For this post, I have compiled 75 of my favorite photos of Taiwan.
All of these are pictures that I have personally taken in my 15+ years of living in and traveling around Taiwan. This is meant to read like a photo book with long captions. You’ll find some flow between image topics but some are just random.
If by the end of the post you feel like hopping on a flight to Taiwan as soon as possible, then my goal here has been achieved!
If you like my photography, see what mirrorless camera and lenses I use.
At 3952 meters, Taiwan’s Yushan (玉山 or Jade Mountain) is even taller than Mount Fuji, the tallest mountain in nearby Japan. Two-thirds of Taiwan is covered in high mountains and they are relatively young.
I shot the above photo from the peak of Yushan at sunrise, as valleys between the adjacent peaks filled with mist.
Snow Mountain (雪山 or Xueshan), Taiwan’s second tallest peak, is named after the fact that it gets lots of snow in winter.
After walking through deep snow to to reach the summit on a freezing winter hike, I took this photo in the “Black Forest” on the way back down.
While Taiwan’s highest mountain peaks do get some snow in winter, locals find it exotic and many of them have never seen it before.
I passed these two local hikers on the way down from Snow Mountain. Here are more places to see snow in Taiwan.
I also saw these beautiful icicles when hiking down Snow Mountain.
Hehuanshan is another famous mountain in Taiwan. It is considered the easiest place in Taiwan to see snow, since you can drive a car or even ride a scooter all the way to 3275 meters, at Wuling Pass. Here’s my Hehuanshan visiting guide.
After spending a night at Songsyue Lodge, which is a former ski lodge where Chiang Kai-shek used to stay, I climbed an adjacent hill to watch the valley below fill with a sea of clouds at sunrise.
A local photographer captured the scene from a slightly higher spot on the hill beside me.
Here’s a zoomed-in shot of the sea of clouds as it surrounds some mountain peaks. I shot this from right outside the front door of Songsyue Lodge.
After witnessing that once-in-a-lifetime sunrise, I saw this macaque on my walk back to Songsyue Lodge.
Taiwan lies in the Ring of Fire, at the meeting point of tectonic plates. This is why the island boasts an extremely high concentration of thermal hot springs.
My personal favorite hot spring in Taiwan, is Zhaori Hot Spring (朝日溫泉) on Green Island.
Open from sunrise until after dark, the hot spring is right next to the sea, so cool water from the ocean mixes with it. It is said to be one of only three saltwater hot springs in the world.
Locals across the country love bathing in these hot springs. Wulai Hot Spring (pictured above) used to be very popular and I loved it.
However, the pools in this photo are mostly gone now. See what’s left of them in my Wulai guide.
Taiwan’s east coast is a region of jaw-dropping beauty.
Due to the meeting of tectonic plates, there is an insane drop from Taiwan’s Central Mountain Range (Yushan is only 50 km inland) down to 4000 kilometers below sea level just off the coast.
This sudden drop has created the Qingshui Cliffs, visible in my above photo. Note the original road and tunnel of Highway 9, which runs along the cliffs.
The Liwu River flows from the Central Mountains into the Pacific just south of the Qingshui Cliffs. On the way, it cuts out Taroko Gorge, the world’s deepest marble gorge.
In the above photo, my two sisters stand on a platform in the Tunnel of Nine Turns in 2008. A few years later, the tunnel was damaged by a landslide and closed until 2019.
Then the whole of Taroko Gorge was heavily damaged and closed in the 2024 Hualien Earthquake. Here’s the current reopening status.
The above photo looks almost exactly like Taroko Gorge, but in fact it’s not. I shot this photo on the Southern Cross-Island Highway.
Taiwan has three “Cross Island Highways” (Northern, Central, and Southern). Taroko Gorge is one small part of the Central one.
These winding highways through the Central Mountain Range are extremely prone to landslides and often closed for repairs, sometimes for years at a time.
The reason I drove the Southern Cross-Island Highway was to get to Lisong Hot Spring, considered the most beautiful wild hot spring in Taiwan.
It’s not easy to reach, though. After a tough drive, where I saw lots of fallen rocks on the highway, I had to descend a very steep trail down into a valley then cross a stream twice to reach it.
This can only be done in winter, otherwise the springs are underwater.
In ancient times, coastal peoples in the Penghu archipelago between China and Taiwan built heart-shaped weirs to catch fish. The fish become trapped after swimming inside.
Penghu‘s most famous heart-shaped weir, a double one, is on Qimei Island, but I found this cute smaller one on Xiyu Island (西嶼).
Taiwan has 16 officially recognized indigenous tribes. They belong to the Austronesian language group.
Current thinking suggests that ancient Austronesians sailed out from Taiwan to populate dozens of islands, including Indonesia, Polynesia, and as far away as Madagascar.
One summer I was lucky enough to attend an Harvest Festival of the Amis (阿美族), the largest aboriginal tribe in Taiwan, in Hualien. Hundreds of Amis dancers performed and tribal elders gathered in their finest regalia.
Hualien has the largest number of aboriginal people of any county in Taiwan. In this photo, an aboriginal vendor in Dongdamen Night Market, Hualien City, offered me a free shot of aboriginal millet wine (小米酒 or xiaomijiu).
I took this photo only one month after the 2024 Hualien earthquake. The vendor and I chatted about the total lack of tourists at that time. Right outside the stall, I could see the rubble of toppled buildings beside the night market.
On another occasion, I attended the biennial “Dance of the Short People” by the Saisiyat tribe (賽夏族) in Hsinchu. They do the dance to commemorate an ancient tribe of short people that their ancestors had killed off.
During the all-night event, they invited us observers to join in their circular dance. It was an ecstatic experience.
Over on Orchid Island, the Tao indigenous people hand carve these beautiful canoes for catching flying fish. They have a whole festival related to the fish, which they only catch in spring, so the populations can recover for the rest of the year.
Believe it or not, I took this photo on a beach right in front of one of only two 7-Elevens on the island. See my Orchid Island guide.
Around a million people in Taiwan, including many aboriginals, are addicted to chewing betel nut. This mild stimulant gives you a tiny buzz and helps you stay awake – I actually don’t mind it.
When I first moved to Taiwan, there were still many “betel nut beauties” (檳榔西施), scantily-clad women who would sell it to passing drivers from glass booths beside major roads. You can still see the odd one around Taiwan, but they aren’t as common as before.
Betel nut chewers get red teeth, and you’ll notice splotches of the red saliva on the street in many places. Chewing it on the MRT is most definitely not allowed. One cocktail bar in Taipei used to do an amazing betel nut cocktail!
From the 16th century on, growing numbers of Chinese fishermen settled in Taiwan. In 1665, they started harvesting salt on the coast around their capital, Tainan. This salt industry would thrive until 2002.
The photogenic Jingzijiao Wapan salt flats are on the coast of Tainan, while not far away in Cigu there a Salt Mountain is a reminder of this past industry.
I captured this one at Cigu Salt Mountain, where I saw whole cuttlefish being roasted on huge salt chunks.
Centered on Taipei even decided to use this shot as the cover image for one of their magazines.
Staying on the topic of dried seafoods, I really like this image of some squids drying in the sun, which I shot on one of Taiwan’s offshore islands.
It’s very common to see various seafoods and other foods (such as white radishes) being dried out on the streets in rural parts of Taiwan. And yes, you will smell it, too.
I saw this large oyster shell artwork on the coast of Donggang, a major fishing port in Pingtung county, where ferries depart for the popular Xiaoliuqiu island.
Oysters are a major product on the west coast of Taiwan. They are huge and delicious. My wife’s family is from a small village on the coast of Chiayi, where we gather with her family for Lunar New Year. When I walk around the village, I see groups of women prying open piles of oysters.
Oysters are used in popular Taiwanese street foods like oyster omelets and deep fried oyster balls.
The first Han Chinese dynasty in Taiwan, the Kingdom of Tungning, was short (1661-1683), but during that time they established many temples in their capital, Tainan.
The above is a detail from the roof of Anping Kaitai Tianhou Temple, or Anping Matsu Temple. With origins going back to 1668, it is considered the oldest Matsu Temple on the main island of Taiwan.
I feel this photo is a gorgeous example of just how ornate and stunning Taiwanese temples can be, especially in their fine details. This portion is actually quite high up – I used a telephoto lens fully zoomed in to take it.
One of my favorite temples in Tainan is Lady Linshui’s Temple (開基臨水夫人媽廟). It is known for having more images of women, including Lady Linshui, an 8th century Taoist priestess/spirit channeller now considered protector goddess of women, children, and pregnancy.
The temple is across the street from a park with a large statue of Koxinga riding a horse. Koxinga was the founder of the Zheng Dynasty in Taiwan. He kicked the Dutch out of Taiwan and is arguably the most important and respected figure from the early history of Taiwan.
Back to Matsu again, this is the main Matsu statue from the Grand Matsu Temple in Tainan. Matsu is the goddess of fishermen and the sea and she is considered the patron goddess of Taiwan.
Coming from the prairies in Canada, a long way from the sea, I have always been fascinated with Matsu worship in Taiwan.
This Matsu temple was originally the house of a prince during the Zheng dynasty. On the eve of the kingdom’s takeover by the Qing dynasty (the Zhengs were Ming dynasty loyalists), the prince’s five concubines committed suicide in the back room of this temple.
The next day, the prince followed suit. Today, there is a temple elsewhere in Tainan dedicated to the five concubines.
This is yet another Matsu temple in Tainan, called the Luermen Tianhou Temple. It holds the title of largest Matsu temple complex in the world.
I liked this photo so much that I used it as the cover image on the homepage of the website you are reading.
To get to the Luermen Matsu Temple, you have to drive past Sicao Green Tunnel (四草綠色隧道). Partially human-made, it is nevertheless very pretty. It’s the easiest way for visitors to experience Taijiang National Park, an often overlooked national park in Taiwan.
To visit the tunnel, I rode on a bamboo raft with a group of Taiwanese visitors. We had the option to wear conical rice farmer hats while we drifted through the tunnel – I passed on that. Read more about my visit.
Taiwan’s Matsu Islands are of course named after the goddess. After taking this photo while driving a scooter around the island, I parked at the bottom and climbed the staircase visible in the photo up to the statue.
The Matsu Islands are just off the coast of China. They are so close that you can see China in the distance (visible in the photo above).
Decades ago, my wife’s father was stationed on Matsu Islands for two years as a soldier in the ROC army. Recently, we took him on a holiday there to bring back some memories.
This Matsu statue stands at the entrance to Anping Harbor, blessing ships as they enter. The park she’s in, Lin Mo-Niang Park, is named after her.
The oldest temple in Taiwan is Penghu Tianhou Temple on the Penghu islands. It is also dedicated to Matsu.
The above is another temple I spotted while scootering around Penghu, with cool lobster statues on the sides.
Taiwan’s small islands have temples unlike any you’ll see on the main island of Taiwan, including many with totally unique gods.
As a temple fan, one of my favorite places in Taiwan is Lion’s Head Mountain in Hsinchu and Miaoli.
This small mountain has over a dozen temples and shrines connected by hiking trails. Some of the temples are even inside caves.
Quanhua Temple, pictured here, is one of the few places you can easily sleep in a temple in Taiwan. I’ve done it twice – once on my own and once with my kids.
The best part of spending the night is watching the changing colors and mists surround the temples at dusk and dawn.
Taitung county, in the southeast of Taiwan, was one of the last aboriginal holdouts and places to be settled by Han Chinese colonists.
Today, Taitung remains mostly rural and sparsely populated. It is considered to have the freshest water, and therefore best rice in Taiwan.
Small villages in Taitung like Chishang and Guanshan are popular cycling spots, especially when the rice fields turn golden yellow in October to November and May to June.
Many spiritual customs and beliefs that practically died out in China during the Cultural Revolution live on to this day in Taiwan.
In this photo, a child prays for good luck in coming final exams at Wenchang Temple in Taipei.
In Taipei, all the tourists gravitate to Longshan Temple. But there are so many other beautiful temples in Taipei.
This photo is Dalongdong Bao’an Temple in Taipei. It has some of the most beautiful details and paintings of any temple in the city.
Some say that if Taiwan ever got UNESCO World Heritage Sites, this would be one of them.
The Taiwanese lunar calendar is dotted with folk religious celebrations, including the birthdays of many Taoist and folk gods and goddesses.
These often involve noisy street parades or pilgrimages with firecrackers, martial arts performances, dancing, and even the occasional self flagellations.
If you spend any amount of time in Taiwan, you’ll eventually stumble upon one of these festivals.
It could even be on the street where you’re staying – my neighborhood in New Taipei City had several every year, sometimes in the middle of the night. These two boys were at one such festival.
Here’s one such temple fair happening right in my neighborhood. Note the smoke from firecrackers and the face of the guy looking out from the costume!
Buddhism is also widely practiced in Taiwan. There are four major Buddhist sects in Taiwan – Fo Guang Shan monastery in Kaohsiung is the largest.
The above Laughing Buddha statue is outside the huge monastery of a Maitreya-focused sect called “Nature Loving Wonderland” in Hsinchu. It does not belong to one of the four major sects, but is a big one nonethless.
Many Chinese festivals were also brought over from the Mainland. One of these is the Lantern Festival, which comes on the 15th day of the Lunar Year.
However, many of these have changed over time in Taiwan. Today, tourists flock to Shifen Old Street every day of the year to paint their wishes on the lanterns and send them up to the sky.
There are many other Lantern Festival events across the country, lasting for weeks.
The festival culminates with two days on which hundreds of lanterns are sent up in intervals throughout the evening, called the Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival.
The practice of releasing sky lanterns has been condemned by environmental groups, but there is no sign of it stopping.
I attended the event once many years ago, when I got the above photo. It’s admittedly a beautiful scene, but it’s so crowded that I wouldn’t go back again.
The above shot is one of the coolest lanterns I’ve ever seen in Taiwan. I found it in Lukang, a town in Changhua county known for its old street, traditional arts and foods, and ancient temples.
Lukang is especially known for its very traditional old street.
While it may have been put up for Lantern Festival, I spotted it several months later. Taiwan is always full of surprises like this!
One festival that is uniquely Taiwanese is the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival in Yanshui district of Tainan. This annual event has been called the world’s most dangerous festival.
The story goes that a cholera epidemic swept through the area in 1875. Locals started shooting off bottle rockets to scare off the disease-causing spirits and the tradition stuck.
When I attended the festival with my dad, who loves exploding things and said he had to go, we stood at the front of the crowd in full protection gear and got pelted by hundreds of rocket.
It was quite painful and my dad even started on fire at one point. I’m glad I did it, but would never do it again!
In 1895, the Japanese acquired Taiwan as a spoil of war from the Sino-Japanese War.
For 50 years, they transformed the landscape of Taiwan, building Shinto shrines, railway lines, hot spring bathhouses, martial arts halls, universities, and more.
Today, there are numerous Japanese-era structures remaining across Taiwan. The above example is Plum Garden at Beitou hot spring village.
The Japanese built up Beitou into Taiwan’s premier hot spring resort. This house, built in the Japanese style, is right next to Beitou Public Hot Spring.
One of the many big changes the Japanese made to Taiwan was to flood two lakes, which were shaped like a sun and a moon, to make a hydropower dam.
This created today’s Sun Moon Lake in Nantou county, one of the country’s most popular tourist attractions.
In the above photo, which I shot from the lakeshore, you can see Ci’en Pagoda rising at the top. Chiang Kai-shek later built it to honor his mother.
The Japanese also started growing black tea in Taiwan, especially around Sun Moon Lake, to compete with British India. Before they had come, oolong tea, first brought over by the Chinese, had been the norm.
After the Japanese left, Taiwan went back to oolong tea production and found that the higher they grew the tea, the better it tasted. Alishan region producing the best ones – hence Alishan High Mountain Tea was born.
The tea growing areas in Alishan region are my absolute favorite part of Taiwan. I took the above photo from Tea & Mist trail in Xiding village of Chiayi county.
This is the famous Eryanping Lookout, which connects Tea and Mist Trail and Eryanping trail in Xiding village.
Once fairly off-the-beaten-track, this spot has exploded in popularity in recent years.
I have to take some responsibility, because I’m always writing about how much I love this area, but it’s also because many local photography groups have been going there and parking their many tripods on the lookout point.
In nearby Shizhuo village, more hiking trails meander up through some of Taiwan’s most photogenic tea plantations.
Several of the farmers run guesthouses where visitors can spend the night on the way to Alishan National Forest Recreation Area. Learn more in my Shizhuo guide.
Before I stop raving about the tea plantations, here’s one more shot of a hiking trail in Shizhuo.
And here’s me exploring Shizhuo’s tea plantations by scooter.
The Alishan region is also known for its stunning bamboo forests, especially around Fenqihu.
Fenqihu is the largest stop on the Japanese-built Alishan Forest Railway Line from Chiayi city to Alishan. It has a cute Old Street with bento boxes and several trails in the bamboo forest. These are some of my favorite hikes in Taiwan.
Alishan is the country’s most well-known National Forest Recreation Area. Sitting at an elevation of 2200-2400 meters, the park features forests of giant ancient hinoki (cypress) trees.
The Japanese built the Alishan Forest Railway to log the region. Today, the iconic red trains transport tourists up to the park. They come to watch the famous sunrise above Yushan across a valley which fills with seas of clouds.
Here’s my guide to Alishan, how to get there, and my recommended visiting itinerary.
Another National Forest Recreation Area, Taipingshan in Yilan county, shares many similarities with Alishan. It is also a former Japanese logging area turned tourist park, with hikes along old railway lines and rides on a former logging train.
Taipingshan also has sunrises with seas of clouds, and it usually gets snow at least once per year.
Read more about Taipingshan here.
To enter Taipingshan, tourists have to climb up a tall staircase framed by gorgeous red maples. These are not an autumn thing – they actually turn vibrant red in May and June.
Besides logging, the Japanese also did a lot of mining in Taiwan. One former gold mining town, Jiufen, has today become one of the country’s hottest tourist attractions.
Masses of tourists flock to Jiufen Old Street every day to soak up its atmosphere, which is often compared to the film Spirited Away, drink tea in traditional teahouses, taste local snacks, and enjoy the views looking down at the coast.
At the end of WWII, the Japanese left Taiwan, but political events in nearby China would continue to impact the island.
After the nationalist KMT army lost the Civil War in China in 1949, millions of soldiers fled to Taiwan. They brought with them thousands of artifacts now stored in the National Palace Museum.
Then they went about making Taiwan more Chinese, including tearing down the many Shinto shrines, outlawing the Japanese and Taiwanese language, and building many classical Chinese buildings such as the above Grand Hotel in Taipei. The longest period of Martial Law in the world, called the White Terror, would last until 1989.
Incidentally, one of my favorite hikes in Taipei, Jiantanshan Trail, starts just behind this hotel.
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is a major Taipei landmark which was built for the the former leader of the KMT.
In this photo, we’re looking through Liberty Arch at Liberty Square (originally “Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Square”). The National Theater and Concert hall stand on either side, while the actual memorial is the white-and-blue structure at the end.
The square and arch have been renamed to de-emphasize CKS, who was a dictator after all. In the same way, Taiwan’s main airport, the former “Chiang Kai-shek International Airport”, has been renamed Taoyuan International Airport.
Today, the most recognizable landmark in the capital is Taipei 101. From 2004 to 2009, it was the tallest building in the world, until Burj Khalifa in Dubai surpassed it.
The skyscraper includes a department store at the base, observation decks on the 88th to 91st floors, and an experience where you can stand on the actual roof above the 101st floor. I introduce many other things to do in Taipei 101 here.
Taipei 101 also has one of the world’s fastest elevators, not to mention it is the world’s tallest “green” building. It is shaped like a stalk of bamboo.
Here is Taipei 101 Shopping Center at the base of the skyscraper. I shot this photo from our hotel room when my family stayed at Grand Hyatt Taipei.
We were comped a stay in one of the hotel’s best rooms in exchange for an article about our stay. The hotel was so happy about my article (and some photos I sold to them) that they invited my wife and I back again to dine in their Michelin star restaurant.
Every year on Lunar New Year Day, Grand Hyatt Taipei holds a traditional lion dance in the lobby. This is one of the photos I shot for Grand Hyatt when we stayed there.
Here are many other special events happening in Taipei on LNY.
And here’s the Dragon Dance, which starts just before the lion dancing, just outside the hotel’s front entrance.
Here a group of tourists crowds onto the main lookout point on Elephant Mountain next to Taipei 101, which provides the classic postcard view of Taipei.
It only takes about 20 minutes to walk up to this point from the edge of the city, but the stairs are very steep! Here’s a map and guide to the trail.
In 2019, Taiwan became the first country in Asia to legalize same-sex marriage rights. Before that happened (and still today), there is a huge Pride Parade in Taipei every year around Halloween. I shot this photo at one of those parades.
One of Taipei’s Old City Gates is visible in the background.
This photo comes from a Hakka celebration. The Hakka are a formerly nomadic people originating in Central China. They are known for working hard and for their hearty foods.
Today, the Hakka make up 15-20% of the Taiwan population. They mainly reside in Taoyuan, Hsinchu, Miaoli, and Kaohsiung, and they are not physically distinguishable from other Taiwanese.
Hakka is one of the four languages you will hear on announcements on the Taipei MRT. The others are Mandarin, Taiwanese, and English, while some stations now also have Japanese and Korean.
Every day, some 2 million people ride the Taipei MRT. Considered one of the best subway systems in the world, it has 6 main lines and 117 stations.
As you can see from the above photo I shot at Zhongxiao Fuxing at rush hour, passengers are quite orderly, lining up in designated spots and standing on the right side of the escalators.
On the trains, they give up their seats to the needy, avoid eating or chewing anything, and keep chats to a whisper.
This is a totally typical street scene in Taiwan. I believe I shot it near my house in New Taipei City, but it could very well be in any city in the country.
Laundry, scooter, and massage shop signs compete for space, sidewalks are non-existent, and scooters are constantly zooming by. This is your everyday Taiwan.
Night markets are a huge deal in Taiwan. I took this photo in Nanjichang Night Market, which is one of the busiest in Taipei among locals.
But tourists seldom make it, because they always flock to the popular ones like Raohe, Ningxia, and Shilin.
This is Ningxia Night Market, one of the most popular ones in Taipei. If you think it looks crowded in this photo, it’s only just getting started. It’s not even dark yet!
Crowds are a normal part of daily life in Taiwan. The above photo is just a normal weekend afternoon at Shenkeng Old Street (see my guide) in New Taipei City. The street is famous for its dozens of stinky tofu stalls.
The photo looks more crowded than it really is due to my use of telephoto lens. However, crowds at many places in Taiwan can get even worse than this (night markets, Jiufen Old Street, popular festivals, etc).
But, despite the density of the crowd, people remain polite, and there are no concerns about pocket-picking or anything like that.
Down in Kaohsiung, it’s the same story, with scooter-filled streets in the early evening. While many of Taiwan’s night markets are pedestrian-friendly, Guanghua Night Market is not.
Most locals just pull up on a scooter, order the meal without even getting up, then drive away with the plastic bag of food hanging from a hook on their scooter.
Here are some better night markets in Kaohsiung for pedestrians.
Kaohsiung is known as Taiwan’s city of art. There are painted murals all over the city, including one whole neighborhood full of them.
Above is the famous Dome of Light glass art installation in Formosa Boulevard station, the transfer station between the city’s two main MRT lines.
Kaohsiung is built around Taiwan’s largest port. One of the port’s piers, Pier 2, is replete with public artworks and cute shops housed in several collections of former pier warehouses.
Pier 2 Art Center is my favorite place to hang out in Kaohsiung, especially in the evening when many of the artworks are lit up, such as the above photo.
These are the famous Dragon and Tiger Pagodas on Lotus Lake in Kaoshiung. The human-made lake is in Zuoying district, near the terminal station of the High Speed Rail Line from Taipei.
While the Dragon and Tiger Pagodas get the most attention nowadays, there are several other shrines and temples along the western shore of the lake, including this huge Taoist warrior god statue.
I especially enjoy visiting the lake at night, when they are all lit up.
Believe it or not, this is a rest stop on the highway into Taichung, Taiwan’s middle city. Lihpao started out as a few shops selling snacks, then expanded into a huge outlet mall, theme park, waterpark, resort, and go-kart racing track.
The outlet mall is themed on an Italian seaside village, hence the pastel colors. The Ferris wheel on top is the tallest in Taiwan. If you grab a meal in the second-floor food court, you can watch people boarding the Ferris wheel right next to it.
Taichung is a flower viewing hot spot, after hosting an international flower expo in 2018 and the annual Xinsghe Flower Expo every winter.
At Zhongshe Flower Market, which has various flowers year-round, I found a woman playing a white piano in a sea of lavender. Learn more about the flower market here.
Speaking of flowers, cherry blossoms attract the biggest crowds in Taiwan. One of my favorite cherry blossom spots is Tianyuan Palace in Tamsui, New Taipei City.
This spot is special because it has two different blooming times, due to different cherry blossom species – one in February and another in March.
Every year, I track the cherry blossom status at various locations in Taiwan here. I’ve also introduced several other flower festivals in Taiwan here.
Besides flower viewing, I also love hiking in Taiwan. Here are some of my favorite hikes in Taipei region, and you can find more hikes across Taiwan here.
I took the above shot of myself on Sandiaoling Waterfall Trail, which includes three beautiful waterfalls. The second one, pictured above, has a cave behind it that you can climb into.
Besides the cave part, this hike is easy enough for kids. It’s a lesser-known stop on the popular Pingxi Railway Line.
Another lesser-known hiking trail on the Pingxi Line is the Pingxi crags. These sedimentary crags rise out steeply from the jungle canopy, with a series of trails up to their peaks.
It’s a truly thrilling hike, but not for the faint of heart! Read more about it here.
My friends and I also love water activities in Taiwan – there’s no better way to beat the heat in summer.
River tracing is our favorite – the activity involves walking up streams and jumping in wherever we see fit.
Above, one of my friends takes a leap at a cliff diving spot we found in Longdong on the Northeast coast.
Kengting National Park used to be the spring break party capital of Taiwan. On the April long weekend, there were several beach parties there, attracting masses of locals.
I took this photo many years ago on the beach in Kenting during one of those April long weekends. In recent years, Kenting’s popularity among locals has declined, as many of them find it cheaper and faster to fly to Japan for their holidays.
Here’s my Kenting National Park guide.
At night, the beachgoers take the street to find dinner in Kenting Night Market. The night market is unique in Taiwan in that it has a beach party vibe, with techno music, cocktail stalls and even a few vendors wearing swimsuits.
Here’s what to eat at Kenting Night Market.
Taiwan is famous for its 7-Elevens. In my opinion, they are even better than the ones in Japan or Thailand (I’ll give many reasons in a future article).
This one, which I saw in Penghu, is right next to a temple topped with a huge Taoist god. Penghu has more temples per capita than any other county in Taiwan.
Speaking of 7-Eleven, there are so many convenience stores in Taiwan that it’s common to see them side-by-side.
I took this photo many years ago in Shida Night Market. When I first came to Taiwan, this was the coolest night market in the city. But in 2012, the market was mostly shut down due to noise complaints from neighbors. Here’s what’s left of it today.
There are many excellent theme parks, waterparks, and aquariums in Taiwan.
I had to include this photo I got of two jellyfish at Xpark in Taoyuan city, my favorite aquarium in Taiwan.
I’m finishing with this fun photo I took inside a taxi in Taiwan (my father is sitting on the right). Sometimes taxi drivers in Taiwan have a lot of decals – this guy took it to the extreme.
Taxi drivers are some of my favorite people to chat with in Taiwan. I’ve had many of my best (and free!) Mandarin practice sessions with them while riding in the back (if you’re just getting started, see my Mandarin phrases for travelers).
Like so many Taiwanese, they are often the friendliest and most welcoming people I’ve had the pleasure of meeting.