Taiwan: Reasonable Amount of Time
 

I'm thinking way ahead on this one.

What is a reasonable amount of time to spend in Taiwan to be able to see the sights of the island along with getting a good introductory feel for the culture?

Taiwan is not a very big island, but -

1. Its geography is quite varied. The central mountain range rises over 10,000ft, so:

a) There are certain mountains resorts area like Alishan that you may want to visit, and that usually takes an overnight stay;

b) If you want to visit the east coast - to Hualian, Taroko Gorge, etc - it will take at least two days, as you can't easily cross back to the main cities in the west.

2. Traffic along the western coast is pretty bad, and the Shinkansen-based high speed rail won't operate until Oct 31, 2006 (delayed for a year). So, going between cities in Taiwan isn't as quick as in Japan.

Now, I haven't visited Taiwan for a while, but when I was growing up in Hong Kong 20 years ago, the Taiwan tours are usually for 7 days. I think if you want to see the whole island, that's still about right.

Good info, thanks. Coincidentally I got a call from an old client yesterday who lived in Taiwan for several years and was able to ask him the same question, with essentially the same answer.

So it does look like 7-10 days would easily do the trick, allowing for some dawdling and that essential uncommitted day at the end. All I have to do now is find a nearby destination which would be good for 7-8 days and it looks like a nice 3 week trip can be assembled. (And I haven't even started out on the next one yet!)

I forgot to add that it is just that geography that interested me in the first place. I was doing some casual reading to see if it was "worth" a stop (as I seem to stop in the planes there anyway a fair amount of time) and got quite intrigued. Plus they have what look like a few good train trips, too.

Taipei doesn't look to be as interesting as, say, BKK, SIN or HKG, but there are always interesting thing to do and see.

In Taipei there's the National Museum, numerous temples, a great national park nearby (yang min shan), night markets, the tallest building in the world, Presidential Palace...we found lots to do :)

I really enjoyed the hot springs in Chihpen, and the city of Kiaosung is lovely, at Christmas time when we were there they had colored lights everywhere, the Love River has been really cleaned up.

As we were there in winter we didn't do the southern beaches, I would ahve liked to. We also didn't see Taroko or Hualien, we were there for a conference, sort of.