Insight Guides: Taiwan

How To Use This E-Book

Getting around the e-book

This Insight Guide e-book is designed to give you inspiration for your visit to Taiwan, as well as comprehensive planning advice to make sure you have the best travel experience. The guide begins with our selection of Top Attractions, as well as our Editors Choice categories of activies and experiences. Detailed features on history, people and culture paint a vivid portrait of contemporary life in Taiwan. The extensive Places chapters give a complete guide to all the sights and areas worth visiting. The Travel Tips provide full information on getting around, hotels, activities from to culture to shopping to sport, plus a wealth of practical information to help you plan your trip.

In the Table of Contents and throughout this e-book you will see hyperlinked references. Just tap a hyperlink once to skip to the section you would like to read. Practical information and listings are also hyperlinked, so as long as you have an external connection to the internet, you can tap a link to go directly to the website for more information.

Maps

All key attractions and sights in Taiwan are numbered and cross-referenced to high-quality maps. Wherever you see the reference [map] just tap this to go straight to the related map. You can also double-tap any map for a zoom view.

Images

Youll find hundreds of beautiful high-resolution images that capture the essence of Taiwan. Simply double-tap on an image to see it full-screen.

About Insight Guides

Insight Guides have more than 40 years experience of publishing high-quality, visual travel guides. We produce 400 full-colour titles, in both print and digital form, covering more than 200 destinations across the globe, in a variety of formats to meet your different needs.

Insight Guides are written by local authors who use their on-the-ground experience to provide the very latest information; their local expertise is evident in the extensive historical and cultural background features. All the reviews in Insight Guides are independent; we strive to maintain an impartial view. Our reviews are carefully selected to guide to you the best places to stay and eat, so you can be confident that when we say a restaurant or hotel is special, we really mean it.

Like all Insight Guides , this e-book contains hundreds of beautiful photographs to inspire and inform your travel. We commission most of our own photography, and we strive to capture the essence of a destination using original images that you wont find anywhere else.

2013 Apa Publications (UK) Ltd

Rush hour on bustling Taipeis Metro.

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Taiwans Top 10 Attractions

From dramatic mountain landscapes to white-sand beaches, and from some of the worlds best food to its finest collection of classical Chinese architecture, here is a shortlist of Taiwans most alluring attractions.

Top Attraction 1

Chiang Kai-shek Memorial . Built in memory of the generalissimo who long ruled over Taiwan, this is a grand architectural masterpiece built on an imperial scale that rivals Beijings Forbidden Palace for magnificence. For more information, .

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 2

Taipei 101 . Soaring 101 stories and for a time the worlds highest building, this is a wonder of engineering that offers tremendous views from its observation deck near the top. For more information, .

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 3

National Palace Museum . Home to the worlds greatest repository of Chinese art, collected over the course of a thousand years by Chinas emperors, with approximately 700,000 individual works, each priceless. For more information, .

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 4

Taroko Gorge . A deep, breathtaking 19km (12-mile) -long chasm of lofty, marble-laced cliffs and a cascading river strewn with massive boulders, traversed by a slow highway at the bottom literally chiseled from sheer rock. For more information, .

iStockphoto

Top Attraction 5

Kending National Park . At Taiwans tropical south tip, this top tourist destination with an emphasis on conservation is a natural playground of upraised coral, exotic flora and fauna, sandy beaches, and blue-water recreation. For more information, .

Dreamstime

Top Attraction 6

Matsu Islands . The remote Matsu Islands in Taiwans straits, within sight of China, are a living museum of military and traditional East Fujian history. For more information, .

Dreamstime

Top Attraction 7

Food . The countrys history and location has made it a crossroads of humanity and a grand gourmet bazaar. The best initiation to Taiwans fantastic traditional snack culture is Taipeis incredibly diversified Shilin Night Market. For more information, .

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 8

Longshan Temple . While in recent times China was busily destroying its cultural heritage, Taiwans was being preserved and celebrated. Taipeis Longshan Temple is a place of beautiful art and ornate ritual. For more information, .

Chris Stowers/Apa Publications

Top Attraction 9