Taiwan travel ideas and tips from a local resident

Taiwan is a friendly and surprisingly beautiful island with majestic mountains and ancient forests.

People often confuse Taiwan with other Asian countries or think this island is some sort of tiny city-state such as Hong Kong or Singapore.

Quite far from the truth! In Taiwan you will of course find cities and factories, plenty of them, but you will also find, for example:

• The highest mountain range in East Asia, with peaks almost 4,000 meters high. In 2 hours you can drive from banana and pineapple plantations to alpine grassland, covered by "dwarf bamboo" and, in winter, by the snow.
• Pristine forests, scattered along the island, where you can admire the "divine trees", junipers and cypresses thousands of years old.
• A road cut into the marble, running deep along one of the most impressive gorges in the world: Taroko Gorge.
• A mountain railway that will bring you from the lowlands to an old Japanese resort at 2,200 m above the sea level: Alishan.

Mountains and hills actually cover more than 50% of Taiwan area. They are not out of sight from anywhere and they offer wilderness and solitude at a short distance from every Taiwanese city.

Taiwan's central Range offers stunning views

Taiwan has also a long history and has always been a crossroads of different people and cultures.

The Portuguese explorers named Taiwan "Ilha Formosa", the Beautiful Island. Chinese and Japanese, different aboriginal peoples, Dutch and Spanish, all left their footprints on the island. This is why Taiwan culture is so unique and varied.

The traditional Chinese culture has been better preserved in Taiwan than in any other part of East Asia, including China. At the same time Taiwan is a free and modern country.

So in Taiwan you will also find:

• Chinese temples, Buddhist monasteries hidden on the hills and aboriginal villages inhabited by the close relatives of the Polynesian islanders.
• The most outstanding collection of Chinese art: the National Palace Museum.
• The tallest and one of the most elegant high-rises in the world: Taipei 101.

Only in Taiwan, also, you can taste the best Chinese food (no exaggeration) and, everywhere, enjoy convenient Japanese eateries and restaurants: both cuisines are vastly popular with the locals. Taiwan also offers dozens of hot springs and spas, Japanese style, at a fraction of the cost.

Taiwan Travel Experience is a guide written by a local resident. I have been living in the island with my Taiwanese wife for several years so far, my first Taiwan travel took place on the Chinese New Year holidays of 2002.

We enjoy visiting Taiwan, exploring known and not so known places and also tasting the local food .... being herself Chinese and myself Italian we believe we know how to recognize good food!

I hope that this Taiwan travel guide will be of value for you, for sure i am enjoying a lot writing it and i will keep improving and updating it.

Taiwan Travel Experience
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