Our Top Taiwan Travel Tips: Taipei and Surfing
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Our Top Taiwan Travel Tips
Taiwan is a luscious country full of beautiful greenery and lovely landscapes. Its capital city, Taipei, is a bustling metropolis. We stayed just under 10 days on the main island of Taiwan and visited Taipei and the cute little surf town of Waiao (we also previously went to Kinmen, an island close to China which we won’t be discussing in this post because there’s not much to it and we only visited it because we could take the ferry from where we lived). Taiwanese Mandarin is spoken here but most people speak great English too and every one is super friendly! In this guide we’ll show you where are the best places to stay, eat, and go for the best trip possible so read on below for our top Taiwan travel tips for the city of Taipei and where to go surfing!
Taipei travel guide
New Taipei City is quite a sprawling, busy city that’s known for its street food. One thing we 100% recommend seeing for any photography buffs out there is the infamous motorcycle waterfall! It’s located on Minquan West road in the Datung district, you can see it on the slip road to the left coming off of Taipei Bridge from Sanchung direction if you’re looking at it head on, facing the river. For its full effect, it’s best to visit in the morning or evening during rush hour.
We stayed in the most popular area for tourists due to its convenience (and found it to be no more “touristy” than other areas), Wanhua (Ximending) district, which is worth it for ease of proximity to other areas and attractions, even though the public metro system, MRT, is really quick, clean and easy to use so you can really stay in any central area you like and be fine. Other areas of interest include:
ZHONGZHENG: Central, close to Taipei Main Station, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, and Huashan 1914 Creative Park
XINYI: Modern financial district, upscale shopping with lots of restaurants, close to the Taipei 101 building
ZHONGSHAN: Older luxury hotels, many riverside parks, close to Taipei Fine Arts Museum and Xingtian Temple
DA’AN: Modern “green” district, quieter neighbourhoods, close to Da’an Forest Park and Shida Night Market
SONGSHAN: More residential area, close to Raohe Night Market
What to do in Taipei:
Hike Elephant Hill - For the most epic view of Taipei, get yourself up here well before sunset to secure yourself a spot on the famous rock overlooking the Taipei 101 building, it can fill up pretty fast! This is a beautiful, not too strenuous hike and well worth it for the view.
Taipei 101 building - The area around here is known for its shopping, and trendier bars and restaurants- you can also pay to get to the top of this once tallest building in the world (until the Burj Khalifa outdid it in 2010) for about £15 each.
Eat at Shilin and Raohe night markets - Taipei loves a good night market and these are 2 of the best for fully immersing yourself in all the intermingling foods, smells and people. We got delicious pasty/empanada type things right at the back entrance of Raohe market- there’s always a long queue but it goes down really quickly and they’re so worth the wait! It’s also really cool to see how they make them traditionally using stone oven and their bare hands! Also, please for the love of God do yourself a favour and taste THE MOST DELICIOUS DESERT WE’VE EVER HAD IN OUR LIVES! We loved this place so much we went back for 2 more straight away haha- it’s just a little bit further up from the bun stand and is a fixed crepe and ice-cream stall on the side. We went for the brownie, cream and peanut butter one and still think about it to this day!
Go on a coffee shop hunt - Taipei is also known for its trendy cafes and we had a great time visiting them all! Our favourite was the award-winning Scandinavian style Fika Fika Cafe on Zhongshan Qu street, we also ate in the really nice place next door and it did not disappoint! Another interesting cafe is GaBee on Minsheng East Road in the Songshan District. And we really enjoyed the cute hole-in-the-wall Jack and Nana’s on Linyi street, Zhongzheng district, near the creative park. There are also plenty of other great options.
Visit Huashan 1914 Creative Park - We were admittedly a little bit disappointed by this place because we had expected to see an art installation that is no longer there but it is cool anyway and there are some interesting shops and cafes around. The surrounding area is interesting to walk around with a mix of traditional local shops and more modern ones.
Take a day trip to Jiufen (the unofficial birth place of “Spirited Away”) - This is a really cute, albeit overly touristic, cultural town in the hills just over an hour away from Taipei. You can easily spend a nice day here wandering around the tiny streets, looking at all the traditional shops and having a tea in one of the famous tea houses overlooking the valley. There’s a local bus, #965, that takes you directly there from Wanhua station (and other stops), for under £5 each return. If you have the time, it’s definitely worth a visit!
Relax in Beitou Hot Springs - Located on the outskirts Taipei, Beitou hot springs are supposed to be really nice even though we didn’t personally visit them ourselves, it’s always nice to pamper yourself a bit if you can!
If you have the time, visiting the Taroko Gorge in Taroko National Park also looks amazing and it was one of the most popular options for completing a full Taiwan itinerary.
Overall we think 3 days (4 nights) in Taipei is more than enough for seeing all the popular sites and getting a feel for the city but there’s always still plenty more to do if you have longer!
surfing in taiwan
Waiao is a super cute, small surf community that doesn’t have much to it other than surf. It’s located on the North East coast and takes just under 2 hours to get there by train from Taipei making it a really convenient getaway. As soon as you get off the train (which is a beautiful journey!) you’ll find a nice cafe on your right and pizza place on your left which is also pretty decent. The beach is already just in front of you and to the left along the seafront is a really cute hostel where you can buy coffee and rent surf boards from, they also have an outdoor shower option- this is where we got our surfboards from on the last day and used their showers so we could get in one more session before catching our train back to Taipei!
The water on Waiao beach is pretty cold and the sand is black. It’s a long, empty beach and right at the very end on the right is a collection of surf huts you can rent surfboards from. The town itself is pretty standard and we actually struggled to find food to eat sometimes so cooked a lot at home! We stayed in a really awesome Airbnb right on the beach front on the top floor with a view overlooking all the surrounding area and glass walls in the bathroom so you could shower looking at the sea. It was quite a walk though from the main beach and the bit of beach we were on was abandoned and not swimmable though so we would recommend staying as close as possible to the centre instead.
Overall the main reason you’ll come to Waiao is for some surf and beach time and not much else, plus the easy accessibility from Taipei makes it an awesome choice! The waves are good for beginner-intermediates and it only costs about £5 each way to get there with the direct train. One of the main surf spots not only in Taiwan but also the whole of Asia, with beginner-advanced waves depending on the season, is located on the southern tip in Pingtung county in the beautiful Kenting national park. If you have the time to get down there, the whole surrounding area is really green and beautiful, the best option is to fly directly to Kaohsiung International airport but you can also go by bus but can take up to about 10 hours in total with connecting transits.
So that’s our top Taiwan travel tips for Taipei and surfing. We hope it’s been of some use to you and you enjoy your trip to this beautiful green island! If you’ve already been, we’d love to hear what else you would? Let us know in the comments section below if you have any other questions and we’ll gladly try and answer them :)
