We’re still stuck between Taiwan or South Korea for our year end this December. For the last week though, I’d been developing, checking and refining a workable 20 day return visit to Taiwan itinerary, and also trying as far as possible to not repeat places from the 2018 trip. During that trip, we covered the northern half of Taiwan, including Taichung, Yehliu, Cingjing, Hualien and some of the most important sights in Taipei city itself. Our last blog entry that trip remarked that:
And we’re indeed seriously looking into a return trip next year or two, and this time to the southern half of the island: Alishan, Taitung, Kaoshiung, Tainan, Kenting and very likely one or both of the south-eastern islands – Lanyu and Ludao.
This possible itinerary will cover most of these areas we skipped in 2018. While it’s still 9 months away from our actual travel month, I reckon we have a reasonably solid schedule if we finally opted for Taiwan, though ideally to cover the notable places in each city, we would have needed around 25-26 rather than 20 days. Still, here’s what the 20 day spread looks like at this moment:
Landing into Taoyuan and making our south way to Taitung
Taitung for 5 days
Making our way to Kaohsiung with a day stopover in Kenting
Kaohsiung for 4 days
Gradually making our way northwards to Taipei
Tainan for 2 days
Alishan for 2 days
Taipei for 6 days, and flying home from Taoyuan
Generally:
We’d be essentially doing a complete loop of the island, starting from Taoyuan, traveling southwards in the easterly loop to the southernmost tip, then going back up north on the western side and finishing back in Taoyuan. I thought about including a stop to visit Taroko Gorge into the base itinerary, but I’m honestly not optimistic that the area will be substantially re-opened to visitors after the 2024 earthquake devastated the area. Still, if it does open even after we’d locked in our accommodation dates, we should be able to make space for it: either on our way southwards after arriving into Taiwan, or out from Taipei in the last segment of our trip, albeit a short visit as the drive will be long.
Also, whether to arrive into Kaohsiung instead of Taoyuan, since on the map, Taitung is much closer to Kaohsiung instead of Taoyuan. This was because of two reasons: firstly, there are few airlines that fly directly from Singapore to Kaohsiung – most have a stopover somewhere. And the one airline I found that does fly direct i.e. China Airlines, the late departure time from Singapore would mean we’d be only arriving in Kaohsiung late at night, which meant that Day 01 is effectively gone. Secondly, flying into Taoyuan affords a bigger chance that I can make quick amendments to the itinerary if Taroko Gorge is opened by the time we travel, and there are also more flights to choose from.
We’d be engaging private drivers for multi-day segments of the trip. Our three drivers in the 2018 trip were great, but we’d need to find their contacts again to see if they’re still working!
The total cost of this trip based on my early estimate is also comparatively higher than our 2018 trip, and not surprisingly so. All in, the cost of it should be around $10K – far lower than the usual trip to Japan that’s around $15K-$16K, and slightly lower than what last December’s trip to South Korea cost at $11K. Vacationing in Japan is so expensive these days, even with the very favorable currency exchange rates. This seems because of the high cost of flights – it routinely costs $5K to $6K just to get the four of us there – and also intercity travel, with the JR passes no longer the bargain they once were for tourists.
This Taiwan trip would have everything: sunrises on mountains, sunsets on coastal areas, cultural and historical places, small island visiting including snorkeling if the water isn’t too cold and the weather holds, and – hopefully – lots of drone videography opportunities. The two things it wouldn’t have would be cold subzero temperatures, and any chance of snow.
I’ve also been working on a South Korea itinerary, so that’d be in the next post!