Taitung Places to Visit for an Awesome Adventure

Besides the view, a small, steep, and very winding road leads uphill to an aboriginal village and a few cafés and small eateries. You can also visit Duoliang on this half-day tour from Taitung. After passing all the hot spring hotels, the road terminates at Zhiben National Forest Recreation Area (知本國家森林遊樂區), which features several walking trails through dense forest. Several ferries per day depart for Green Island from Fugang Harbor just north of Taitung City. You can pre-order your scooter here for pick-up when you arrive. Continuing north from Jialulan, Fushan Fishing Harbor (富山漁港) is another slice of coast with lots of rocky pools to explore.
In Donghe Township and Beinan, don’t miss the steamed buns, famous all over Taiwan for their taste and unique texture. The National Forest area 台東 伴手 has several treks you can choose from. I recommend taking the one with all the stairs, tiring but you’ll be rewarded with an amazing view.

In the two days we spent there, we exchanged numerous smiles and hellos with locals, but never quite breached the awkwardness of approaching or “chatting up” the locals. Our guesthouse was owned by a Tao person, but he was almost never around, and we mostly dealt with the young Taiwanese people hired to staff the hotel. They are not big fans of being photographed, nor do they like people wandering into their yards or homes to gawk at them . Therefore, you may notice that I don’t actually have any photos of Tao people in this article. Another of Taiwan’s smallest aboriginal tribes is the Thao people.
Besides seeing and experiencing Tao culture, one of the most popular things to do on Orchid Island is scuba diving. The north and east coasts are popular spots, and usually divers walk in off the coast. You can book a scuba experience before you arrive, or arrange one through your hotel. From Hongtou, an narrow road crosses over the mountains to the more traditional east coast of the island, reaching the village of Yeyin first.
First, you’ll need to get to Taitung, which takes 3.5 to 5 hours on the local train from Taipei . Alternatively, you can fly from Taipei’s Songshan Airport to Taitung. My two travel mates doing what they do best, and some flying fish.

You can also explore the city on this guided Taitung city attractions tour or this electric bicycle guided tour. In fact, inventors are responsible for you reading this article on your phone, tablet, or computer right now. Without people creating technologies like the one you’re using, our world would be drastically different.
Read about how you can experience Thao culture in my guide to Sun Moon Lake. Besides their isolation from the mainland of Taiwan, several unique cultural characteristics set the Tao apart from Taiwan’s other 16 officially recognized aboriginal tribes. Most famous among them are their beautiful hand carved wooden canoes, which can hold 1-3 people, but the longest Tao canoe ever built measures 11 meters and was paddled all the way from Orchid Island to Taipei.

Lisong Hot Spring (栗松溫泉) is one of the most beautiful wild hot springs in Taiwan. The spring is known for its vibrant green and yellow colors painting the cliff from which it seeps down into riverside pools. Hi Fabian, we are currently in Lanyu and staying far away from main tourist attractions . We are literally stuck in one place because there are not even bicycles to rent. Our hotel owner said all rental bicycle shops are closed and obviously without a license, we can’t rent a scooter.
The water is at the perfect temperature and is pure and odorless. It’s a bit hard to reach, you’ll have to trek for about an hour and some parts of the trails are really steep, but you’ll be amply rewarded by what you see. The green limestone is calcium carbonate created by the water dripping from the top of the rocks. Probably the most famous park in Taitung, Taitung Forest Park is a nice place to go for a stroll and a top tourist spot. Facing the sea and a river, it is more of a man-made park than a wild forest.

We loved the children’s artwork on display highlighting Orchid Island’s culture. This is also a good spot to watch the sun setting behind Mantou Rock. Ghost Cave (鬼洞, Do Neymiyaow) is a long human-made cave on the mountain side of the road, just one minute’s drive down the road from Lover’s Cave. We didn’t visit it, but the Mermaid and Cats Café (人魚和貓) just north of the village comes recommended, especially for cat lovers. Most beaches on Orchid Island are rocky, and the waves and currents make them not very suitable for swimming.
I spent a few good minutes here before heading to bed on our first night in Taitung. The sweet flavor of crispy sugar sweet potato is rich and very smooth but not sticky. They are made in peanut, red bean, mung bean and other flavors, using only natural ingredients and have no artificial flavorings. Beef noodles is one of the best known dishes of Taiwan, is well-known internationally for its unique flavor and is very popular with visitors to Taiwan.

The pedestrian bridge leads to a small island with interesting rock formations and several hiking trails. The offshore island is a conservation area and is also named Sanxiantai, which means ‘Terrace of the Three Immortals‘. Taitung Forest Park is a lovely park and a perfect spot if you’re looking to get away from the city. The one at the north end offers the best view of Taitung city and indeed Taitung County, allowing you to see it all splayed out between the mountains and the sea. These include big-box properties such as the Sheraton Taitung Hotel, as well as boutique hotels and guest houses like Tiin Tiin Inn , located within easy walking distance from Taitung Bus Station. On a personal  level, I actually prefer the beaches and beautiful scenery of Taitung County to the more popular Kenting National Park further south in Pingtung, though you may or may not end up feeling this way.
It is one of the most famous sweets in the nation, so it wasn’t hard to find a store that sells it. Their cakes can be sweet during summer and tangy during winter. You can find the store right by Minsheng Park - a nice spot to chillax and eat. They come with unique and cute designs, handcrafted and placed within transparent containers. Find and buy these at Ningxia Night Market - the best gift for someone special. Due to its location in the tropics and the geographical advantages of the mountains and the sea, there is an abundance of crop types.
Throughout our travels on the island, we couldn’t help but notice and thoroughly enjoy the large number of goats there. They are even more ubiquitous than Tao canoes, and appear on many maps, restaurant signs, and hotels. Just after Langdao Village, there’s a great swimming spot on the coast called Roasted Goose Rock (燒鵝岩), which features a large, calm pool of seawater that you can jump into from various points. Watch for the parking  lot on the right side just after an unfinished white church on the left side, just west of town. After Dongqing, Lover’s Cave, and Ghost Cave, the next point of interest is Shell Beach (marked Shell Sand or 貝殼砂 on GoogleMaps). It’s not actually a beach, but a scenic little spot with coastal pools of seawater and awesome views down the coast.