We toured Taiwan from 29 Nov to 06 Dec 2025 (Autumn Season) for 8 days 7 nights with 1 child (10 yrs old ). Here’s a summary of our Taiwan Itinerary. The Airline we took was Scoot Airlines and the flight hours was about 5 hours.
We visited 5 Taiwan counties for this trip: Hsinchu , Taichung, Miaoli, Nantou and Taipei and a total of places. Our 4 Accommodations were Lakeshore Hotel Hsinchu Lakeside Pavilion (Hsinchu), Freshfields Hotel (Taichung), Ginkgo Hotel (Nantou) and Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel Taipei Ximen (Taipei).
What We Achieved for Our Third Taiwan Family Trip
- Walked through the biggest wetland area we had ever walked.
- Touched and fed a family of capybaras.
- Observe some alpacas roaming freely on the grass.
- Fed muntjac deers for the first time.
- Fed many animals for this trip: rabbits, guinea pigs, chickens, ducks, cows, goats, capybaras.
- Walked through a natural limestone cave and observe a waterfall.
- Walked through a cypress forest area and through the canopy.
- Ate lots of night market street food.
- Tried Taiwanese hot pot.
- Viewed some interesting modern fine art exhibits.
- Enjoyed hot spring water pools.
- Viewed many lovely species of flowers at the flower market.
8-DAY FAMILY TRAVEL ITINERARY FOR TAIWAN – HSINCHU | TAICHUNG | MIAOLI | NANTOU | TAIPEI
DAY 1 – Hsinchu 新竹
- Scoot Flight to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport at 8.30am.
- Reached at 1.15pm.
- Took Airport Taxi at 1.45pm and headed to our Hsinchu hotel directly.
- Checked in Lakeshore Hotel Hsinchu Lakeside Pavilion (煙波大飯店 新竹湖濱館) – got an early check-in
- Booked Uber and took taxi ride to Neiwan Old Street (內灣老街) (accessible by train too but we wanted to arrive earlier to as to have more time to explore).
- Explored Neiwan Old Street for about 2 hours.
- Back to Lakeshore Hotel Hsinchu Lakeside Pavilion (煙波大飯店 新竹湖濱館) around 8 plus and went to the indoor heated pool spa until it closed at 9.30pm.
DAY 2 – Hsinchu 新竹
- Took Uber to Green World Ecological Farm (綠世界生態農場)
- Morning breakfast at Hsinchu – Green World Ecological Farm (as we did not order buffet breakfast)
- Fed animals at Green World Ecological Farm, viewed alpaca show, parrots show and pelican feeding show until 5pm.
- Headed to Hsinchu Shopping Mall – Far Eastern Hsinchu Store (新竹大遠百) – an upscale department store to our surprise, with branded goods.
- Bought some blind boxes items from a store and some gashapon but could not find a suitable restaurant to eat.
- Dinner outside the mall from a Sushi shop (燄寿司Yan Sushi) on the street which was quite delicious.
- Back to Lakeshore Hotel Hsinchu Lakeside Pavilion to play at the huge children’s indoor playground (Color Dimension) and indoor heated spa pool.
DAY 3 – Hsinchu 新竹/ Taichung 臺中
- Explored Green Grass Lake (青草湖) with a nice arched bridge and Chinese pavilion.
- Took Uber to Hsinchu Railway Station.
- Bought takeaway sushi from 爭鮮gogo for lunch.(Wanted to eat Mos Burger but closed). My girl ate a donut from Mister Donut.
- Took a 35 mins High Speed Rail (HSR) ride from Hsinchu Railway station to Taichung Railway Station.
- Walked to Rental Car Company (we booked via Klook) which was outside Station (head to Exit 7).
- Drove to Freshfields Hotel (清新溫泉飯店)and checked in. They would send our luggage to our room.
- Reached Gaomei Wetlands (高美濕地) at 3.42pm. Ate some street food while sunset was viewed at 5pm.
- Visited the famous Fengjia Night Market (逢甲夜市) and ate plenty of street food.
- Back to Freshfields Hotel to rest and explored the surroundings a little. It was too cold for outdoor hotspring then at 9.15pm.
- We enjoyed a personal hot spring bath in the huge bathtub in our room instead (the reason why I booked it).
DAY 4 – Taichung 臺中
- Morning Buffet Breakfast in Freshfields Hotel.
- Explored Zhongshe Flower Market (中社觀光花市) – paid exhibition as we missed the Xinshe Flower festival by a day.
- Lunch was at a nice cafe in the mountains – Provence (普羅旺斯庭園餐廳) and we explored its garden compounds with the variety of plants. Food was tasty.
- Back to Freshfields Hotel (清新溫泉飯店) to do outdoor hot spring spa in the afternoon. Stayed for about an hour.
- Visited Wonder New Land (異想新樂園) at 6.30pm for my girl to play and played until closing time at 8pm.
- All eateries were closed so we drove to a stand-alone McDonald’s building nearby and tried Taiwanese McDonald’s food. (No chilli sauce and they have Taiwan’s orange juice drink)
DAY 5 – Taichung 臺中
- Morning Buffet Breakfast in Freshfields Hotel.
- Drove to Miaoli for Flying Cow Ranch (飛牛牧場) and explored it for the day until 6pm. [ required a 1.5 hrs drive – we made Taichung as the base so we do not need to stay in at the ranch itself ]
- Dinner at Japanese foodcourt Omenashi Dining in Mitsui Shopping Park LaLaport Taichung (三井LaLaport台中 )and shopped at Daiso, browsed around various shops. It is a Japanese shopping mall with its South building containing the largest collection of Japanese specialty stores in Taiwan.
- Back to rest in hotel – we were too late for outdoor spa again.
DAY 6 – Taichung 臺中 / Nantou 南投
- Morning Buffet Breakfast in Freshfields Hotel.
- Explored the surrounding gardens and fed some fishes in Freshfields Hotel.
- Drove to Ginkgo Hotel ( 孟宗山莊大飯店) in Nantou County and checked in.
- Explored Xitou Monster Village (溪頭怪物村) and ate lunch in a restaurant there.
- Xitou Nature Education Area (溪頭自然教育園區) – visited the scenic bridge and climbed up to the sky canopy walk among the cypress trees. Explored for 3.5 hrs.
- Ate hotpot dinner at restaurant in Ginkgo Hotel (孟宗山莊大飯店) .
DAY 7 – Nantou 南投 / Taipei 臺北
- Checked out from Ginkgo Hotel (孟宗山莊大飯店) after buffet breakfast.
- Drove with our luggage to Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area (杉林溪森林) in Zhushan Township, Nantou. (about 40 mins from the hotel)
- Explored Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area (杉林溪森林) for about 3 hours.
- Reached Deer Valley (鹿芝谷生态景观园区) in Lugu Township about an 50 mins drive and had our lunch there after purchasing the entrance tickets. (We can offset the entrance fee with meals and souvenirs bought in the shop so visit to the animal enclosure is considered free).
- Touched and fed several animals in Deer Valley (鹿芝谷生态景观园区)- sheep, capybaras, goats, rabbits, turtles. Great view of sunset across the valley.
- Drove up to Taichung HSR station to return the rental car.
- Took HSR to Taipei Main Railway Station (台北車站) – about 1 hr ride.
- Checked in Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel Taipei Ximen (索拉利亞西鐵飯店台北西門).
- Shopping and eat in Ximending 西門町- visited 7-Eleven Hello Kitty Shop, Don Don Donki Ximen Store.
DAY 8 – Taipei 臺北
- Morning Buffet Breakfast in Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel Taipei Ximen.
- Early morning checkout from hotel and left our luggage in its “self-cloaking” room which we can lock our luggage ourselves with a password lock.
- Visited Taipei Fine Arts Museum (臺北市立美術館)
- Shopping at Taipei City Mall (臺北地下街) for cute merchandise/ gashapon (for my girl).
- Back to Solaria Nishitetsu Hotel Taipei Ximen to pick up luggage.
- Travel to Taiwan Taoyuan International Airport.
- Flight to Singapore at 4.15pm.
Exploring in Cold Weather in Taiwan – Clothing Needs
We were blessed with good weather for this trip and there was no rain at all. In fact, when we visited at certain timings in the morning, especially at the flower market, it was too sunny for me to take good photos as our eyes kept squinting under the bright rays. The temperature was around 23-25 degrees Celsius in the cities and considered “air-con” weather, so we wore a light jacket over a t-shirt top or just long sleeves. Temperature dropped to 18 degrees Celsius at night but we were usually back in the hotel around 8pm.
It was cold and windy however at high mountainous regions such as the Xitou Nature Education Centre Forest Park and Sun-Link-Sea Forest Recreation Area where we wore three layers or thick clothing for my girl as the temperature was at 14 degrees Celsius in the morning. She even wore gloves there as her hands were too cold. Range of temperature was at 14-18 degrees Celsius for mountainous regions.
We needed good walking shoes as we went to many nature places for this Taiwan trip and needed to walk up elevated walkways or staircases. The new shoe I bought for my girl turned out too small and pinched her toes the first day. We ended up buying a new pair of shoes for her on the second night in a shopping mall or else she would not be able to continue the nature walks on subsequent days. Fortunately, I brought along another pair of open toe foam sandals for the swimming and could use that first while we looked for new shoes. During the trip, we saw many Taiwanese elderly walking around and climbing mountainous slopes with ease at the same tourist spots. We were quite amazed at their level of fitness.
Taxi / Private Hire Rides
We took taxi from the airport taxi stand directly to Hsinchu once we landed in Taoyuan International Airport. We prefer to go other counties of Taiwan since there was not much to do in Taipei except shopping. For a few days in Hsinchu, we used Uber app to book taxi /private hire rides (since we did not buy a Sim card but bought internet usage from our telcom Singtel. We communicated by Whatsapp call and messages using the internet.)
It was not easy to get rides from the Uber however when it was evening time or in a remote area (such as Neiwan). We almost could not get back from Neiwan to Hsinchu after waiting for a long time around 7pm. I thought on hindsight that if we had a local phone, we could have called several taxi company lines directly to book a taxi instead of relying on the Uber app. We tried asking the 7-eleven staff to call for us but the person was not helpful in that.
In Taipei, we took taxi rides to two places to save time and the traffic was so crowded and confusing. We had to wait in the traffic several times. Even the taxi drivers say people from other Taiwan counties dare not drive in Taipei as there were too many different rules.
Rental Car and Self-Driving in Taichung, Miaoli and Nantou
For our previous trips to Taiwan in 2012 and 2018, we hired a driver as we needed a car seat for the kids and it is not possible to carry a car seat with us for travelling. As our kid is already 10 years old, we have no need of a baby car seat now. However, she is still too short to sit safely with the seat belt so I bought a portable car seat – BubbleBum Inflatable Booster Seat (I bought it from Pupsik Studio but there are some sold on shopee too) for our rental car.
We had pre-booked a rental car in Taichung while we were in Singapore through Klook. I thought it was more flexible for us to drive in Taichung, Miaoli and Nantou to several itineraries in mountainous/ remote regions. We could go and leave anytime we wanted which was more flexible. It is also less costly than getting a hired driver just to drive us to the place where we usually would explore for many hours while the driver just waited. We could also leave our shopping items or change items to carry in our backpack whenever we wanted.
The con was that Vin was quite tired as he had to drive several hours and still explored the place of interest. He had to fully concentrate as a foreigner and Google maps were to our surprise, not accurate in Taiwan, causing several wrong turns and wasted time. On hindsight, it would be easier to travel with a booked driver. Vin had written a post on “Driving in Taiwan” which I would be putting up later.
Travelling with a 10-yr-old in Taiwan
*This was her 2nd time to Taiwan but she could barely remember the first time as it was when she was only 3 years old in 2018.
More Nature and Animals Itinerary
She loves animals like me so this trip is more for her to interact with animals such as alpacas and capybaras. However, she was not allowed to touch the alpacas in the farms we visited. A last minute change to the itinerary on Day 7 brought us to a place where she could touch and feed capybaras, so she was pretty excited. She loves feeding animals too and she fed to her heart desire as there were so many animals we saw and interacted with for this trip.
As her brother who loves transport is not around for this trip, the majority of the itinerary was planned for her, visiting more animals and nature places, indoor playgrounds and shopping malls. If her brother was around, we would have considered adding in transport itinerary and less shopping.
Shopping Itinerary – Interest in Blind Boxes and Gashapon
For shopping, she is more into Sanrio characters, Mofusand, Chiikawa and Capybara. When we travelled with my boy and before the girl got into cute characters blind boxes after our Japan 2022 trip, we seldom include shopping malls into our travel itineraries. However, it is a must to include now if we are in the city area so she could buy them. We would only buy food stuff or souvenir magnets now.
Before the trip, I had to research the possible places to buy the Sanrio Blind boxes and specially included malls as an evening itinerary coupled with dinner. However, during the trip, we were disappointed about the pricing as it was about the same as what we would have gotten in Singapore, imported from China (slightly cheaper only).
Browsing around, she still managed to find some cute blind boxes that she liked (in Fengjia Night Market, Hsinchu /Taichung Shopping Malls) and I found the price reasonable enough to buy. The prices fluctuate a lot in the counties and the same item was cheaper to buy in Hsinchu and Taichung than in Taipei Ximending. There were so many Gashapon machines everywhere too in Taiwan and she bought several items from them. I was amazed by the amount of Gashapon machines in Taipei underground city mall and Ximending.
When I explained the pricing to her, my girl understood that it was not possible to buy large amounts of cute figurines like what we did in China Xi’an in June this year. Besides cute stuff, she also enjoyed the street food and old-school sweets we found in a night-market shop.
Food
We tried some Taiwanese food (hotpot, small dishes with rice) during the trip for some meals and most of them placed more importance on the local vegetables which we were not used to and therefore did not appreciate. I only like Taiwanese cabbage (高山菜) while my husband and kid did not like the vegetables that much. Many Taiwanese meals also had mushrooms and it seemed to be a staple for Taiwanese cuisine. We ended up eating more street food , Western and Japanese food as meals. On two occasions, we even had to eat McDonald’s as there were no suitable eatery around.
Toilet Needs
The majority of toilets in tourist places were still squatting toilets while those in shopping malls and train stations were high-tech bidet toilets. When I first visited Taiwan in 2012, I got a culture shock about “not throwing used toilet tissue papers into the toilet bowl”, instead “throw it into the bin beside it”. They claimed that the flushing system was not good and could not flush used toilet papers down. Even until now in 2025, it is still the same about the flushing system.
However for this trip, they seemed to be undecided andconfused on whether one can throw the used tissue papers into the toilet bowl or not across the counties in Taiwan. I found that in some toilets, there were signs stating that one should not throw any toilet paper tissue into the bowl but in some other toilets, signs stated that one should throw the toilet tissue paper into the toilet bowl, just not stuff that could not be flushed. I was amazed that even in one of the good hotels we stayed in, there was also a sign that stated, NOT to throw into the bowl due to the flushing system. The alternative is to use less paper and use the bidet from the high tech toilet bowl to wash instead. We did not dare to disobey the rule since if it gets clogged up, we would be the one to suffer for our hotel stay.
(Note: In Singapore, we always throw used toilet tissues into the toilet bowl but some tourists to Singapore would keep throwing them into the sanitary bins beside, which is not used for the purpose (saw many unsightly stuff). Thus, instead we had to put up signs telling the tourists to please throw them into the toilet bowl).
Shopping and Souvenirs
For this visit, we found that the pricing for things in Taiwan were no longer considered cheap and costs relatively the same as Singapore’s pricing. Is it due to inflation?
Taiwan has lots of creative cute stuff but not many independent stationery shops. Most shops sold souvenirs on Taiwan which we had already gotten in the past. Sanrio characters seemed to be everywhere on merchandises in Taiwan but even though I liked them, they were too big for us to buy back home.
In the end, I bought mostly food stuff and for items, I found cute travel luggage tags and bus pass holder from shops in Taipei Ximending. As usual, we looked for fridge magnets of the place visited.
My girl bought several cute figure merchandises, a small lava lamp toy and a fridge magnet from a shop in Xitou Monster Village. From another shop, we bought several packets of dried apple, strawberries and guava snacks. Next to the souvenir shop was a shop which sold quality highland tea leaves – Highland Jin Xuan Tea and Oolong Tea （台湾金萱茶/乌龙茶）.
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