A brief summary on the itinerary
Escape Plan to Taiwan 2016:
Total duration 9D9N
There is no time difference between Singapore and Taiwan.
Flight time is 5hrs 35mins on Scoot from Singapore to Taipei.
Return is almost 5hrs on Tigerair from Taipei to Singapore.
Flight from Singapore to Taipei at 1255am, arriving at 530am in Taipei. Return flight from Taipei to Singapore is at 155pm and touching down in Singapore at 650pm.
Day 1 Arrival in Taipei and some shopping
Day 2 Cat Village, Jiufen and Shifen
Day 3 To Hualien and Qi Xing Tan
Day 4 Tokoro Gorge
Day 5 Landslide on the way to Cingjing
Day 6 Arrival in Cingjing farm and Old England tea and Swiss Garden
Day 7 Cingjing farm visit and arrival in Flying cow ranch
Day 8 Flying cow ranch, Leofoo village and stay
Day 9 Home Sweet Home
This trip was planned to celebrate our boy’s 2nd birthday. Therefore, most of the destinations in the itinerary were more catered towards his interests ( but since he arrived, most of our trips were already like these).
Budget – affordable most of the journey until the visit to Leofoo village which was quite expensive.
Taiwan was a country known to be affordable if we want it to be. Taking public transport such as the trains and staying in Airbnb helps keep the costs down. However, travel in less developed areas required us to book a driver or self drive which was not too bad. The only big spendings we had was the Flying cow ranch farmstay in a private villa and safari hotel in Leofoo village which was expected to be expensive.
Complexity – High without car. Ours made easy due to car and Google maps on data plan.
The public transportation in Taipei city was easy to use and therefore getting around was straightforward. Out of the main city and into the mountains and farms then a car is a must or private car is a must as public transportation would require quite a bit of planning and a lot time. Road signs would require a little to get used to but it’s not too difficult if you know Chinese. When going through the mountains, we learnt to read road blockages due to landslide. Knowing where to get the most updated news is essential as most of the mountainous roads are single lane and only one way there and planning ahead helps to avoid a long detour. Sometimes there are no data signals on the mountainous area but it is not difficult since there is only one road to navigate.