Sun Moon Lake and Tainan: Taiwan Beyond Taipei With Kids

Taiwan is a small island with a high speed train down its spine, and the trip after Taipei is a loop. A lake in the mountains, then the old capital in the south, then back up the coast. A week does it with a family and nobody sits in a car.

Sun Moon Lake is the lake in the middle. Cycle the path around it, flat, paved, with the water on one side and the mountains behind. Take the boat across to the temple on the far shore, the cable car up to the aboriginal culture village with its theme park rides, and a bowl of tea eggs from the stall at the pier that has been selling them for sixty years. Two nights at a lakeside hotel.

Alishan is the mountain to the south, with the old forest railway and the sunrise over a sea of clouds. It is an early morning and a long day, and it is for kids over eight who will get up at four.

Tainan, the old capital

Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan, with the Dutch fort, the Confucius temple, and a temple on every corner with dragons on the roof. It is also the food capital. Danzai noodles, coffin bread, which is a hollowed toast filled with chowder, milkfish soup for breakfast, mango shaved ice. The kids eat their way through the old streets and the adults follow.

The Anping tree house, an old warehouse swallowed by a banyan tree, is the thing the children will want to climb. Chihkan tower, the Dutch fort from the sixteen hundreds, is the history.

Two nights. Then the train to Kaohsiung for the harbor and the art district, or back to Taipei in ninety minutes. Taiwan is that small and that easy.

Planning Taiwan with kids? Start with the full Taiwan family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.