[RD] Discovering Taiwan

[warpus]

Hot Star Large Fried Chicken (豪大大雞排)
at Shilin Night Market (士林夜市)
with Alexander Synaptic

Shilin Night Market is considered to be the largest and most famous night market in Taiwan. It gets over 15,000 visitors daily on average and offers 539 food stalls in the main food court building alone, plus hundreds more in the surrounding streets. In addition to the food stalls, side streets and alleys are lined with storefronts and roadside stands, as well as cinemas, video arcades, and karaoke bars. Overall it creates a fascinating flashy urban entertainment maze that gets packed with people for hours every single day once they start getting off work and school.

Shilin Night Market has a reputation for creativity and is the birthplace of several iconic Taiwanese street food brands, including Hot Star Large Fried Chicken. It's essentially a somewhat large flattened chicken breast cutlet coated in a potato/tapioca starch batter, then deep fried until crisp and dusted with a salt 'n pepper spice mix. Simple, large, nice and crunchy on the outside, juicy on the inside. After the popularity of hot star and their "face sized food" approach exploded in the early 2000s a bit of a XXL sized street food craze swept Taiwan, resulting in creations like giant scallion pancakes and giant takoyaki. These days Hot Star Large Fried chicken outlets can also be found in several other Asian countries as well as Australia and Canada.

I had the pleasure of sharing a cutlet with Alexander Synaptic, who I was able to meet up with again for a couple hours. He was the perfect guide for the maze that is Shilin and as always great company and wealth of knowledge about all things Taiwan.

The food court was actually closed for renovations (from October 2023 to April 2025), but the surrounding night market streets provided plenty of entertainment for us for over an hour and a half, even though we mainly stuck to walking around, chatting, and trying assorted food items. This whole neighbourhood has just completely embraced the night market, you can wander through streets and alleys looking at food, merchandise, and entertainment options for a while.

My phone must have been extremely low on juice, because I barely have any pictures from any of this. I am pretty sure Alexander is the one who took the picture of me with the hot star large fried chicken, but there is a picture I have of a guy trying to convince people to buy a hat, so I will post that as well.

 

[warpus]

Day Twenty Seven Reflections
Monday, December 2, 2024

Total Distance Walked This Day - 11.4 km

The trip was winding down to some sort of conclusion, but I still had one night's rest to look forward to at my central Taipei hotel. I went out onto town for one last time and picked up some, you guessed it, fried chicken. Yep, more Taiwanese fried chicken, I just couldn't get enough of it. I had a chance to have some more bite-sized fried chicken in Taiwan before my flight home, and I took it. According to the datestamp I bought this batch just before midnight, about 11 hours before my flight home.

I was up late writing last minute postcards and repacking my bags for the journey home.

 

[bene_legionary]

I had the pleasure of having Hot Star chicken in Melbourne! Will go there again next time I'm there. (Or perhaps when I go to Taiwan myself. )

 

[warpus]

I had the pleasure of having Hot Star chicken in Melbourne! Will go there again next time I'm there. (Or perhaps when I go to Taiwan myself. )

I would recommend Taiwan as a travel destination, but it obviously depends on your own personal travel style & preferences. If you ask me Taiwan is a unique place that has to be experienced, it has a lot going for it, it's modern yet a bit rough around the edges, super safe, friendly, reasonably cheap, and compact and easy to get around. The food scene is interesting and worth checking out, the history is fascinating, the infrastructure is modern, there are world class great outdoors options, and there is just something to this place and the society that exists here.

Obviously I'm a bit biased, since I was just there a year ago, and from my experience I tend to remember more recent trips with a bit more emotion..

I have been trying to figure out how to describe the "just something", the thing that you can't see in any of the pictures, it's more like a vibe or set of emotions and ideas that permeate Taiwanese society and rubs off on the tourists. That sounds incredibly vague, but I'm having a hard time describing it without resorting to cliches.

It begins with the fact that Taiwan is just so damn safe. It's considered one of the safest countries in the world for travelers, and I didn't really know how empowering that would be until I went there. I have travelled through safe countries before, but Taiwan is on another level. There is a very high level of social trust to the degree that you can leave expensive items lying almost wherever you want, in the middle of a busy city, and chances are it will still be there when you return 6 hours later. Exceptions to that might be some late night bars, and if you drop something at a busy night market it might just get trampled on or something. And theft happens in Taiwan, it is not a utopia, but there is a very high social stigma to the degree that there is an unusually high probability (compared to other places) that your expensive item will still be there when you return.

In practice this means that people will leave their bikes unlocked and even leave their bags (sometimes open) on or by their bikes. They will leave for many hours, and when they return they expect their belongings to still be there, untouched. And their past experiences with this are strong enough for it to become a regular part of their routine. I personally witnessed this happening with someone I was meeting up with in central Kaohsiung. The response was "I don't need it right now and I will grab it at the end of the day". "And you've always done this and it always is?". "Yeah, nobody will touch it"

As a traveler that means that if you lose your wallet, the thing to do is retrace your steps and visit every place you've been to until you find your wallet. Or, if you left identifying information and your hotel's address in your wallet, that might be a place to check next. And when you get it back, nothing would have been taken from inside it. Right before my trip I put on a couple clips of Polish travelers in Taiwan, to show my mom where I'm going and perhaps help alleviate any concerns she might have about unsafe travel ideas. One of the first videos we watched was a Polish traveler who forgot a super pricy lens in a restaurant, realized it much later and tried to return to the restaurant, but next thing he knows there's a knock on his hotel room door and his lens is being handed back to him.

So obviously travelling through a place where such ideals are embraced by pretty much everyone is great on its own. But I used the word "empowered" before, because it was just so damn empowering to not have to really think about some of those "what if I get robbed" "what if I misplace my phone" "what if I end up in a sketchy part of town" "what if It's late at night and there's a gang of teens" "what if someone takes advantage of me" etc. type scenarios. In Taiwan you can let 99.999% of that go. Obviously personal safety is something you should always keep in mind in some capacity, but it feels so great to just really focus on everything else. To put it into another context, here at home where I live in Canada I feel pretty safe, I can walk around during the day and at night, and I would probably be okay no matter which part of town I ended up in at 5am. I found Taiwan much safer than that. And when travelling through a foreign to you country it's just such a great feeling to be able to let your guard down a bit, it makes the journey more enjoyable. It almost feels like it's a temporary superpower you have, those certain elements of anxiety about being out in public, however slight, they all go away.

It still feels like an adventure though, you have to watch out for traffic, some streets don't have adequate or any sidewalks, parts of Taiwan feel a bit south east Asian, riding the city bus in some cities can be a bit rough around the edges, but then you remember how generally safe it is and how friendly the people are. There is a real sense of collective responsibility and high social trust in the air, it's so refreshing. Not everything is perfect by any means, but it's just like everybody is trying and adhering to this general code that respects everybody else, and it's not just for show, I fell in love with that. It's in some ways similar to those elements of Japanese culture that result in such perfectly formed and polite queues, even if there's a lot of people.

My personal experience was that aside from that magic ingredient I rambled on about earlier, Taiwanese society sort of gets things done "good enough". Sometimes that ends up feeling great, sometimes that ends up feeling decent, but most of the time it is across the board "yeah, it's good". So I don't think the rail system will blow you away, and the food might not either, but they are both good. There is a sort of focus on being practical. When things work and they're good, you can go and improve something else that's lacking, why spend more time on the thing that works well already? That sort of thinking. I think it's sort of created a lot of balance, and you notice that as a traveler, you don't really run into many things that suck, and across the board there is a competent practical sort of standard that seems to exist.

Does any of that make sense? I think it would be a mistake to go to Taiwan as a visitor with a narrow focus of expectations. If you go just thinking about trains and the rail system, you might be whelmed. It's good but Japan's blows it out of the water, for example. If you go for the food, that might actually excite you, but personally I think Japan's food scene is superior, and I would say Vietnam's and Thailand's as well. If you go for the museums, they are good but there's better ones elsewhere. If you go for the history, it's interesting, but there are many nearby countries with more complex layered history that goes back a lot further. If you go for the great outdoors, that is actually the one thing that I think is world class in Taiwan, and yeah, in that case your trip will be a good one, if the weather cooperates and you plan out some good hikes. But overall, if you come in with a lasered in focus on something specific, chances are you might be a bit whelmed. Maybe not, but I would recommend going in with a bit of a broad lack of focus. Taiwan does many things well, and that can be appreciated on a day by day basis, as you make your way around the country. Stuff works and is efficient and practical and good. It helps you have a good trip.

The magic element I rambled on about before is basically sprinkled on all that across the board goodness. It's just a good well balanced package with great vibes. A progressive place that's welcoming to all, and happens to be one of (if not the) best Asian destination for vegetarians and vegans. But don't fret meat lovers, meat is an important part of the cuisine. So overall Taiwan should be a good time for most. It's definitely worth visiting. But it depends on your travel style, preferences, and expectations. And now I've written way too much and I apologize.

 

[warpus]

Epilogue

The next day I was out of my hotel by 7:40am and had my bags checked in at the airport at 9:09am. My flight took off at 11:15am or so.

Having done the math, the journey home from my hotel room door to my front door back home took a grand total of 29 hours and 48 minutes. The first stage of that was an 11h 25m flight to San Francisco, where an inefficient TSA line lead to me missing my flight to Toronto. I had over two hours to make that connection and nope, that's just how inefficient that airport is for travelers passing through at times.

After a bit of confusion at the airport we were all funneled to different kiosks, where we would be rebooking new flights on the airline's dime. Word quickly spread that the next available flight to Toronto wasn't for 14 more hours or something stupid like that. I got on my phone, loaded up the airline's app, and initiated a chat with an agent. Somehow I managed to get the last seat on a flight to Houston, confirmed by the time I got to the front of the line. From Houston I would transfer to a flight to Toronto. That all ended up working out, but I ended up arriving in Toronto multiple hours late as a result nevertheless. While in Houston I had to also rebook a bus ticket I had booked from Toronto Pearson Airport to my home town about 2 hours away. That ended up working out too and I ended up catching the later bus, then caught an uber and got home at about 2am. Couldn't sleep for 2 and a half hours and woke up at 8:45am to go to work. Yep, my plan was to save that vacation day and not have to use it, so I sat at work like a zombie for 8 hours and it actually went alright.

THE END

This is actually the very last picture I took in Taiwan, this place was right across the street from my hotel. I never got a chance to try it and I was hoping it'd be open on my way to the airport, but I wasn't so lucky.

It sort of leads me to the announcement that I will be posting my Portugal trip next.. but give me a couple months (or so) to unwind a bit and take a break from researching and writing up trip report posts.

 

[Birdjaguar]

Very nice closing! I have found that much of the fun, joy and sense of adventure when traveling comes with/from those you meet or travel with. I have traveled alone and with friends. I suspect that much of the "je ne sais quoi" of your Taiwan trip stemmed from those you met and spent time with.

 

[warpus]

Very nice closing! I have found that much of the fun, joy and sense of adventure when traveling comes with/from those you meet or travel with. I have traveled alone and with friends. I suspect that much of the "je ne sais quoi" of your Taiwan trip stemmed from those you met and spent time with.

One of the things I will never forget about this trip are all the human connections I made. As an introvert it is sometimes hard to meet people and even harder to make genuine connections, but I ended up having such good chemistry with all the people I met in Taiwan. It really surprised me, because on my other trips that happened here and there, but just not that often. Maybe it's a sign I need to try harder and continue to peek outside of my comfort zone more often when I travel.. which I do, but maybe I'll put even more of an emphasis on it next time.

I feel like they all really need to be mentioned again, because the trip would have been so much different without them. There's of course Alexander Synaptic, the super talented artist, musician, photographer, and walking encyclopedia of all things Taiwan. Meeting him while I was in Taiwan was sort of inevitable, we have been in touch since the 90s and wanted to meet up when I was travelling through Vietnam back in 2019, but it didn't end up happening. He is passionate about Taiwanese culture and history in a very grounded way, and loves talking about it - his tips and guidance were invaluable. There's of course Alice, the adventurous hiking aficionado, we connected right away, like we've been friends for years. She was basically my hiking guide in Taipei and Jiufen, and while I did some hikes solo, without her guidance, she took me to some pretty damn cool spots I wouldn't have found on my own. The textmode artist known as Samurai was a completely unexpected meetup, he messaged me out of the blue and it just so worked out that he was flying into Taipei on a day I was still there. We were online pals in the 90s and I've had him on social media since, so it was amazing to finally meet him in person. There's of course Lisa, who I met in Kaohsiung, who introduced me to Taiwanese hot pot and showed me how to navigate it properly and who accompanied me to numerous sights I might not have sought out on my own. Meeting Tiffany and the rest of the Republic of China Air Force crew in a bar, including several F16 pilots was also amazing, how often does something like that happen? And then running into them again the very next morning? And again in Taitung?

I feel like I had so much great company on my trip, it's almost as if that must have all been somehow scripted. All the people I've mentioned are such upstanding human beings, full of positive energy, and eager to help me have a more memorable trip. I will never forget any of them. And that's not even mentioning the American guy I randomly met in Kaohsiung's 85 Sky Tower, who took the time to walk with me for 20+ minutes just so he can show me a lookout point he thought I should visit. Unfortunately I do not remember his name, as we didn't exchange social media details. There's a guy from Toronto I met at a night market, who I chatted with over some pork fried rice. There's Angela, the tea house owner who I randomly met in a park in Kaohsiung, we were both reading books and naturally started chatting. And that's not including all the other heartwarming interactions I had with Taiwanese residents and other travelers alike, all the smiles, the warm wishes, respectful interactions, it all makes me want to seek out more human connections.

Having said that, I get plenty of enjoyment on my trips from solitude and from travelling solo. The key seems to be finding that balance between worthwhile experiences by yourself & with others. The way I see it, that balance is different for each one of us, and it takes some work to figure out exactly what your balance is. I know that personally I need to recharge a bit when I'm with others for too long.. but if I'm alone for too long, I get cranky too. When I'm solo travelling I have that flexibility to be by myself almost whenever I want, while also having the option of trying to form human connections. I've been getting better at forming those human connections over the years, but my experiences in Taiwan were really unprecedented. I think some of that really has to do with the way the people there are. I just felt so comfortable everywhere. I never felt judged or not wanted or looked at funny. I always felt welcomed and maybe that's a part of it. It made it easier to open up.

So yeah, you are right that some of that je ne sais quoi has to do with the people I interacted with, but it extends well beyond the people mentioned. It extends to all the shop owners I interacted with, the people who helped give me directions along the way, the police giving off non-threatening vibes I'd occasionally see, and just that positive vibe present wherever I went. Everybody working together for a better society, it sounds so cheesy, but when people actually try, you really do notice. And yeah, of course Taiwan is not an utopia like I said, there's jerks and some crime and discontent and depression and other ailments societies have to deal with.. but I've never been so impressed with a society's core values and how they end up being expressed.

During that last evening in the country Alexander Synaptic said: "By now you probably understand why I stayed here all those years ago and choose to live here". He guessed correctly that after a month of interacting with Taiwanese culture I would get it, and that it would be a lot more complicated to try to put into words. Look at all the paragraphs I wrote in the last couple posts, and I still don't think it really properly conveys these concepts.

The one thing that scares me about travelling with others is that you just don't know somebody's travel style until you travel with them, and that is something that can destroy friendships. It is known as a major relationship test for a reason. And yeah "scares", I don't really get scared.. I'm a pretty chill guy, I can deal with conflicts on the trip, I can deal with having to compromise and adhere to the travel needs of others.. but a big trip only comes around every once in a while, so sometimes it's just so much easier to go by yourself. When I was in Nepal with Jeff and Steve, later only Steve when Jeff flew home, there were times I sort of wanted to wander the streets of Kathmandu on my own. But Steve didn't want to miss out, so he always came with me. He got a bit annoyed at times that we just kept going and going, but it didn't lead to any issues. You gotta take it as it comes I guess and be understanding about it.

The time spent with others is often heralded as an important trip outcome.. but I'm also a big believer of the benefits of solo travel. i.e. why not both? It's all about finding a good balance I think, like I said. I have found a lot of personal growth type benefits to traveling solo and occasionally (safely) throwing yourself out of the element. But people can be awesome too.

A lot of perspectives to be considered here, and IMO everyone will land a tiny bit differently on this subject. And that's fine and you should embrace your own personal balance, it will make your trips and life more enjoyable.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I've done both solo and with a companion also. It does take a bit to sync your travel styles, wants and needs. In China while traveling alone I had 3 paid guides: one for 4 days in Beijing, and 2 (one on each day there) in Zhangjiajie. My Beijing guide was absolutely perfect in every way as was my first guide in ZJJ. With both we hit it off well and they fully accommodated what I wanted to see and do. The guide on my second day there was a bust and terrible. She didn't really want to be there and it showed. But since it was my second day, I had most of the details figured out and she mostly just got me into the park on her pass and access to the parts I hadn't seen yet. Oh well.... I only had the bad guide because my first day guide had an emergency and couldn't make it. so I got a substitute.

 

[warpus]

I've done both solo and with a companion also. It does take a bit to sync your travel styles, wants and needs. In China while traveling alone I had 3 paid guides: one for 4 days in Beijing, and 2 (one on each day there) in Zhangjiajie. My Beijing guide was absolutely perfect in every way as was my first guide in ZJJ. With both we hit it off well and they fully accommodated what I wanted to see and do. The guide on my second day there was a bust and terrible. She didn't really want to be there and it showed. But since it was my second day, I had most of the details figured out and she mostly just got me into the park on her pass and access to the parts I hadn't seen yet. Oh well.... I only had the bad guide because my first day guide had an emergency and couldn't make it. so I got a substitute.

You are a smart man, a paid guide to tell you the ins and outs of a place can teach you so much, plus show you things you might not have found on your own. I think I'm a bit too stubborn and prefer the flexibility of walking around without a set plan. From what I can remember I think I've only ever paid for two guides, and both of them were hired mainly due to safety concerns. One was the Sherpa guide I hired for the Everest Basecamp Trek and the other the Quechua guide who lead our group to Machu Picchu. One amazing experience with a guide I had was a volunteer offering to be my guide for free when I was entering Himeji castle. At first I was a bit suspicious, but it was an older lady, and she seemed to have all the correct branding and documentation. Plus it's Japan. But yeah, she gave me a long long tour of the castle and made my experience so much more amazing. After that experience I made a note of occasionally hiring a guide when I travel, but I just never do. This time around I had the luck and privilege of knowing and meeting people who live in Taiwan and know their way around, each one sort of with their own area of expertise too, almost like that was all planned somehow.

One bad experience with a guide was in Cambodia, when during an exploration of one of the temples near Siem Reap a guy suddenly appeared beside me and pretended to be my guide. I knew about the scam and told him to go away, I don't want a guide, etc. multiple times, but that did not help. He stuck to me and later became outraged when I only gave him a small amount, although from what I remember by local standards it was more than the amount needed to buy multiple beer. He was used to shaking down tourists for more, but I was pretty annoyed and wouldn't budge. Not always the smartest thing to do, especially in an obscure mainly empty temple partially encroached on by the jungle.. which is why I gave him a bit of money in the first place. Not really sure what the smartest move in this situation would be to be honest. I was way too annoyed to give him the shakedown amount or anywhere near it, but I have a bit of privilege that I'm a broad-shouldered Slav body frame looking male. I'm no viking, but if you look closely you might also see the strength in my squatting muscles. I don't know how to fight but if I get enraged I am not a pushover, and that gives me an advantage, I can just tell people to go pound sand with a usually small chance of escalation.

To end on a positive note, in possibly Alesund or another similar Norwegian city I joined a walking tour lead by a volunteer guide.. Those can be free and worth of your time, you'll see some of the popular sights and learn some things about them, and maybe meet some new people.

 

[bene_legionary]

My main motivation for going to Taiwan is to give me a chance to relearn all the Mandarin I lost when I moved from China as a kid to NZ... every thing else is just an awesome bonus

It will be an interesting contrast to Sri Lanka which I just got back from a week ago.

 

[warpus]

My main motivation for going to Taiwan is to give me a chance to relearn all the Mandarin I lost when I moved from China as a kid to NZ... every thing else is just an awesome bonus

It will be an interesting contrast to Sri Lanka which I just got back from a week ago.

That's a great reason to go somewhere, and tbh I'm a bit jealous of the people who have some Mandarin fluency. And jealous is probably too strong of a term but I'm using it anyway, on a linguistic level I wish I knew a bit of it, it's just so different from the languages I know, I think it would be cool to learn some basic characters and try to feel out the language a bit. But I know that it would be a huge challenge at the same time, so I've never started..

I knew almost absolutely nothing about Mandarin when I flew to Taiwan except how to say hello and a bit about the linguistic properties. But after the Taiwan trip I sort of wanted to learn a couple characters and pronunciations and see how I do, then maybe learn more. I got a bit inspired to do this at some point during my conversations about Alexander Synaptic's Mandarin learning experience. After 12 years he said he is only fluent in a bunch of the basic characters, so he can only talk about beef in a handful of ways, whereas a waiter might bust out idioms and use obscure characters. I actually witnessed this exact scenario unfold at a restaurant, although of course it had to be all explained to me after. Alexander got the pronunciation of that basic core of characters and expressions down well enough for locals to occasionally think he is fully fluent. Either way, he made Mandarin sound hard to learn, but the characters and the way they work and are used, and the history behind them was interesting to me. So why not learn a couple of them and go from there (but I have yet to begin, because life)

 

[Birdjaguar]

Apple airpod pro 3s now have live translation:

Live Translation helps you communicate across languages, powered by Apple Intelligence.Footnote¹¹ It is supported in the following languages: Chinese (Mandarin, Simplified), Chinese (Mandarin, Traditional), English (UK, U.S.), French (France), German (Germany), Italian (Italy), Japanese (Japan), Korean (South Korea), Portuguese (Brazil), and Spanish (Spain).

It translates what you hear. If both parties have them, they will translate what you say into your friend's language.

 

[warpus]

Appendix A: Distance Walked

My Taiwan trip journal entries include the distance walked for each day, so I figured I would tabulate and graph the results.

Day	Location	Distance (km)	Day of week
0	Airports	8	Wednesday
1	Taipei	9.3
2	Taipei	10.5
3	Taipei	15.6
4	Taipei	9	Saturday
5	Taipei	12	Sunday
6	Taipei	13.5
7	Taichung	13.3
8	Lukang	11
9	Taichung	13.4
10	Chiayi	10.9
11	Tainan	7.2	Saturday
12	Tainan	7.9	Sunday
13	Tainan	11.1
14	Tainan	13
15	Kaohsiung	8.4
16	Kaohsiung	11.7
17	Kaohsiung	9.5
18	Kaohsiung	8.5	Saturday
19	Taitung	15.9	Sunday
20	Chishang	9.4
21	Kaohsiung	11.8
22	Kaohsiung	6.2
23	Kaohsiung	7.8
24	Taipei	11.6
25	Taipei	12.9	Saturday
26	Jiufen	13.9	Sunday
27	Taipei	11.4
28	Airports	7

The total works out to 311.7 km or 193.7 miles.

But why stop there? During which day of the week did I do the most walking?

Day of the Week	Average (km)	Total (km)
Tuesday	12.7	38.1
Sunday	12.43	49.7
Friday	11.9	47.6
Monday	11.35	45.4
Thursday	10.85	43.4
Saturday	9.4	37.6
Wednesday	8.73	34.9

I spent only 3 tuesdays in Taiwan, which is why it has a surprisingly lower km total but a high average

I had trouble seeing patterns here at first, but note that I arrived in Taiwan on a wednesday, making it the first day of my week. That way you get a 7 day cycle that more or less repeats.

1. Wednesday - Warmup/Cooloff
2. Thursday - Let's ramp it up a bit
3. Friday - Let's ramp it up even more!
4. Saturday - Time to cool off a bit
5. Sunday - FULL STEAM AHEAD
6. Monday - Let's try to keep pushing it
7. Tuesday - FULLER STEAM AHEAD

So basically I started the week slow and ramped it up for a couple days, then took a midweek break on Saturday, and then had 3 heavy duty days of walking in the 2nd half of the week. Then repeat.

It's worth nothing that Sundays also just happened to be the days I ended up in Jiufen and Taitung, and those were always going to be some of the heaviest walking days.. So Sundays' high numbers might be a bit skewed, but at this point, I think we are beyond any sort of meaningful analysis of these numbers.

I might as well group this data by city:

City	Average (km)	Total (km)
Taitung	15.9	15.9
Jiufen	13.9	13.9
Taichung	13.35	26.7
Taipei	11.76	105.8
Lukang	11	11
Chiayi	10.9	10.9
Tainan	9.8	39.2
Chishang	9.4	9.4
Kaohsiung	9.13	63.9

Taitung and Jiufen, the two sunday heavy hitters at the top. Jiufen is pretty much designed as a walking city and I spent a loong day trip there, including the two climbs to top of keelung mountain and teapot mountain. Taitung is a bit spread out, not very dense, and doesn't have as good public transit as the larger cities. Tainan and Kaohsiung sitting way at the bottom surprise me a bit to be honest.

The full distance (311.7km) ends up working out to something like 460,000 total steps or 16,000 steps a day, but conversion isn't an exact science. It should probably also be mentioned that there is likely something like a 4-8% or so error margin for the daily distance measurements, although the error margin for that statement is in the 8-12% range on top of that.

 

[warpus]

Appendix B: Accommodations

I kept track of accommodation costs for every hotel I stayed in. All the hotels were central with a private bathroom.

Some payments were made using NTD$ and some using CAD, I converted each amount to the other currencies using nov 2024 conversion rates. All amounts are the final amount I paid after taxes and other fees.

Start	End	City	Hotel	Total (NT$)	Per Day (NT$)	Total (CAD)	Per Day (CAD)	Per Day (USD)
Nov 5	Nov 9	Taipei	HZ Hotel	7,240	1,810	313	78	55
Nov 9	Nov 11	Taipei	Apause Inn	5,373	2,686	232	116	82
Nov 11	Nov 15	Taichung	Shin Sein Bashi Hotel	3,952	988	170	42	29
Nov 15	Nov 19	Tainan	Finders Hotel	8,746	2,186	379	94	66
Nov 19	Nov 24	Kaohsiung	Talmud Hotel Kaohsiung Love River	11,687	2,337	506	101	72
Nov 24	Nov 26	Taitung	Fish Hotel Taitung	4,878	2,439	209	104	73
Nov 26	Nov 28	Kaohsiung	Howard Hotel	5,624	2,812	240	120	85
Nov 28	Nov 30	Taipei	Guide Hotel Taipei Chongqing	5,234	2,617	225	112	79
Nov 30	Dec 3	Taipei	Guide Hotel Taipei Chongqing	9,031	3,010	389	129	91
			Total	20,887		2,668

Grand total accommodation cost for 28 nights:

NT$20,887.42 which at the time was equivalent to $2,668.02 CAD or $1,909.30 USD.
This works out on average to about $95 CAD a day or $68 USD a day.

Observations and Notes:

- The Taichung hotel was a steal at that price. It wasn't an amazing hotel room, but it was more than adequate and very close to the train station. Maybe the more modern part of town is more popular and expensive to stay in?
- Last minute Taipei bookings tended to be more expensive, but as you can see booking in advance can get you a decent deal for a decent central hotel ($55 USD a night in this case)
- Howard Hotel in central Kaohsiung was the best hotel of the bunch - the fanciest, with the best room. Supposedly five star, but I don't know if you can really trust self reported hotel star ratings. This is definitely the hotel of the trip, also had great views out the window.
- Talmud hotel is not related to Judaism in any way as far as I can tell
- The same hotel is listed twice at the end because I stayed in two different types of rooms, each with a different associated cost. On November 30 I had to check out and move to the other room, it was a special sort of booking via the app that set it up that way, it allowed me to get a cheaper price overall compared to nearby hotels. The second room was FAR superior to the first, I disliked the first room but enjoyed the second one.
- 4 nights at the very first hotel is what was booked ahead of time, from Canada. Initially my plans were to book more like a week and get a better price for a longer period of time, but typhoon Leon showed up on my radar and the forecast was calling for crappy weather in Taipei for a while. So I only booked 4 nights at first and was then going to play it by ear.. During my last day at that hotel I got a message from my textmode art friend Samurai, which is when I booked another hotel in Taipei for 2 more nights so that I could meet up with him.

Overall hotels in Taiwan are pretty reasonable, but many of the bathrooms will have a shower that gets 60-100% of the bathroom wet, depending on the setup, unless you check into a fancier hotel like Howard Hotel. Having said that, I remember at least 2 or 3 of the other hotels having a more western style shower setup as well. Overall no real bad hotel in the mix, aside from the somewhat crappy room during the first half of my stay at the Guide Hotel in Taipei. Crappy = run down, only clean enough, without a window, and loud. Second room was more clean, modern, with a window, and it was quiet.

Overall I was happy with the accommodation cost of the trip and its % of the total budget.

 

[Birdjaguar]

$2000 total for your long trip is pretty good. Did you consider any Airbnbs? A quick look for places in Taipei show lots of options from $30 to $50 per night for 4 nights in Feb. 2026. They range from rooms, to apartments, to small houses. Other cities look similar or a bit less.

 

[warpus]

$2000 total for your long trip is pretty good. Did you consider any Airbnbs? A quick look for places in Taipei show lots of options from $30 to $50 per night for 4 nights in Feb. 2026. They range from rooms, to apartments, to small houses. Other cities look similar or a bit less.

To be honest I used to check airbnb pricing all the time but at some point 5-10 years ago I stopped, there were too many experiences of all the fees adding up to pretty much the cost of a hotel, depending on where you're going. In the end I prefer the predictability of the hotel, and the fact you never have to clean up before you leave (although of course you don't leave a giant mess either, but hotels offer a more carefree experience). Airbnbs can also often be in residential parts of town, but hotels tend to be in more strategic locations.

I used to stay at hostels a lot more often on my travels, you used to be able to get a fairly cheap private room at a lot of them. In 2008 in Patagonia we were able to get private rooms at hostels for like $20-25 CAD a night on average or so, from what I remember, and I believe many came with private bathrooms and a more or less complete hotel-like experience. It was great, because you could get some rest and privacy for cheap, but were also able to mingle with the other hostel-goers in the common areas. It made travel to far away places more feasible, if the accommodations, food, and local transportation were cheap. But now private rooms at hostels tend to be close to what you can expect to pay at a hotel, from my experience anyway.

Me and a friend did get an airbnb in Lisbon for 2 weeks a year and a half ago, that worked out great as a HQ for 2 people for that period of time. It was a 2nd story apartment on a small residential street 3min or so walk to a major street with all the amenities. In Poland last year it seemed that sites like hotels.com and booking.com listed many airbnb and guesthouse type accommodations. In fact I think most of the places I stayed at felt more like someone's apartment than a hotel. I made sure to only book things in central locations, close to amenities, to cover that angle. The pricing was also all through the hotel portal, and upfront, and the experience was very hotel-like, aside from the lack of a front desk and freshly tucked in sheets and fresh towels every night. Sometimes even hotels didn't have front desks or daily room service though. But only staying in cities 2-3 nights on that trip I didn't mind that at all, AND there was often a washing machine in the apartment. It was great to be able to do laundry every week or so right at your hq, one of the benefits over a hotel.. No dryers though, anywhere, so you have to factor in extra time for draft drying your clothes.

From what I read in Taiwan there's stricter regulations and permits needed for those who operate an airbnb, but from what I understand many just don't.. but it also doesn't really seem to matter, people get busted, but only occasionally, and the person who was booking is never in trouble with the law.. That can happen anywhere, but in Taiwan the stricter regulations mean that more airbhb hosts are in violation. For me it just adds to my preference to even pay a bit more, and get that core set of amenities you can expect at a hotel that's got at least 3 stars. And yeah, the star system is all made up and yadda yadda, but generally 3 star hotels have certain amenities. You have to adjust the rating expectations when you travel to different places, but 3 is a good baseline.

Next trip might be back to Patagonia, later this year.. Not sure yet. I expect accommodations to be wildly more expensive compared to 2008, but we'll see. I was happy with under $2k USD for Taiwan for hotels, that's basically within the range I budgeted for

 

[Birdjaguar]

Airbnbs do have a bit of a risk factor over a hotel but I have found that the quality is usually at least 3 star or higher if you pay attention. My problem is that when I look at hotels, I tend to look at the higher end where per night costs run $300 and up. I like interesting boutique hotels especially if they have some historical heritage. I stayed in one of those in Zanzibar and it was an excellent choice.

I booked an Airbnb in Luxor Egypt for Aug 2027 for the total eclipse of the sun there: an apartment for 4 nights for $90 total. Hotels don't have reservations open yet for 2027 and I expect Luxor to be crowded for the event. I don't have to pay until May 2027....I figure I can plan the rest of the trip in a year.

 

[EnglishEdward]

I booked an Airbnb in Luxor Egypt for Aug 2027 for the total eclipse of the sun there:

I am envious, I can only hope that WW3 does not scupper things for you.

 

[Birdjaguar]

I am envious, I can only hope that WW3 does not scupper things for you.

I am hopeful that politics will not interfere. I do not expect a world wide conflagration anytime soon.