TAIWAN 🇹🇼 6D5N self-drive itinerary 🚙

hello! here to share our 6D5N Taiwan self-drive trip itinerary 🇹🇼🚙💛

when we first started planning, we knew we wanted a relaxing trip that is away from the hustle and bustle of big cities, so we decided to rent a car and travel through the mountains and coast of Taiwan 🏔️🌊 we picked driving over public transport as we felt that there were quite a few inaccessible places, or places that only have buses running once a day, so driving would definitely allow us to have a more flexible plan

during our trip, we managed to visit Nantou, Hualien, Yilan and Taipei! I'll share the itinerary in this post and have another post about our accommodations because they were just too good 😆

Day 1: Taoyuan > Taipei > Nantou

♡ arrival at Taoyuan airport at 8am

♡ proceeded to head to Taipei Main Station and picked up our car from a car rental shop nearby

♡ started driving towards Taichung as a pit stop before heading towards Nantou (total drive is around 3.5hrs, from Taipei to Taichung is around 2hrs)

♡ stopped at a cafe in Taichung 蜜境 MiJing（💡預約制） (pic 2! they require prior reservations, can make a reservation via LINE)

♡ drove to our first accoms and checked in, headed to dinner at 春大地火锅城 (very affordable hotpot, can make a reservation via Facebook)

Day 2: Nantou > Taroko Gorge > Hualien

♡ had breakfast at our accoms and set off around 8:45am

♡ first stop was 合歡山武嶺亭 (pic 3!)

♡ went to Songsyue Lodge after that (remember to visit the washroom here, else the next available washroom is quite far away)

♡ as the Taiwan National Highway #14 and #8 has closures all year, we had to queue up at the checkpoint to cross. there are around 3-4 times a day when traffic is allowed to cross to either side, so make sure to check the traffic website before planning your trip (the recent Taiwan earthquake would have made the roads even harder to travel on, so looking up on traffic news is important to know which roads to avoid etc)

♡ we then went to Tunnel of Nine Turns , Yanzikou Trail , Bulowan Recreational Centre , Changchun Shrine , before exiting the Taroko Gorge and taking a commemorative pic at 太魯閣牌樓(these places are arranged accordingly to our route from Nantou to Hualien, and we stopped by since we would be passing through the Taroko Gorge anyways! (pic 5)

♡ along the way, we stopped for lunch at 西寶21·台灣美食·預約制(Taiwan Food-reservation) (pic 4! they serve home-cooked bentos, but require prior reservation via LINE. we got to enjoy our meal in the mountains, we were the only customers at that time! Food was super super delicious and the store owner was super hospitable)

♡ once we reached Hualien, we checked in to our accoms

♡ visited the Dongdamen Night Market and had a feast of street food!

Day 3: Hualien

♡ we woke up early to catch the sunrise by the beach but was just greeted with cloudy skies and super strong winds 😵‍💫

♡ breakfast at Gong Zheng Bun Store (@ 6am with the locals 😮‍💨)

♡ walked around Beibin Park

♡ we were looking at beach photos other travellers took and chanced upon a photoshoot place that offers services + ATV rides 花蓮沙灘車天空之鏡 (pic 6, it was about 20sgd for a 1hr ATV ride plus photoshoot!)

♡ went to another beach and visited a popular cafe 魚刺人雞蛋糕咖啡館

♡ shopping at Sanzhong Shopping District

♡ dinner again at Dong Da Men!

Day 4: Hualien > Su'ao > Yilan

♡ had breakfast at a nearby scallion pancake/soy milk place 府前食坊

♡ drove to Qingshui Cliffs to take some nice pics

♡ drove to 粉鳥林漁港, it's a pier that also have small shops selling local produce! very nice seafood crackers hehe

♡ lunch at 御廚海鮮城 , got some fresh sashimi and fish soup (you can choose the type of fish you want and they'll cook it according to the style you like! one fish can be made into 2-3 dishes

♡ trip to Zhang Mei Ama’s Farm to see the capybaras! there's feeding activities, very suitable for kids (pic 7)

♡ check in to our Yilan accoms

♡ sukiyaki dinner in the hotel! 三燔礁溪

♡ our room had a built-in hot spring bath tub so we spent the night soaking and unwinding 😮‍💨

Day 5: Yilan > Taipei

♡ hotel breakfast!

♡ we reached Taipei around noon and went to have lunch at Wang's Broth (pic 9), really melt-in-your-mouth pork belly 🤤 definitely have to try! Don't be deterred by the long queues, it actually moves pretty quickly!

♡ dropped our luggage off at the Taipei accoms

♡ drove to Yongkang street area to shop~ Many stores lining the streets, from street food, restaurants, clothing, souvenirs, you can find many things here!

LAI HAO is a pretty cute store to shop for souvenirs, they have food and lil trinkets to bring back home

♡ we skipped a full dinner meal so that we could eat more at Shilin! I think it still is the biggest night market in Taiwan and has so many different food stalls. We had the usual oyster meesua, popular grilled king oyster mushrooms, watermelon juice and stinky tofu (introduced my bf to this and he approved 😋)

♡ went back to shop around Ximending because our accoms is nearby! They have a super big Popmart store for anyone interested, it's hard to miss because it's right at the intersection and there are huge LED screens plastered over the walls 😆

Day 6: Taipei > SG

♡ for breakfast, we went to Addiction Aquatic Development ! At the entrance we were greeted by large fish tanks, more for locals to buy the freshest catch of the day~ then we reach the fresh food section, they have sashimi and cooked food! we got a tray of fresh sashimi, soba, grilled fish of choice, sea grapes, oysters (pic 10), super good and very affordable! Definitely recommended for seafood lovers like us 🐟

♡ because we love the Yongkang district so much, we went back to get some more scallion oil pancakes (pic 8, Tian Jin Onion Pancake , there's usually a long queue but we were lucky we got it within 5 mins at a good time). Got some souvenirs before heading back!

♡ had some dessert at BeyondMilk nearby

♡ headed to the airport at 5pm

♡ realised the airport had wang's broth at one of the food courts so we got that before we boarded the flight back to Singapore

and that's the end of our 6D5N Taiwan trip! Will introduce our accoms and expenses in another post 💛

#travel #recommendations #Taiwan #itinerary #travelrecommendation #food #foodrecommendations #MyLemon8Diary