Taichung
Built by a devout Taichung family in the 1920s, Pi-Lu Buddhist Monastery looks more like a mansion than a monastery, with its red-bricked facade, Doric…
Must-see attractions in Taiwan
Kaohsiung
Considered the centre of Buddhism in southern Taiwan, Foguangshan a good place to learn more about Buddhism as the staff and some of the monks and nuns…
Northern Taiwan
Wuling Farm, also known as Wuling Forest Recreation Area (武陵國家森林遊樂區), is a relaxing mountain retreat popular with Taiwanese families who come for the…
Nantou County
From the entrance doors with their giant guardians to the 18 lohan reliefs, only top-quality materials and artists, both Taiwanese and foreign, were used…
Tainan
This art deco department store from the 1930s has been so beautifully restored that it's worth going in just to ascend the sweeping staircase, peer…
Northern Taiwan
The cascades at this popular tourist stop have stained the rocks a honeycomb yellow due to the pyrite (fool's gold) deposits picked up by the water as it…
Eastern Taiwan & Taroko National Park
At 952m, Sixty Stone Mountain offers one of the east coast's most mesmerising landscapes. Zigzag up eight kilometres through subtropical foliage to the…
Ximending & Wanhua
Along with Longshan, this elegant temple, first built in 1856, is one of Wanhua's top houses of worship. There is an abundance of top-quality wood, stone…
Taipingshan National Forest Area
Northern Taiwan
This logging-area-turned-mountain-retreat offers easy forest trails along whimsical relics of old railway tracks, and countless lookouts over the snow…
Pingtung County
The last section of Hwy 24 is a gorgeous winding highway that leads you deep into the mountains. Not for the fainthearted, some parts of the road run…
Kaohsiung
Dramatic residential blocks with curved facades encircle a diaspora community in the Guomao area. The dozen-or-so 12-storey buildings were constructed for…
Taipei
Evolution is the theme at this museum, set in a 1930s former bank: evolution of life, evolution of money and banking, and evolution of the bank from the…
Fuyuan Forest Recreational Area
Eastern Taiwan & Taroko National Park
Fuyuan takes an area of serene natural beauty and tames it just enough to make accessible the abundant birdlife and multitudinous butterflies that flit…
Pingtung County
This is where Taiwan's first cacao grower, Mr Chiu, and his son run their restaurant and chocolate-making facility. They're the only Taiwanese chocolate…
Aowanda National Forest Recreation Area
Nantou County
Located along the scenic Hwy 14 near Wushe, this national park is famous for its maples. The park ranges in altitude from 1100m to 2600m, making it a cool…
Taipei
This 4km-long, 30-minute gondola ride is as much an attraction as a mode of transport. On clear days and nights the views across Taipei and up the lush…
Central East Coast
One of Taiwan's most beautiful areas of unspoilt coastline runs south from Fengbin, culminating at a headland beyond Shitigang fishing harbour, known as…
Northern Taiwan
Home to 152 unwanted Chiang Kai-shek statues, this open-air sculpture park is a hoot (surely unintentionally), with promenades of Chiang busts and clumps…
National Taiwan Craft Research and Development Institute
Taipei
This striking red-and-white building, with its circular neoclassical Chinese-style roof, dates back to just 1956. It now houses the Craft Research and…
Matsu
This colourful temple is considered one of the most sacred spots in Taiwan, featuring as it does the purported grave of Lin Mo-niang (林默娘; b 960) who…
Taipei
This dainty two-hall temple was constructed in 1822 by Hakka immigrants from Guangdong province. The resident deity, the Dingguang Buddha (the guardian of…
Tainan
The neoclassical-style Land Bank dates from 1928. Japanese architects were heavily influenced by western ideas at the time and neoclassical revival was a…
Nantou County
The forest-resort area known as Shanlinxi Forest Recreation Area (literally, Sun Link Sea FRA) has waterfalls, cherry blossoms in spring, and maple in…
Taroko National Park
Very steep rock-and-forest mountainsides north of Taroko descend directly into the sea from several hundred metres' altitude. That means that roads and…
Tainan
This is the oldest and most impressive temple in Taiwan dedicated to Guandi (Guan Gong), a Han-dynasty general deified as the God of War. He is the patron…
Ximending & Wanhua
This small, atmospheric temple appears from the outside as a narrow, elaborate shopfront in the Ximending area. But walk through the gate and you'll find…
Northern Taiwan
Though founded by a Buddhist order, this museum aims not to promote Buddhism, but to build harmony by showing the communality of all religions. Highlights…
Northern Taiwan
Strewn with meteorite-sized boulders and facing Turtle Island 10km offshore, Wai'ao's black sand beach is one of the best places in northern Taiwan for…
Matsu
Though lacking Qinbi's architectural integrity, Qiaozi (Ciaozai) gains a great deal of charm from its setting, nestled around a rocky harbour with…
Northern Taiwan
This block of tastefully restored merchant houses and residences dates from the end of the Qing dynasty. On weekends there's a lively market atmosphere as…
Chenggong
The best-known icon of the whole east coast is the eight-humped pedestrian bridge that leads from a windswept headland to this craggy little offshore…
Hualien
Qixingtan (Chihsingtan) is a former fishing hamlet whose few remaining, old, tin-roofed shacks are outnumbered by a gaggle of small but fanciful hotels…
Kinmen
For domestic tourists, this is one of Kinmen's top sights due to the pivotal nature of a battle fought here over 56 hours in October 1949. For outsiders,…
Eastern Taiwan & Taroko National Park
An attractively set 'cultural village' and tour bus magnet, Lintianshan was founded in 1918 as a Japanese-era logging village. At its 1960 peak, it housed…
Taroko National Park
Picturesque for its setting, backed by toweringly steep mountainsides, this small shrine sits above a gushing spring that pours out onto the rocks below,…
Northern Taiwan
Stretching far out into the East China Sea, this limestone cape is a geologist's dreamland where aeons of wind and sea erosion can be observed in hundreds…
National Museum of Taiwan History
Tainan
Eight kilometres north of the city centre of Tainan, this three-storey museum is a good introduction to the ethnocultural history of Taiwan. The visually…
Matsu
Barely five minutes by boat from Qiaozi harbour, a two-hour visit to this windswept, uninhabited island is one of Matsu's great joys – but only when the…
Taipei
An oasis in the city, this 8-hectare park has well-stocked greenhouses, literature- and Chinese-zodiac-themed gardens, a lotus pond and myriad lanes where…
Northern Taiwan
Just across from the Golden Waterfall, on a sea-facing bluff, are the remains of a massive copper-smelting refinery (十三層; Shísāncéng) whose 13 levels…
