Taipei at night · photo: Unsplash. The most underrated country in Asia for families, and it is not close
Taiwan Family Travel Guide
“We had one night and five hours in Taipei in 2009 and spent the next fifteen years telling people to go. It is safe, it is easy, and it needs a fraction of the planning that mainland China does.”
Taipei, Taiwan
We have had twenty four hours in Taiwan. One night in Taipei in late 2009, flying home to Seoul from Bali, and a half day in the city before the flight. That is the whole of our first hand experience and I am not going to inflate it.
What we did in five hours still says something. We took a city bus to Taipei 101, which was the tallest completed building in the world at the time, and got there too early for the observatory. We took a cab to the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall and walked the gardens and the National Theatre. Then we found a Subway sandwich shop and, after six months in Gwangju with no Subway anywhere, we lost our minds a little.
What I remember most is how easy it was. Cabbies in suits. A seventy dollar hotel that felt like a two hundred dollar hotel. A doorman called Jeffrey who sorted our airport ride without being asked. After nine days of being sold to in Bali, arriving in Taipei felt like the volume being turned down.
The advisor version. Taiwan is the most underrated country in Asia for families. It is safe, the public transport is superb, the food is brilliant, the kids will love the night markets, and it takes a fraction of the planning that mainland China does. No visa for most passports, no firewall, no payment app you have to set up before you fly.
Beyond the Bookshelf
Stories to carry you deeper into Taiwan. This is our own family shelf, real books, films, music and a cookbook tied to the place, not a generic reading list. Read it before you go and the trip means more when you get there.
- The Stolen BicycleWu Ming-Yi
- Green IslandShawna Yang Ryan
- Notes of a CrocodileQiu Miaojin
- Dumpling DaysGrace Lin
- A New Year’s ReunionYu Li-Qiong
- The Little Paper BoatVincy Chan
- Made in TaiwanClarissa Wei
- The Food of TaiwanCathy Erway
Book links go to Bookshop.org, which supports local bookstores. Film and music links go to JustWatch and Spotify. As an affiliate we may earn from qualifying purchases.
Taiwan Place by Place
Eight places worth building a week around. The whole island is smaller than Switzerland, which is the fact that makes this country work.
Alishan
Jiufen
Kaohsiung
Kenting
Sun Moon Lake
Tainan
Taipei
Taroko Gorge
Why Taiwan Is the Most Underrated Country in Asia
Nobody puts it on the shortlist and I do not understand why. Here is the case in three lines.
It is, unusually safe
Low crime, lost wallets handed in, children riding the metro alone. It sits alongside Japan and Korea at the top of the list, and for a family that changes how much of the day you spend worrying.
The transport is superb and cheap
A high speed line down the west coast, a clean metro in Taipei and Kaohsiung, and one stored value card that works on all of it. You do not need a car.
The food is the reason to go
Night markets every evening, beef noodle soup on every corner, and a dumpling culture that produced Din Tai Fung. Children eat well here without a fight.
And the paperwork is nothing. Most passports get ninety days visa free on arrival. No VPN, no permits, no advance ticket bookings with passport numbers. Compared with the mainland it is a completely different level of effort.
A Taipei night market. This is the part children remember
Taipei Plus Taroko Is the Classic Week
If you have seven to ten days, this is the itinerary I would build, and it barely needs any planning to work.
Taipei, four nights. Taipei 101, the National Palace Museum, Longshan Temple, Beitou hot springs and a different night market every evening. Add a day trip to Jiufen and the Shifen lanterns, which is the single best family day out in the country.
Taroko Gorge, two nights in Hualien. Marble walls, blue river, tunnels cut through rock. Check what is open before you go, because typhoons and earthquakes close trails regularly and the 2024 quake did real damage.
Add Tainan or Kaohsiung if you have ten days. Ninety minutes on the high speed rail to the old capital in the south, where the temples and the food are the best on the island.
Sun Moon Lake and Alishan for the mountains. A lake with a cycle path around it and a narrow gauge forest railway into the cloud line. Slower, prettier, and worth a second trip rather than a squeezed first one.
The High Speed Rail Does All the Work
One line, down the west coast, and it turns a whole country into a set of day trips.
Taipei to Kaohsiung in about ninety minutes. That is the length of the island, top to bottom. Trains every fifteen minutes, reserved seats, quiet and spotless.
Book online or at the machine, in English. No passport gymnastics, no line at a counter. Children’s fares are cheap and under six travels free without a seat.
The east coast is the slow line. Taipei to Hualien for Taroko is a regular train, around two hours, and it books out on weekends. Reserve that one ahead.
Get EasyCards on arrival. One card for metro, buses, convenience stores and most local trains, for the whole family. Top it up at any 7-Eleven, which is on every corner.
What You Will Actually Eat
Mild, savoury and cheap, and the country takes it seriously. Stinky tofu, the oyster omelette and pineapple cake are all worth trying even though they are not pictured here. One of those three will be a family joke by day two.
Tap water is not for drinking, but boiled water dispensers are everywhere, including in metro stations and every 7-Eleven. Carry bottles and refill.
Water and marble rock in Hualien on the east side. Most visitors never leave Taipei and never see this
Night Markets Are the Family Activity
Every city has them, every evening, and they are the single best value entertainment in Asia for children.
Shilin is the big one in Taipei. Huge, busy, and the one most first timers go to. Ningxia and Raohe are smaller, better for food and much easier with a stroller.
There are carnival games between the food stalls. Ring toss, shrimp fishing, air rifles. Bring small change and let them play. This is why kids love Taiwan.
Dinner for five costs about fifteen dollars. Order one thing at a time from different stalls and share standing up. Nobody minds.
Go early, around six. By eight the aisles are shoulder to shoulder and a small child in that crowd is not fun for anyone.
Getting Around
The Taipei metro is one of the best in the world. Clean, quiet, signed in English, and there is no eating or drinking on it, which is enforced. Tell the kids before you tap in.
Taxis are cheap and metered. Yellow, everywhere, and drivers are honest. Have your destination written in Chinese characters on your phone.
Rent a car only for the east coast. The coast road from Hualien south is one of the great drives and the buses are infrequent. Everywhere else, use the train.
Ninety days visa free for most passports. Americans included. Show an onward ticket. That is the whole entry process.
Buy a data sim at the airport. Unlimited for a week costs very little, the counters are before you exit, and nothing is blocked.
What It Costs
Cheaper than Japan and Korea for almost everything, and much cheaper than either for food.
Eating is absurdly cheap. A bowl of beef noodle soup is a few dollars. A night market dinner for a family is under twenty. Even Din Tai Fung is a normal restaurant price here.
Hotels are good value and small. Rooms are compact, like Japan. Family rooms exist but book early, and check if four people can actually fit before you assume.
Transport is a rounding error. The whole length of the country on the high speed rail costs less than a short domestic flight anywhere else.
Most museums and parks are cheap or free. The National Palace Museum, which holds the imperial collection that left the mainland in 1949, costs a few dollars and children go free.
Spend on location
Stay near a metro station in Taipei. Central Zhongshan or Da’an means everything is fifteen minutes away and you will use the city properly.
Save on everything else
Eat at night markets and noodle shops, take trains, buy snacks at 7-Eleven. There is very little in this country worth paying a premium for.
When to Go
Autumn and spring. Summer is hot, wet and typhoon season, and the island sits right in the path.
Mar to May
Warm, green, and the cherry blossom in the hills above Taipei in February and March is a real surprise to people.
Jun to Aug
Hot, very humid and the peak of typhoon season. Doable with a pool and an indoor plan, not what I would book.
Sep to Nov
The best window. October and November are close to perfect, with clear skies and comfortable temperatures.
Dec to Feb
Mild in the south, cool and drizzly in Taipei. Hot spring season, which is a lovely thing to do with children in the cold.
After nine days of being sold to in Bali, arriving in Taipei felt like somebody turned the volume down.
Nicole Damiano, on Taipei in 2009Doing It With Children
Poppy marks the family parts. Wherever you see her, that section is written for travelling with children.We were there before we had kids.
It is one of the easiest countries in Asia with kids. Safe, clean, English signage on transport, changing tables, and staff who are patient rather than performative about it.
Night markets do the entertaining for you. Games, food, lights, noise. An hour there beats a museum for anyone under twelve and it costs almost nothing.
Beitou hot springs are a metro ride from central Taipei. Public pools require swimwear and are family friendly. A private family room is inexpensive if anyone is shy.
Shifen and the sky lanterns. You write a wish, you light it, it goes up over the railway. It is touristy and it is completely wonderful with children.
Earthquakes happen and buildings are built for them. Talk to the kids about it once, calmly, and read the hotel card. It is normal here and it is not a reason to stay away.
Taroko Gorge, and the Honest Update
Taroko is on every Taiwan itinerary ever written and a lot of those itineraries have not been updated. Here is where it actually stands.
A large earthquake hit the east coast in April 2024 and the gorge took the worst of it, followed by typhoons that undid some of the repair work. Landslides took out trails, bridges and stretches of the road itself. This is not a park that shrugged it off and reopened. Parts of it are gone.
What is open. The gorge road is passable but only inside set time windows through the day, so you cannot simply drive in whenever you like. The visitor centre and the entrance arch are open, and so are the Dekalun trail, the Tianxiang area and the Xiangde temple walk. Qingshui Cliffs, the huge sea cliffs north along the coast, were never part of the damage and are as good as ever. So is Qixingtan beach outside Hualien.
What is closed. Shakadang, Baiyang, the Eternal Spring Shrine, the Buluowan suspension bridge, Yanzikou, and the Zhuilu Old Road, which was the famous cliff ledge walk. Several of these need years. Some may not come back.
So what should a family do. Go, but treat it as a half day drive with two short walks rather than the two day hiking centrepiece the old guides describe, and check the current opening notice the week you travel because it moves. Then put the time you saved into the coast, which is beautiful and undamaged, or into the mountains further inland.
The alternatives are properly good. Hehuanshan, up above ten thousand feet, is high alpine hiking you drive to. The Yilan mountain roads north of Hualien are spectacular and empty. And Taipingshan, an old logging forest with a little rail line, hot springs and cloud forest, is the one I would send a family to instead.
🐕 And say the other part out loud. Hualien county lost people and homes in that earthquake and the tourism that funds the recovery mostly stopped. Going, staying two nights, and spending money there is a good thing to do, not a hardship.
South of Taipei, Which Almost Nobody Does
The bullet train runs the whole west coast and most visitors never get on it past Taichung. The south is warmer, older, slower and cheaper.
Tainan is the oldest city in Taiwan and the best eating in it. Four hundred years of temples packed into a walkable old centre, and a street food culture that locals from Taipei fly down for. Beef soup for breakfast, shrimp rolls, coffin bread, which is exactly what it sounds like and children find hilarious. Two nights.
Kaohsiung is the harbour city. A metro that works, a waterfront that has been rebuilt into art spaces and cycle paths, the Lotus Pond with its dragon and tiger pagodas that you walk in one mouth and out the other, and the ferry over to Cijin island for seafood on the beach. It is the easiest big city in Taiwan for a family and it costs about half what Taipei does.
Alishan is the mountain everyone means. A narrow gauge forest railway climbing through bamboo and cypress into cloud, thousand year old trees, and a sunrise train that runs before dawn to a viewing platform above the cloud sea. It is properly cold up there, so bring layers, and book the accommodation early because there is not much of it.
Sun Moon Lake sits in the middle. Cycle the shoreline path, take the cable car, ride the boats between the three piers. It is the domestic honeymoon spot, so it is busy on weekends and lovely midweek.
Kenting is the beach end of the island, tropical, with a national park, coral coast and surf. It is a five hour trip from Taipei and it is a real beach week rather than a day out.
How to string it together. Taipei three nights, train to Taichung and up to Sun Moon Lake for two, Alishan for one or two, Tainan for two, Kaohsiung for two, fly home from Kaohsiung. That is a fortnight and it is a far better Taiwan than eight days in Taipei with a day trip.
Hot Springs, Convenience Stores and the Small Print
A handful of things that make this country easier than almost anywhere in Asia, and two that catch people out.
♨️ Hot springs, and how they work. Taiwan sits on a volcanic belt and the springs are everywhere. Beitou is inside Taipei on the metro. Jiaoxi in Yilan is an hour out. The public pools are usually mixed and require a swimsuit and a cap. The traditional nude bathing pools are single sex, and children go with the parent of their own sex. Almost every hot spring hotel also has private family rooms with their own tub, which is the answer if your children are self conscious or if anyone in the family has tattoos, since a few older establishments still turn tattoos away.
🏪 The convenience stores are a real travel tool. There is one every few hundred yards and they are open all night. You can pay bills, print documents, collect parcels, top up transit cards, buy a hot meal, use a clean bathroom and sit down. With children this changes how a day works. There is always somewhere to stop.
💳 Get an EasyCard on arrival. One card taps you onto the metro, buses, most trains and the bike share, and it pays at convenience stores. Get one per person including the children, since their fares are cheaper and the card handles it.
📘 Entry is simple. US passport holders enter visa free for ninety days. Passport valid six months. There is an online arrival card you fill in before you land, which takes two minutes and saves a paper form in a queue.
🌀 The two things that catch people out. Typhoon season runs roughly July to October and a direct hit closes everything, including the trains, for a day or two, so travel in those months with a spare day and flexible bookings. And earthquakes are normal here. Buildings are built for it and your hotel will have instructions on the back of the door. Read them once with the children so a shake in the night is a thing you talked about rather than a thing nobody understands.
💰 And nobody tips. Not in restaurants, not in taxis, not for housekeeping. Some restaurants add a service charge and that is the whole of it. Trying to tip is mildly awkward for everyone involved.
Who Taiwan Suits, and Who Should Skip It
Go if
You want Asia without the difficulty. You have a week rather than three. You want food to be the main event. Your family likes cities and trains and does not need a beach. You have done Japan and want the same ease at half the price.
Skip it if
You came to Asia for beaches, because Kenting is fine and the Philippines and Thailand are far better. You want big ticket ancient monuments, because Taiwan’s pleasures are small and daily. You are traveling in July and August and cannot handle heat.
How Taiwan Compares to the Rest of Asia
This is the comparison that actually sells Taiwan, because on its own nobody pictures it.
Versus mainland China. This is the big one. Taiwan needs a fraction of the planning. No visa, no VPN, no payment app, no timed entry tickets bought with passport numbers. If China’s paperwork put you off, this is the same food culture and language with none of the friction.
Versus Japan. The closest comparison and the fairest one. Similar safety, similar transport, similar politeness. Taiwan is cheaper, warmer, scruffier and friendlier. Japan is more beautiful and more polished. If Japan felt slightly formal, you will love Taiwan.
Versus South Korea. The country I actually lived in, twice. Korea is bigger, louder, more modern and more intense. Taiwan is gentler and the food is more varied. Both are a week, both are easy, and Taiwan is the one nobody thinks of.
Versus Singapore. Both are compact, safe and food obsessed. Singapore is more expensive and more manicured. Taiwan gives you mountains, a gorge and a coast in the same week.
Things That Surprise First Timers
7-Eleven is a public utility here. Bill payment, parcel pickup, hot food, seating, clean bathrooms. There is one every two blocks and you will use them constantly.
Two thirds of the island is mountains. Nearly three hundred peaks over three thousand meters. Everybody lives on the flat western strip, which is why the train line works.
English is patchier than you expect. Signage and transport are fine. Conversation outside Taipei often is not, and people will still go out of their way to help you.
Scooters are everywhere. Thousands of them at every light. Hold small hands at crossings and look twice, because they filter through gaps that do not look like gaps.
Politics is quieter on the ground than in the news. Daily life is calm and normal. Read your government’s travel advice before booking, then get on with the trip.
Combine It With
Taiwan is a week, not a fortnight, which makes it the best second country in a two country trip.
Taipei to Tokyo or Osaka is three hours and the two countries feel like siblings. This is the pairing I would build first.
Two and a half hours to Seoul, and it is the exact route we flew in 2009. Two very different modern Asian countries in one trip.
Taipei to Shanghai is under two hours. If you want the mainland, doing Taiwan first is the gentlest possible introduction to the language and the food.
Keep exploring from Taiwan
Cities, neighbors, and the wider region.
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The Travel LibraryTaiwan, the facts
Ways to see Taiwan
Taipei’s MRT system is clean, safe, and easy enough for families to navigate on their own.
Rail JourneysThe High Speed Rail connects Taipei to Kaohsiung in under two hours, a genuine bullet train experience.
Walking and HikingTaroko Gorge’s marble canyon trails are dramatic and manageable for most fitness levels.
Guided and Small Group TravelWorth it for the more remote mountain areas like Alishan.
What families come here for
Street food built for grazing, exactly the kind of meal kids actually enjoy.
A marble canyon with trails cut directly into the cliff face, dramatic without being dangerous.
Once the tallest building in the world, with an observation deck kids love.
Beitou, just outside Taipei, has real natural hot springs in a scenic setting.
Invented here, and worth trying from the source rather than the version back home.
Only in Taiwan
Ang Lee’s memoir touches on it, but it’s his film Life of Pi that used Taiwan’s own studio-built water tank, the largest in the world at the time, to film every ocean scene.
Life of Pi’s entire ocean sequence was filmed in a massive water tank built specifically for the movie in Taichung, Taiwan.
Bubble tea, invented in Taichung in the 1980s, is a genuine Taiwanese export now found worldwide.
You can ride an elevator to the 101st floor of a building engineered to survive typhoons and earthquakes, with a giant tuned mass damper visible through glass.
Taiwan is an easy, safe, well organized country to bring kids to, and it gets far less tourist traffic than Japan does for a similar level of comfort. I can build an itinerary around Taipei plus one gorge or coast stop.
Plan Taiwan with Nicole