Su Huai is a licensed dive instructor and lauded underwater photographer based on Taiwan’s tourist-hot Xiao Liuqiu Island, he runs a popular eco-focused dive-excursion enterprise, an eco-themed bookstore, and an ever-expanding sea turtle census.
Small, tranquil, and attractive Yuguang Island lies directly off the coast on the south side of Tainan City’s Anping Harbor. New purpose-built inn-style homestays, a new museum, and new on-land/on-water fun activities have brought the island compelling allure.
Local young folk in Tainan revel in giving new life, personality, and mission to the humbler old architectural jewels they’ve grown up with, creating a treasure map of small eateries, tea rooms, cafés, boutique hotels, and other cultural-creative enterprises for travelers to culture-spelunk.
Tainan City, born four centuries ago, is Taiwan’s most illustrious repository of important heritage sites. Here is a quartet of attractions that have been born within the past two decades.
In this article we rollick about the coastal, flatlands, foothills, and urban-core regions for quick-dips at some of the best tourist-friendly natural treasures.
Chiayi City’s younger generation is busy taking old residences and shops, renovating them, and launching attractive cultural-creative adventures. In this article we visit two spots to overnight that enjoy top online public-polling results – one hostel, one homestay. Both are in the character-deep old quarter before Chiayi Railway Station and its yards. We also provide a section on recommended historical/cultural sites within walking distance.
The magnificent Alishan National Scenic Area, known for iconic Taiwan sunrises, narrow-gauge alpine railway, and “seas of clouds,” is divided into three main corridors, north, central, and south. The northern corridor is perhaps the quietest of the three, a region of steep-slope tea plantations, bamboo forest, scenic heritage trails, soaring waterfalls, indigenous-culture experiences, and much beyond.
Constructed over a century ago, the narrow-gauge Alishan Forest Railway branch line, today plied by tourist trains, is one of just three steep-gradient alpine railways on the globe. The others are also located in exotic locations off the beaten tracks: a line in India that runs through the Darjeeling tea-plantation region and one in Chile-Argentina that traverses the high Andes.
Chiayi is an old city sitting in the middle of the southwest plains with a pleasingly relaxed pace. It is filled with nuggets awaiting the history spelunker, more and more of its architectural nuggets now turned into places of trendy cultural-creative enterprise, joining the legion of friendly old-time shops and eateries.
Freediving is a sport that has become quite popular in Taiwan in recent years. Xiao Liuqiu Island is one of the best locations to learn the sport. And Ray Ko is one of the instructors based there.
