Full travel guide to Central Taiwan

Central Taiwan boasts some of the country’s most spectacular mountain scenery, including the jagged, cloud-piercing peaks of Shei-Pa National Park, along with the dynamic Taichung, which has some particularly good museums, not to mention one of Taiwan’s largest and most famous night markets. Head to the coast for delicious shellfish and jaw-dropping sunsets, or skip inland to the beautiful Sun Moon Lake, the largest lake in Taiwan, for a dash of peace and quiet.

Sun Moon Lake

Sun Moon Lake is a large, picture-perfect lake surrounded by mountains. It is a wonderfully peaceful place of gorgeous sunrises, historic temples and rich traditional culture, where lakeside hiking and cycling trails meander along wooden boardwalks and fireflies flicker after dark.
The lake’s surroundings are home to the Indigenous Thao people, whose well-preserved traditional culture includes the so-called ‘Pestle Song’ – a form of singing and dancing that grew from the traditional method of pounding millet with a large wooden pestle and the sounds that this would make. You can see Thao traditional cultural performances at the Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village, as well as at Zhulu Market and Ita Thao Pier. Zhulu Market is also a good place to try local Thao cuisine, including delicious steamed grass carp. The Bunun people also live in the Sun Moon Lake area and are known for their complex polyphonic singing and traditional method of cooking meat on a hot stone.

There’s plenty to do here. Take an electric boat tour on the lake, ride the cable car for enhanced views, follow a hiking path or explore on two wheels by heading off on one of the many cycle trails, such as the Shuishang bikeway or the ‘Green Tunnel’, which is overhung with old camphor trees. You can also join a firefly-watching tour – Taiwan has one of the highest densities of firefly species anywhere in the world, and Sun Moon Lake is a particularly good place to see them between April and May.
Temples around the lake include Xuanzang Temple, which houses relics of the 7th century Buddhist monk and scholar Xuanzang, whose epic journey to India resulted in him bringing back several hundred Buddhist scriptures, many of which he later translated.
Also well worth taking to is the cycle route that wraps round the entirety of Sun Moon Lake and is considered one of the most scenic in the country. One of its most memorable sections is the 400m-long Shuishang Bikeway that takes you right over the lake's millpond-calm waters.

Taichung-Changhua

Taichung, Taiwan’s second largest city in terms of population, is the main gateway to central Taiwan, and it’s also a hugely rewarding place to visit in itself.
The National Taiwan Museum of Fine Arts in Taichung houses the world’s largest collection of contemporary Taiwanese art and includes an outdoor sculpture park. Taichung is also home to another of the country’s top museums: the National Museum of Natural Science. This huge complex has over 30 permanent exhibition spaces, and its modern interactive displays cover everything from astronomy and geology to palaeontology and tropical plants. Elsewhere, the 921 Earthquake Museum focuses on the major earthquake that hit Nantou County on 21 September 1999. This is both a sobering memorial and an enlightening educational centre. Meanwhile, on the southern edge of the city, the Wufeng Lin Family Mansion and Garden is the largest complex of traditional architecture in Taiwan.

Taichung has no shortage of night markets. The most famous of these is arguably Feng Chia night market, which is where you’ll want to head for fantastic street food. The city also boasts a slew of Michelin-starred restaurants. For a taste of the old way of life, head to Lukang where ancient traditions still rule supreme in a city that was once Taiwan's most populous until the early 1900s. Here, time-honoured Chinese traditions and Taiwanese culture collide along the city's twisting, red-tiled lanes that are flanked by historic shophouses selling handicrafts and other local wares. Lukang is also home to over 200 temples that are like a portal to Taiwan through the ages, dating back to the 18th-century Longshan Temple to the ultra-modern glass Husheng Temple.
Inland from Taichung and Changhua, you can visit the Guguan hot springs, which bubble out of the ground at around 48°C, while the lush Dasyueshan Forest Recreation Area is arguably the best place in the country to go birdwatching. Its emerald wilds harbour many of Taiwan's endemic birds like the Taiwan partridge, Swinhoe's pheasant and the Taiwan yuhina.

Feeling inspired?

For more information, head to the official Taiwan Tourism Bureau website.

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