Taiwan is the East Asia trip a lot of travelers should be taking right now, and the reason is simple: it gives you most of what people love about Japan and Korea, the food, the safety, the density of things to do, the ease of getting around, without the crowds and the sticker shock that have crept into both. Japan, in particular, is having a moment so big it’s straining at the seams, with over-tourism at Kyoto’s temples and a weak yen pulling record numbers through. Taiwan sits right next door, offering a quieter, cheaper, and in some ways richer version of the same appeal.
I’m not here to talk you out of Japan or Korea. Both are extraordinary. But if you’re choosing between them and you want my honest read, Taiwan deserves to be in the conversation, and almost nobody puts it there.
What does Taiwan have that Japan and Korea have too?
The things that make Japan and Korea feel effortless, Taiwan mostly matches. It’s exceptionally safe, clean, and easy to navigate as a solo traveler or a first-timer in Asia. Public transit is excellent, especially Taipei’s MRT, which is as clean and intuitive as Tokyo’s without the crush. The high-speed rail runs the length of the West Coast, so you can be in a different city in under two hours. English signage is common enough to get by, and people are, in my experience, remarkably warm to visitors who seem genuinely curious.
And the food. Taiwan’s food culture is a serious rival to anywhere in the region. The night markets (Raohe and Ningxia in Taipei are the classics) serve some of the best street eating on earth, and a full, gluttonous dinner of a dozen small things costs a handful of dollars. This is where Taiwan quietly wins.
Why is Taiwan cheaper than Japan or Korea?
Partly currency, partly a tourism economy that hasn’t yet priced itself for the global crowds. A bowl of beef noodle soup that would cost you noticeably more in Tokyo or Seoul runs a few US dollars in Taipei. Mid-range hotels are gentler on the wallet. Even accounting for the flight, which is a touch longer from the US than to Japan, your daily spend once you land tends to stretch further.
Japan’s weak yen has made it a genuine bargain lately, so it’s not that Japan is expensive in absolute terms. It’s that Japan is now so popular that the trade-off is crowds, booked-out restaurants, and reservation systems for things that used to be walk-ins. Taiwan gives you the low cost without the queue.
What can you do in Taiwan that you can’t easily do elsewhere?
Taroko Gorge is the headline, a marble canyon of jade rivers and cliff-hugging trails that has no real equivalent in Japan or Korea. (Check current access before you go, since earthquake damage has periodically closed sections of the gorge, and you’ll want the latest on which trails are open.) Beyond it, you can soak in hot springs at Beitou within Taipei’s city limits, ride the gondola up to the tea plantations of Maokong, hike the misty old streets of Jiufen, which inspired the bathhouse in Spirited Away, and take the train down the east coast past the Pacific with the mountains at your back.
Then there’s the layered culture. Taiwan carries Indigenous, Hokkien, Hakka, Japanese-colonial, and mainland Chinese influences all at once, and you taste and see that mix everywhere. It rewards the kind of traveler who wants to understand a place, not just photograph it.
How long do you need, and what should you skip?
Ten days is a sweet spot. A sensible shape: four days in Taipei, a day trip or two to Jiufen and the northeast coast, a couple of days at Taroko and Hualien on the east coast, then Tainan in the south for the old capital’s temples and its own celebrated food scene, all connected by high-speed rail. Skip trying to circle the entire island in a week, since the east coast rail is slower, and you’ll spend the trip in motion. Skip the pressure to see Sun Moon Lake if your time is tight; it’s lovely, but it eats a full day of transit for many itineraries.
For all that rail and night-market walking, a light packable daypack is the one thing I’d tell you not to leave home without. You’ll want your hands free for food and your camera, and a bag that folds away when you don’t need it keeps you moving.
The honest bottom line
If you’ve already been to Japan and Korea, Taiwan is the obvious and overdue next chapter. If you haven’t, and you’re weighing them, Taiwan gives you a softer landing into Asia at a lower cost and without fighting the crowds that now define a Kyoto morning. The catch is that fewer travelers know it, so you’ll do a little more of your own homework and find a little less English-language hand-holding. To me, that’s a feature. It’s still a place you get to discover.
Trying to decide between Taiwan, Japan, and Korea for your next trip? Get in touch, and I’ll help you match the destination to the kind of trip you actually want.
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