Taiwan’s Top Ten Day Trips

I’ve just written this piece for a Korean magazine, and while most of the places here have already been put on the Blog, it’s probably worth putting the whole thing up here  - Taiwan really is an extraordinary place!

This list is only a start, and on another day I might have come up with a completely different ’top 10,’ but these are wonderful places, and all are great personal favorites. I’ve uploaded new photos and expanded the write-up on the spectacular Taiji Canyon, which is not covered elsewhere here.

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The secret’s finally out: more and more tourists are discovering that Taiwan is an island of quite extraordinary natural beauty. But whatever you do, don’t limit yourself to the big tourist draw cards such as Sun Moon Lake, Alishan and Kenting. The island’s popular sights are great of course, but be sure to make time for at least a couple of the countless little-known gems that lie scattered around the island and on the outlying islets.

   There are enough enchanting spots to keep a weekend explorer going for decades, and any ‘top ten’ list is bound to be highly subjective, but here’s a personal list of ten places – all feasible day trips from one or other of the island’s big cities – that may well prove to leave more lasting memories than lying on the beach in Kenting or zooming through Taroko Gorge in a bus. 

1.  Loyal Son Mountain and

2. Sandiaoling Waterfall Walk, Taipei County

Descending Loving Mother Mountain

The 12 kilometer-long Pingxi Branch Railway Line, an hour’s ride from Taipei city center, is one of the most beautiful train rides in northern Taiwan, but the real attraction of coming here is the host of natural and cultural attractions easily accessible from the tracks. The area is dotted with atmospheric reminders of the area’s coal mining past, and the valley (which boasts the wettest place in Taiwan) features well over twenty waterfalls. The most famous (and touristy) of these is forty meter-broad Shifen Waterfall (十分瀑布), the widest waterfall in Taiwan, but waterfall lovers can’t do better than take the stunningly scenic, 3-hour Sandiaoling Waterfall (三貂嶺瀑布) Walk nearby. Named for an impressive 30-meter high fall which plunges over a huge overhang behind which hikers can stand, the walk also features a further two beautiful waterfalls, and several exciting but safe climbs up cliff faces on chunky rope ladders.

Niya Waterfall, on the Sandiaoling Waterfall Walk

  

Xiao Liuqiu

On the maze of paths in Beauty Cave Scenic Area

 

It’s only two-and-a-half years since my first visit to the little island of Xiao Liuqiu, fifteen kilometers off the west coast of Taiwan in the far southern county of Pingdong, but what a difference that short time has made!  Our first trip there in April 2009 (with my pet Golden Retriever, Gem, in tow) revealed a quiet and enchanted landscape  of uplifted coral formations, almost unique in Taiwan (only the interior of Kenting National Park and a few places in nearby Kaohsiung County have anything like this).

The Penghu Archipelago

Stone fish trap on Jibei Island

   I dunno…. After two trips (seperated by a decade), I’m not sure how much I really like Penghu.  

   I still have a love-hate relationship with Taiwan’s largest set of offshore islands. For sure, Penghu looks wonderful in photos (as I hope my attempts here go some way to showing), and there’s no doubt about it, Penghu is an amazing place. I just wish

Back to Matsu

 

Beihai Tunnel. Nangan Island

   In my experience, it’s rarely a good idea to return to place a second time, especially if the first visit was memorable.  An ongoing project, however meant I needed to go back to one of my favorite corners of Taiwan, the Matsu islands mid October, but this time  I needn’t have worried. Despite less than pleasent weather, a long overnight journey out there from Keelung, sitting in the restaurant on the Taima ferry, and an equally long, bunkless  trip back, after our flight was cancelled due to ‘bad’ weather, the return visit proved to be just as wonderful.

Return to Keelung Island

   Keelung Island is an old friend, and we’ve made many visits there over the past decade or so since it was fully opened to visitors, so it’s sad to see it’s recently become a bit harder to reach than before. The company which once ran regular yachts out to the island every weekend from Bisha Harbour is no more, and now boats make the interesting but longer voyage there from a company operating out of Keelung Harbour (directly opposite the train station).

Kinmen Island

Watch out! The strange and beautiful honeycomb rock formations of Lesser Kinmen's northern coast are in an area where unexploded mines still lay

Last weekend, at the scorching-hot tail-end of August, I took my second trip to Kinmen, and, just like after my first (eight years ago), I’m still strangely conflicted about the place, even though I’d recommend a visit to anyone. 

Turtle Island

  

The underwater hot springs of Turtle Island, seen from the summit path

Getting to Turtle Island (or rather obtaining the necessary permit to land there) is enough of a hassle that I’ve only been there once before, eight or nine years ago, and that time I never landed. Getting permission to climb the path to the highest point of the island is even more difficult to get, so when I noticed a hiking group in Sanchong City included the hike to the summit of the island in their autumn schedule this year, I jumped at the chance to join them.  

The larger of Turtle Island's two lakes, near the visitor center

These days boat trips to Turtle Island (龜山島) mostly go from Wushi Harbor (烏石漁港), just outside Toucheng (頭城) in northern Ilan County, and although there was no time to check for sure as we were hurried off the coach and on to the waiting boat at 8:30 in a Sunday morning, posters up on walls nearby seemed to imply that it’s still possible (on weekends at least) to do what I did the last time I visited the island, and simply turn up and get on a non-landing, dolphin watching boat (the pesky permit is required only to land on the island).

Penghu and its Amazing Basalt Formations

Little Taiwan Rock, Qimei Island

 

As I traced the short footpath along the coast of tiny Tongpan Island (桶盤嶼) in the South Sea Islands of Penghu, I was finally fulfilling one of my smaller but longest held ambitions. Not that I’d even heard of this little island until I started planning my first (and so far only) trip to the Penghu archipelago, way back in 2002. No, it wasn’t the tiny island in itself that interested me, but rather the amazing rock formations to be found here, and on several other islands in Penghu.

The Basalt Columns of Tongpan Island (Penghu)

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