An honest review of Yangmingshan

If you have a spare day in Taipei and would like to enjoy some nature away from the hustle and bustle of the city, be sure to check out Yangmingshan National Park .

🌲 The park is about 1 to 2 hours ride away from the city. You can either get there via public transport or car. We strongly recommend getting a car (either car rental or hiring a driver) as the attractions are spaced wide apart and public transport timings are not frequent.

Attractions that we visited:

🪻Zhuzihu

Upon arrival, we saw fields of white calla lilies (in March). There were many farms growing the lilies and some of them may require an entrance fee. We went to the field nearest to the car park (beside the restaurant) and there was no entrance fee. We had a fun time walking around the field and taking lots of pictures! You can also choose to pluck the lilies for NTD 10 each which we did! Do note that the weather might change rapidly and could get quite cold! 🥶

🌾 Qingtiangang

On our way up, the weather suddenly took a change for the worse 😢. It was so foggy and we could hardly see more than a few metres ahead of us. We went ahead and proceeded to visit the grassland that is so hyped up on social media (secretly hoping that the weather will improve too).

To our dismay, it remained foggy, rainy and cold. 😭 Nevertheless, we took a walk around the trail and visited some ruins. The buffaloes were all hiding (perhaps due to the rain and cold) and we didn’t manage to see any. Nevertheless, we still enjoyed the silent hill-esque vibe of the place.

🌸 Yangming Park

We initially wanted to visit the park first but missed the car park and decided to visit it on the way down. The main attraction here is the flower clock and you can see tourists queueing up to take a selfie with it. There were still some cherry blossoms and we spent most of our time cherry blossom hunting and taking many pics!

If you have more time, you can also walk or drive down to the fire station down the road where there are more cherry blossoms!

🪨 Sulphur Valley

Our last stop of the day before we end our day at Beitou. You can smell the sulphur when you are near but it was still bearable. The placed used to be an abandoned mine with many geothermal vents and is now turned into an attraction. The paths are quite well paved and makes for an easy walk.

💡There are many other attractions in Yangmingshan but we only managed to visit these 4 attractions as we only headed there after lunch and wanted a chill day. You can definitely visit more if you start the day earlier.

👍 Overall, despite the letdown of the weather at the grassland, we still thoroughly enjoyed our day at Yangmingshan and will recommend a visit. Do lower your expectations of the grassland as the weather is unpredictable and might not be what you see on social media.

#yangmingshan #taipei #taiwan #Cherryblossom