Itinerary · for one

Taiwan · HSR & Taroko

A high-speed-rail loop of the western plain plus the east-coast gorge · ten nights, solo, spring shoulder. Taipei for three nights at the start — Longshan temple at dusk, Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, Shilin and Raohe night markets, Beitou hot-spring valley, Maokong gondola for the tea plantations, beef noodle soup at Lao Zhang on Taoyuan Street. HSR south to Tainan for one night — the Confucian temple of 1665, the Anping fort, milkfish soup at breakfast, dànzǎi miàn at Du Hsiao Yueh since 1895. North on the TRA branch to Sun Moon Lake for two nights — paddle the misty water at dawn, Wenwu temple, the Ci’en pagoda above the lake, aboriginal Thao village. TRA east-coast express to Hualien for two nights at Taroko Gorge — the marble walls of the Liwu River canyon, the Eternal Spring Shrine, Swallow Grotto walking trail. TRA back to Taipei for two final nights — National Palace Museum’s jade cabbage and meat-shaped stone, the Songshan Cultural Park for design shops, last Din Tai Fung.

1 traveler 5 bases 10 nights 11 min read

v1 · May 14, 2026

Mar 12 · Day 1 · the first one

Wheels down at Taoyuan. Then the long HSR spine.

Out of Hong Kong on a Friday, Taipei by Friday afternoon — the short hop barely a meal in the air. Spring shoulder ahead of the plum-rain season, the night markets warm but not humid yet. Ten nights along the high-speed-rail spine and one east-coast detour — three in Taipei for Longshan temple and the night markets, one in Tainan for the oldest streets in Taiwan, two at Sun Moon Lake for the misty mountain water, two at Taroko Gorge for the marble canyon and the Eternal Spring Shrine, and two last nights back in Taipei for the museums and a final bowl of beef noodle soup. Cheap, easy, dense, friendly · the international-traveller secret of East Asia.

Begin the journey ↓

Mar 12 → Mar 22 · 10 nights · 5 bases · 560 km between bases

Chapter 01 · Mar 12–14 Days 1–3

Taipei · temples and night markets

Three nights in the capital. Walk the temples at dusk, queue at a night market until you can't eat any more, take the MRT to a hot-spring valley, ride a gondola to a tea-house above the city.

3 nights

Land Taoyuan (TPE) · Airport MRT 36 min to Taipei Main Station

Transit EasyCard from any MRT counter · works on MRT, bus, YouBike, and convenience stores

Things to do

Longshan Temple at dusk · the 1738 Buddhist–Taoist syncretic temple in Wanhua, incense smoke under the eaves
Raohe Street Night Market · the Songshan Ciyou temple at the gate, the black-pepper bun (hú jiāo bǐng) at #1
Beitou hot-spring valley · MRT to Xinbeitou, the green-sulphur thermal pool at the public bath
Maokong gondola · cable car to the tea plantations above Taipei, tea-house dinner with the city grid below
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall · changing of the guard at the half-hour, the white marble against the National Theatre
Beef noodle soup at Lao Zhang · the Taoyuan Street stall, hand-pulled noodles, braised shank in spiced broth

Stay near Zhongshan or Ximen for MRT central access · skip Taipei Main station hotels (loud)

Bookings

hotel Mid-range hotel near Zhongshan MRT · 3 nights pending

flight HKG → TPE (Cathay or China Airlines · direct, ~1h45) pending

Chapter 01 · the story

Taipei 101 holds the skyline at 508 metres, a green-glass pagoda that was the world's tallest for six years. At its feet the city keeps a different scale entirely — Shilin and Raohe after dark, grease and steam and a queue for the black-pepper bun that moves one person every forty seconds.

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The city reads in two registers and they don’t fight. There is the tower, visible from almost any rooftop in the basin, a building that opens its damper sphere to the public on the 88th floor so that schoolchildren can see what a 660-ton tuned mass does in a typhoon. And there are the streets at ground level where the food is older than the tower by a century or more, and the night markets work the way they have worked since the Japanese period — a temple at the gate, a covered alley of stalls behind it, and a rule that nothing opens before five in the afternoon.

At Longshan the incense smoke is thick enough at dusk that the gilded bodhisattvas on the back altar blur, and the chanting under the eaves is in a Hokkien that you do not understand and do not need to. The 1738 temple has been rebuilt three times — twice by typhoon and once by American bombing in 1945 — and the worshippers know which deity to ask for which thing, because each of the eight side altars is for a different specialism. The matchmaker altar is the busiest one on a weekday evening.

At Raohe the gate temple is Songshan Ciyou and the first stall inside the gate is the pepper bun, which is baked on the inside of a clay tandoor at 250°C and pulled out with tongs at the moment the crust blisters. A few hundred metres on there is stinky tofu, oyster omelette, mochi grilled with peanut powder, and shaved ice with condensed milk and red bean. The whole market is open until midnight and the MRT runs until just after one. You sleep when the trains do.

Chapter 02 · Mar 15 Day 4

Tainan · the old capital

The Dutch colonial capital of 1624, the Ming-Qing capital after that. One night to walk the oldest streets in Taiwan and eat dishes that were here before the railway.

1 night

Get there HSR Taipei → Tainan ~1h45 · then shuttle bus 20 min to Tainan TRA station

Pace Town is compact · walkable + occasional YouBike

Things to do

Tainan Confucius Temple · the first Confucian school in Taiwan, founded 1665, the all-Hall under the banyans
Anping Old Fort (Fort Zeelandia) · the 1624 Dutch East India Company fort, the brick wall left at the back
Anping Tree House · the abandoned Tait & Co warehouse swallowed by banyan tree roots
Du Hsiao Yueh dànzǎi miàn · the noodle stall founded 1895 · braised pork sauce on thin wheat noodles
Chihkan Tower (Fort Provintia) · the second Dutch fort, the temple inside a fort inside a fort
Milkfish congee at breakfast · the Tainan specialty · belly, head, fillet — order all three at Ah Tang

Pick a boutique hotel near the Confucius Temple area · walkable to everything · or stay near Anping for the sunset

Bookings

train HSR Taipei → Tainan · reserved business or standard pending

hotel Boutique hotel in Tainan old town · 1 night pending

Chapter 02 · the story

Tainan is the old capital — Dutch in 1624, Ming in 1661, Qing until the railway — and it carries that history sideways: in the density of its 7-Elevens, more per square kilometre than anywhere else on the island, planted between fort walls and banyan trees and noodle stalls that opened in the reign of the Guangxu Emperor.

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The HSR puts you in Tainan in under two hours and the city is older than every building you will see in Taipei. The Confucius Temple was the first Confucian academy on the island, established in 1665 under Koxinga’s son, and the all-Hall under the banyans still serves as a place where parents bring children to ask for blessings before exams. The trees are taller than the roof. There is a small pond and a stone bridge and a bookshop in the back courtyard that sells calligraphy brushes by weight.

Anping is twenty minutes west on a YouBike along the canal. Fort Zeelandia is what the Dutch East India Company built in 1624 when this was a sandbar at the river mouth, and what is left of it now is a brick wall at the back of a reconstructed Qing-era museum. The Anping Tree House next door — a Tait & Co warehouse from the late nineteenth century that the banyans simply took back — is the more honest ruin. Roots come through the windows. The roof is gone. You walk on a plank floor laid through the canopy.

Then oyster vermicelli on Anping Old Street, where the oysters are from the farms on the lagoon south of town and the broth is bonito and the noodles are so fine they cook in the time it takes the cashier to make change. After that, a bowl of dànzǎi miàn at Du Hsiao Yueh, where the recipe has been the same since 1895: a small mound of noodles, a spoon of braised pork sauce, one prawn, a sprig of coriander. The 7-Eleven across the street is the punchline. The old city does not mind the joke.

Chapter 03 · Mar 16–17 Days 5–6

Sun Moon Lake · misty water

The largest lake in Taiwan, named for the sun-shaped east half and moon-shaped west half divided by Lalu island. Two nights at altitude 750 m for cool air, mist over the water, and the Thao aboriginal villages on the south shore.

2 nights

Get there HSR Tainan → Taichung HSR ~50 min · Nantou Bus 6670 to Sun Moon Lake ~90 min

Pace Stay at Shuishe (north) or Ita Thao (south) · ferry + bike loop connects both

Things to do

Paddle SUP or kayak at dawn from Shuishe pier · Lalu island in the centre, mist burning off by 8 a.m.
Wenwu Temple · the Confucian–Taoist temple on the north hillside, the long ceremonial stairs to the entrance
Ci'en Pagoda · 46 m brick pagoda above Ita Thao, 700-step climb for the lake at 950 m elevation
Ropeway gondola to Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village · the cable car for the view, the park for the cultural exhibits
Ita Thao night market · grilled shaved ice on a hot plate · Thao village street food
Sun Moon Lake bike loop · 30 km of mostly-flat dedicated path, rent at either pier

Shuishe is busier with ferries · Ita Thao is quieter and has the Thao village beside it

Bookings

train HSR Tainan → Taichung HSR + Nantou Bus 6670 pending

hotel Lake-view hotel · 2 nights at Shuishe or Ita Thao pending

rental Bicycle rental or SUP for half-day pending

Chapter 03 · the story

The Thao are the smallest officially recognised indigenous group on Taiwan — about eight hundred people — and Lalu island in the middle of the lake is their ancestral burial ground. The Wenwu temple on the north hill is Han Chinese and Confucian and built in 1938. The lake holds both without comment.

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Dawn on the lake is the only time to be on the water. The Shuishe pier wakes at six, the rental shed opens at six-thirty, and the mist sits a metre above the surface until about eight when the sun clears the eastern ridge and burns it off in fifteen minutes. You paddle out toward Lalu, which is small enough — a hundred metres across at most — that you do not land. Landing has not been permitted since 1999, when the September earthquake reduced the island to a third of its old size and the Thao asked, again, for their burial ground to be left alone. The boats curve around it.

The Wenwu temple on the north shore is the other half of the lake’s double accounting. It was built by Han settlers in 1938 to consolidate two smaller temples that the rising water of the hydroelectric dam had displaced; the dam was a Japanese colonial project; the temple is dedicated to Confucius and to Guan Gong, the god of war and of loyalty. The ceremonial stairs from the lake road to the gate are 366 steps, one for each day of a leap year, and the view from the top platform is the entire basin: the green water, the cable car running south to the Aboriginal Culture Village, the roofs of Ita Thao village against the far shore.

At Ita Thao after dark the night market is small — three streets, maybe forty stalls — and the food is half-Thao and half-Han: wild boar sausage grilled over charcoal, zongzi wrapped in shell ginger leaves, mountain trout, millet wine in shot glasses. The Thao language has fewer than a hundred fluent speakers left. The signs above the stalls are still in three scripts. The lake is dark by nine and the frogs take over.

Chapter 04 · Mar 18–19 Days 7–8

Taroko · the marble canyon

The east-coast canyon where the Liwu River cut through 19 km of marble bedrock. Two nights to walk the Swallow Grotto trail, hear the water at the Eternal Spring Shrine, and trace the marble walls on the cross-island highway.

2 nights

Get there Bus Sun Moon Lake → Taichung HSR · TRA Tze-Chiang east to Hualien ~3 hr through the central mountains

Pace Stay in Hualien for restaurants · day-trip into the gorge by hotel shuttle or rental

Things to do

Swallow Grotto (Yanzikou) trail · the most photographed 1.5 km of canyon, marble cliffs 200 m above the river
Eternal Spring Shrine (Changchun Ci) · the waterfall behind the shrine commemorating the cross-island highway workers
Baiyang Trail · 2 km mostly-flat trail to the Water Curtain Cave behind a waterfall (bring a poncho)
Qingshui Cliffs · 21 km of marble cliffs dropping straight to the Pacific just north of Hualien · viewing platform at Chongde
Liyu Lake · the freshwater lake south of Hualien, paddleboat or pedalo for an afternoon
Hualien Dongdamen night market · the largest on the east coast · the indigenous food row at the back

Hualien city for restaurants and the TRA station · Silks Place inside the gorge if budget allows

Bookings

train TRA Taichung → Hualien · Tze-Chiang express pending

hotel Hualien city or Silks Place Taroko · 2 nights pending

activity Hotel shuttle or hired driver for the gorge day pending

Chapter 04 · the story

The Liwu River has cut 19 kilometres of marble canyon four millimetres a year for the last few million years. The Eternal Spring Shrine on the south wall remembers the 226 cross-island highway workers who died blasting Route 8 through that same rock between 1956 and 1960.

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The east-coast train into Hualien takes three hours from Taichung and climbs through the central range past tunnels the Japanese engineered in the 1920s and the Republic of China widened in the 1980s. Taroko itself is a marble canyon, which is a thing that almost nowhere else on earth has — most canyons are sandstone or limestone, both softer rocks — and the Liwu River shows the marble the way a knife shows a tomato: white walls streaked grey and green, polished smooth in places by the water, ragged where the cliff has calved.

At Yanzikou the trail runs a kilometre and a half along the south bank where the cliff swallows used to nest in pockmarks in the marble before the road traffic drove them off; the pockmarks remain. The walls are two hundred metres above the water and the river is loud enough that you cannot hear someone speaking three metres behind you. Helmets are required because chunks of marble do, from time to time, fall.

The Eternal Spring Shrine sits across the canyon at a place where a side stream falls forty metres into the Liwu. The shrine is a small white pavilion behind the waterfall — you can see the water passing the windows from the road — and it was built in 1958 to commemorate the workers who died building the Central Cross-Island Highway, many of them KMT veterans who had retreated from the mainland in 1949 and were given the road to build as a settlement. The bell inside the shrine is rung once for each of them on the anniversary of completion. The number is 226.

Chapter 05 · Mar 20–21 Days 9–10

Taipei · museums and Din Tai Fung

Two final nights to do the things Chapter 1 didn't — the National Palace Museum's imperial collection, Songshan for design shops, Yongkang Street for the last bowl of beef noodle soup.

2 nights

Get back TRA Hualien → Taipei · Tze-Chiang express ~2 hr along the east coast

Last day Pick the National Palace Museum or Tamsui river-mouth day-trip · not both

Things to do

National Palace Museum · the imperial Chinese collection in Shilin · the jadeite cabbage, the meat-shaped stone, the Mao Gong ding
Yongkang Street · Lin Tong Fang scallion pancakes, Smoothie House for mango shaved ice, Yong Kang Beef Noodle for the last bowl
Songshan Cultural and Creative Park · the converted Japanese-era tobacco factory · design shops, Eslite flagship
Tamsui river mouth · ferry to Bali, fisherman's wharf at sunset, A-Gei (stuffed tofu) at the old street
SunnyHills pineapple cake flagship at Minsheng · the original "soil" pineapple cake with the test cake on arrival
Din Tai Fung Xinyi · the original branch · 18-fold xiǎolóngbāo and a side of dòumiáo

Back to Zhongshan or shift to Xinyi for the airport-direction MRT

Bookings

train TRA Hualien → Taipei · reserved Tze-Chiang seat pending

hotel Last 2 nights · Zhongshan or Xinyi boutique pending

flight TPE → HKG (Cathay or China Airlines, ~1h45) pending

Chapter 05 · the story

The return to Taipei is for the things the first stop could not hold. The jadeite cabbage at the National Palace Museum is the size of a hand and was carved in the nineteenth century from a single piece of stone. Yongkang Street is for the last bowl of beef noodle soup.

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Two final nights run quieter than the first three. The east-coast train arrives at Taipei Main in the late morning and the bag goes to the hotel and the rest of the day belongs to the museum on the hill in Shilin. The National Palace Museum holds what the Nationalists carried out of the Forbidden City in 1948 — about seven hundred thousand objects, of which only a small rotation is on display at any given time — and the two famous pieces, the jadeite cabbage and the meat-shaped stone, are smaller than people expect. The cabbage is the size of a hand. The stone is the size of a bun. Both are nineteenth-century Qing court trinkets and both are unreasonably tender to look at.

Yongkang Street in the late afternoon is the trip’s slow exhale. Lin Tong Fang has been frying scallion pancakes on the corner since the 1960s and the queue is short on a weekday. Smoothie House does the mango shaved ice that other shops are still copying. Yong Kang Beef Noodle is across the road and the broth has been simmering for seventy years without interruption — the master stock is topped up every morning, never emptied, and the brisket comes out fork-soft in a bowl of hand-pulled noodles and spiced oil.

Then SunnyHills at Minsheng on the way back, where the original soil-pineapple cake — the one with the tarter fruit, the one that tastes like fruit instead of jam — comes with a test cake and a cup of oolong at a table by the door, no purchase necessary. You buy a box anyway. The flight is direct and ninety minutes. The MRT runs to the airport. The trip ends on time.

Mar 22 · Day 11 · the last one

Last bowl of niúròu miàn at Yongkang Street. Then the flight home.

Final evening at the corner of Yongkang and Lishui, a clay bowl of beef noodle soup with hand-pulled wheat and braised shank. Last Lin Tong Fang scallion pancake folded into wax paper, a pineapple cake box from SunnyHills, MRT back to Taoyuan, China Airlines takeoff at midnight. Hong Kong by 1 a.m. Ten nights — three through the Taipei night markets, one in Tainan among the Dutch and Qing-era streets, two on the misty water of Sun Moon Lake, two in the marble walls of Taroko, the beef-noodle and bubble-tea and pineapple cake already half-remembered.

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