transaction and collected the tickets when we reached Taiwan. This is to guarantee us a seat as the train is very popular for morning timings.
2. Pingxi Railway Line Tour
- Do the Pingxi Line Tour on a weekday. We had other natural places to go which we wanted to do on a weekday so we had no choice but use a Saturday to tour. We had to stand all the way on the crowded train and almost couldn’t get on once. The intervals between the train is quite long. Missing the arrival results in a long wait.
- Visit Alishan / Aowanda / Taroko or any recreational forest in the early morning. That’s when you do not see tour buses of tourists. They usually come near afternoon.
3. Travel by Taxis
- Taxis or cabs are abundant and one can also hire on-the-go but we prefer to book reliable drivers for a particular place for a day to do our own tour. Some normal taxi drivers on the road might not be familiar with place you are sight-seeing and might drive a longer way or get lost.
- Taxi drivers around scenic places have a different license than those who drive around the city. The ones who drive in the city area goes by the meter and doesn’t do whole day tours. Taxi drivers that do whole day tour can discuss the rate according to the hours spent and the distances between the places. Different rates apply as it is customized.
4. Travel Adaptator for Charging Devices
- An adaptor is needed for electricity as Taiwan uses electric current of 110 volts at 60 cycles. (For things originating from Europe, Australia or South-East Asia)
5. Food and Drink
- Food is sold onboard the High-Speed Rail but only in the afternoon and night. We bought our food bentos from the convenience store in the station and ate them in our train journey. Small foldable table is available behind each seat.
- 7-eleven convenience stores sell hot drinks & some hot food, staff would help to microwave packaged food and washrooms are available inside the stores.
6. Mobile Internet
- We bought a pre-paid unlimited 3G Sim card to use with our phone for the eight days. NRIC and Passport is needed for proof and microsim version is available for iphone. The most popular telco service was 台灣大哥大.
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