Covid changed a lot about how we travel domestically in Taiwan (It was really inconvenient) Thank you for tolerating everything and being willing to share with us about all your feeling and suggestions :D
This has been a problem only after Covid when people in Taiwan couldn't travel outside of Taiwan easily, before Covid spontaneous trips are actually doable since a huge portion of people would travel abroad to nearby countries so domestic travels weren't as crowded compared to now. Let's just hope international travels would resume in the near future so people wouldn't need fight for such limited domestic travel resources.
That's a very good point, that something we learned by making this video is how competitive it has become to travel throughout Taiwan. We want to see more of this country and be able to afford to do so. Thank you for watching :-)
I think it would be easier to travel for a short time than to actually live here and travel. Most tourists plan far in advance and focus travel on stressing that cater to larger numbers of visitors. ~JB
Yea traffic can be terrible during the national holidays in TW. There’s actually flight options in Taiwan, I used to fly from Taipei (Songshan airport) to Taitung airport, it costed only NT$ 1,350 with 40min flight one-way. Besides Taipei, there’s also airports in Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung you can consider.
I'm so sorry but we have never ever said Taiwan sucks. Taiwan is an amazing country with so much to offer and learn from. This video is is talking about yet another opportunity to learn to redefine travel expectations in a new country. I hope you get a chance to catch it.
Hi . I love your content. I am looking to move to Taiwan with my wife and child who is turning 2 yrz old, I just wanted to know how we would go about getting a baby sitter and also which city is friendly for an international school
Hello!! Since Justin and I don't have little ones together, my information may be a bit limited. I believe there are several expat groups that you can join on Facebook where you could post your questions and receive great suggestions and feedback. The same goes for finding a great international school - although I did find this website that might help for a starting point. www.international-schools-database.com/in/taipei Sorry we couldn't be of any additional help. Best of luck in your new journey!!
Eh..... having spent two weeks in Taiwan back in 2017, I feel a lot of your issues were due to poor planning on your part. You can't just go somewhere on a whim. Not every country operates that way. But to be fair, going for a 2 week vacation is different then working there and doing weekend trips. I personally didn't find it as bad as you describe, though we did end up having to skip a few places, because they were either too difficult to get to or we ran out of time. But my only real complaint is the High Speed Rail. It's designed more for business travelers, so it doesn't really stop in the tourist centers, except in Taipei and Kaohsiung. So we ended up having to skip Lukang and Tainan. I see if I had two extra weeks we would've seen it all. We still saw more on our own than we have elsewhere, and it was amazing how many day trips we were able to take from Taipei. But I see now that you need to do the north and south of the island separately, because although the public transit is really good, it's not perfect. Personally, I would limit your sight seeing to places you can get to and back within a day, and planning ahead. I would also highly recommend getting the Taipei Transit Card. And I personally didn't find Taiwan that expensive at all.
Thanks for the insights. Can we have different feelings about this if we were merely vacationing here but living here and trying to compete with every other person who wants to take a weekend trip it is becoming far more frustrating than it has been fun. Well, we still have fun but the logistical aspect of a trip sometimes makes us reconsider taking a trip at all. Thanks for watching and sharing.
It’s true that traveling during major holidays here in taiwan is quite horrific. Chinese New Year particularly because it is the time when people go back to their hometown, so all the trains will be booked out way before. Driving is not any better because the express ways will be jammed a couple days before the new years eve. I think its probably best to travel on the scooter and take the less traveled routes. However, its my favorite time of the year in taipei city because it is quiet for a couple of days. There are a lot fewer cars on the street. Its great for me, but definitely sucks for people who want to travel.
It was amazing how quiet Hanoi would get during Tet (lunar New Year's). It was quite a peaceful time for us as well. My first time experiencing lunar New Year was over 20 years ago in Hong Kong. There was a cafe that sat above the railroad station and they were open 24/7 because trains were leaving out of their non-stop and getting a table by a window or on the balcony and watching hundreds of thousands of people gather board and leave was an impressive sight!
I absolutely agreed with what you two said, including the word “shit”, lol I also want to add that Taiwan is very very polluted now, but luckily, wearing mask is still mandate
Booking TRA tickets for traditional holidays has always been an issue. It's like getting concert tickets to a mega pop artist--sold out in minutes. And the fact that because of the pandemic when traveling overseas for leisure has become very difficult or too costly, people in Taiwan just travel around the country more. You are competing with the whole nation for transportation and hotel rooms. People do have to plan ahead especially if it's going to be a long weekend that coincides with a traditional holiday like Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Tomb Sweeping Day/spring vacation ... etc and of course the lunar new year holidays. I do agree that outside of big cities like Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung, public transportation is not as useful, if you don't drive yourself. Someone commented on domestic flights, AFAIK, except Taipei Songshan-Taitung, intra-island flights are no more, since the HSR took over most of the business along the west coast corridor. You cannot take the HSR to Penghu, Kinmen or Matsu Islands, so. Unless you want to go by boat. Another point I want to make is, I don't think it's fair comparing the cost between Taiwan and Vietnam considering the average income. But there are definitely places that Taiwan can and should improve. ... By the way, there are saunas in Taiwan (not sure if they are still open during the pandemic) that you can stay overnight, but it is often thought that people go there for the happy ending and these business are seen and regulated as if it's a red-light district kind of place. Just a very different culture compared to say South Korea.
We really appreciate your reply. This is how we learn. We know that getting around the country better depends on us adapting and adopting the practices of the locals. We're just not there yet. We only brought up Vietnam and S. Korea because for us it was much easier and less of a financial risk if we traveled without planning as much as you must do in Taiwan. I think it's fair for our experience as we are talking about travel. It's not an overall comparison between the countries. Someone also brought up the point that the mountains constrain travel to two main corridors on the island and that does play a factor in how the population of TW is able to move about the country. We're so happy to be in TW and hope we can see more of it, just with less hassle. Thanks for watching and commenting. These interactions are what keep us making videos.
@@Justin_Leah Vietnam is a great place to travel indeed. The option of hopping on a Grab Bike scooter ride making things even more accessible and convenient in places like HCMC. ... Back to Taiwan, since the outbreak last May, more 2 to 3-star hotels have converted themselves to quarantine hotels, possibly making it a little bit harder for regular travelers to book cheaper rooms around Taiwan. But I guess AirBnB options are still there. ... 228 Memorial Day, a long weekend, is next week. Or the Spring vacation/Tomb Sweeping Day is coming in April. You might want to start planning if you want to go somewhere. Travel safely and have fun!
Me and my girlfriend visited taiwan in 2018 and traveled the whole country visited many cities and went up lots of mountains and went too lots of beaches. We were both 19 at the time and we found it very easy to travel around. You just need to learn a bit of chinese and yiy can travel around very easily
@@Justin_Leah sounds like a plan. Tbf you're living your best life and getting out there and doing what other people only talk about. Very enviable. Good luck to you.
Hello, I'm trying to enter Taiwan to teach English in September but its difficult getting clear information on how to enter the country. Most jobs I apply to ask me to contact them once I'm in the country. But I heard that you cannot enter Taiwan currently on a tourist visa. I emailed the woman "Sunday" that you recommended in a previous video but she hasn't responded in a week. Is there anyway you can help me with this information please?
It's imperative you plan ahead especially on the holidays. And also helps if you're a destination is flexible. As we said we had no intention of going to Green Island but it was one of the few places that fit into our budget. We were just lucky we could find transportation tickets to get us to our destination. Thank you for well, wishes I'm on the mend.
Yes you need a little planning to make trips Even though Taiwan is fairly small A weekend trip is best just hanging around north Taiwan if you live in north Taiwan and south Taiwan if you live in south Taiwan To go to the north when you are south and vice versus May mean possibly a late high speed rail in a Friday night or an early morning flight Saturday morning and a flight back Sunday night or high speed train back Sunday evening And possibly renting a car while you are in the wrong half so to speak Usually I only bothered to go to the wrong half only if there were three days to play Because just because you are in kaohsiung ir Taipei you are not yet at the place you wanted to go necessarily Oluanpi is still far. Etc
We're just not used to having to plan so far ahead. Even planning ahead requires completing the logistic puzzle however. I still have to find accommodation within our budget secure those accommodations and then make sure we have viable and transportation to our destination. Don't get me wrong, we're happy to be here it's just we've been homebound more than we expected to be.
We don't know! That's what we're trying to figure out. Either they are much more willing to pay exorbitant expenses or they have pre-purchased or they have a secret that we must tap into! We're not giving up! We will figure this out! We're too happy here otherwise :-) Thanks for watching!
You forget having two main transportation tools except for public transportation tools such as bus, train, high speed train, plane and MRT: cars and motorcycles.
Domestic travel has exploded since the pandemic because Taiwanese can't go abroad. Travelling the island during weekends or holidays is highly unrecommended during this time. What I do is take a day or two before holiday begins, or begin the trip at the end of holiday. That way, you get to enjoy more freedom and hotels are much cheaper.
Since we work 9 to 5:00 Monday through Friday we don't have the luxury of taking off before the holiday begins. But we did notice that traveling to Green Island in the offseason there was certainly a few people with whom we had to share space. So do you think as international travel opens up that domestic travel will become less hectic? There's so much of Taiwan we want to see but the competition's pretty hefty right now. Thanks for watching and of course thanks for commenting it's this interaction that keeps us making more and more videos.
I wouldn't come to, say, the US expecting that I'd be able to go any places on a whim by Greyhound, and then complaining about the price of Enterprise when I find out car rental is really the way to move around. I'd think when you go to a foreign country, some level of due diligence and an open mind are necessary. Otherwise, you might be better off staying at home.
Thanks for the comment. We've learned a lot by making this video. To clarify we live in Taiwan and we work in Taiwan. Compared to other countries in which we've lived and worked we find traveling to be more challenging than other countries we've lived in, thus the impetus to make such a video. We thought we made that point clear that we were comparing our experiences to other experiences and that we were conveying particular challenges that exist here that don't exist elsewhere. Perhaps we fell short of our objective.
i am korean who have lived in taiwan for 7 years. speaking of your tickets and hotel rooms, it is unlucky that you just picked wrong days. in most cases, taiwan public trasportation is half full or almost empty. taiwanes people do not prefer the public ones. scooter is more convenient for them and they have one. it is beautiful that taiwanese family members often get together when they have chances to meet unlike koreans. you traveled when they moved to their family.... 😀 even if all train seats are taken, you can still take the train but standing during the trip. jjim jil bang..... hmmm. nothing can beat it.... nothing better for travelers with less money. better luck next time.
Logistics make our heads hurt! we're currently only planning a couple of days ahead on our travels and fortunately it's pretty straightforward to find transport and accommodation last minute in Europe. Must be very frustrating trying to get everything to align when things get sold out so easily. Glad you managed to get to Green Island :)
There's so much we want to do here, so many places to go and we just haven't had the opportunity. Even if things don't sell out the only accommodations and ticket options left are outside of our budget. I can't imagine how expensive it is to travel in Europe ~JB
@@Justin_Leah we're looking forward to seeing what other parts of Taiwan you visit :D Europe hasn't been too ridiciously expensive so far, although Central America and Asia are definitely a lot cheaper!
Were you in the states long enough to make a comparison between the expense of the States versus europe? I'm quite interested to see if there's a big discrepancy or if they are on par with each other
@@Justin_Leah We were in the US for 2 months, travelling all the way up the east coast from Miami to New York. The US is much more expensive. We paid about 25% more for accommodation and got much less for that money. Trains also cost a lot more in the US and the trains generally drop you in the middle of nowhere. Much easier travelling through Europe. And hopefully once we get to eastern Europe it will be even cheaper.
Ok, Taiwan is not paradise. Surprised? LOL Isn't public transportation on higher demand during weekends and holidays in other countries? Or people don't travel as much in other countries? Taiwanese spontaneous trip means not booking anything. We drive or ride motorcycles. Solve accommodation problems while there or sleep in the car. Also, high speed rails might be hard to get but slower trains are usually not as packed.
Everything you're describing does not sound like fun to us. I don't want to sleep in a car! And we can't afford a car. With limited time off fuxing trains eat up too much of our travel time plus you're not always guaranteed a seat. And trans and accommodations sell out on regular weekends too. It's not just holidays that things are busy. We were surprised we were able to take a trip at all last minute during the lunar New Year. We're happy to live in Taiwan. The quality of life here is great. We just think that traveling is far more challenging than it needs to be. There is too much competition for the resources. Thanks for watching and thanks for commenting. Some other comments on here have open our eyes to understanding why things are so difficult. More people are traveling domestically than usual because international travel has been limited.
Did you watch the entire video? I think we said that we are learning. There were many helpful comments to this video that helped us learn about why it is so difficult to travel in Taiwan. I'm not sure you understood the video. Maybe if you watch it again it will help. We absolutely love Taiwan. We are happy to be here. But it is not easy to travel when there's so much competition for the resources.
We knew it was a long shot to find anything open for us. However, even weekend trips are challenging to make without planning months in advance. We're just not used to traveling like that. We'll figure it out, hopefully, sooner than later.
We love public transportation here in fact we made a video about how much we love the high-speed rail. However, that does not change the fact that public transportation sells out easily and quickly around holidays which happens to be the time most folks travel
Do you enjoy traveling with a tour group? We've never found it to be that pleasant of an experience. But we do like to try new things. Maybe we should consider it!
Certainly they are different countries but we've had travel experiences in both. We were not comparing the countries overall but talking about the travel and how difficult the travel is in Taiwan. Thanks the watching.
Do you want your racism expressed overtly or covertly? Because it isn't really anywhere that black skin doesn't go on notice and uncommented upon. That being said, Taiwan does have little more innocence to its ignorance on the melanated people of the world. Vietnam was definitely more blatant about its ignorance.
@@Justin_Leah Why do you think I said Least racist? And it's not a racist question this question is for HER FATHER, I can't stop everything but I can at least choose the options where I'm least likely to have a confrontation or worse a fight because someone had a problem with my wife over something as stupid as skin color even though her father is happy that I'm taking her abroad. I'm not sure if I should say thank you now or not, but I appreciate the info, my father in law now thinks you're a retarded sjw btw for saying his question is racist.
I think you posted something and then deleted it. I dictated the previous message rather than typing it, so perhaps there are some errors. What I was trying to say is that there is racism in all countries. How those countries show their racism or rather express their racism can be blatantly or latently, as in overtly versus covertly. No one was suggesting that your question was racist. There are far too many melanated folks having a grand life abroad. You should certainly look into it. But it helps to understand that the type of racism one might experience in a predominantly white society differs from the type of experience one might have in the predominantly non-wise society. That is, Asian racism is different than American white racism or european white racism. There is a little less hatred and disgust in Asian racism. Quite often, the racism extends from ignorance rather than hatred. I hope this clarifies something for you and I will make a better effort in issuing a reply. Mostly, I'll check for any misunderstanding that could come across through dictating a message rather than writing it.
@@Justin_Leah Wow sorry man, Thank you. Yeah it definitely looked wrong the way your comment was written when it says "do you want your" making it sound like the racism is now mine, I personally would've said "do you want the racism". Now I get where you're coming from, I apologize, communicating through writing on the internet clearly can be rough, that's why I like calling people not txting.
I have no idea where ‘your problem’ comes from - no idea at all. And it hilarious that you compared travel cost between Vietnam & Taiwan, umm maybe bcos Vietnam pays very, very low wage?! And sorry (not really) if Taiwan’s CCPvirus health policy put a damper on your travel
Wow! Clearly we did that articulate ourselves well enough. The purpose of comparing different countries to one another is to share what our experience has been. It's a demonstration of how we have travel than other countries and comparing the ease versus the challenges between those countries. And, we made more money and worked for fewer hours in Vietnam. So we had more disposable income than what we do in Taiwan. With less disposable income and a higher cost of living combined with a much higher cost of travel we feel is though there is substantial reason to add commentary on the quality and the conditions of travel here in Taiwan. It's unfortunate these points did not come through in our presentation. We will try to do a better job next time. We learned a lot from the comments in video. Some people made some excellent points about why there are these types of challenges to travel in Taiwan. Mostly, it's the fact that so many people work banking hours and only have the weekend off to travel and the destinations and the means to get to those destinations become saturated. Thank you for watching. Thank you for commenting.
That was one example of many experiences. It was a story to demonstrate all of our experiences not just one experience. I'm sorry that you think we were whining we were sharing our experience. Again, I think you are not being accurate in your evaluation.
有個問題是你必須意識到的!台灣土地只有36000平方公里,但是有75%是高山,僅剩下的25%則是可運用的區域.而這片小區域住了2300萬人.
因此在台灣旅遊你必須避開所有的節假日,便可以解決影片中述說的大部分困擾!享受較高品質的休閒生活或是旅行.
很好的一點。我們想知道台灣人是否提前計劃了所有的旅行，或者他們是否會在最後一刻採取？謝謝
@@Justin_Leah 沒錯. 通常都是之前就計畫好的, 尤其是連續假期. 時間上可能會提前在數月前甚至半年前就開始計畫並預定所需!
雖不盡然都是如此,但至少大部分人在天數超出三天以上的行程會是事先就安排好的.畢竟資源有限~
Covid changed a lot about how we travel domestically in Taiwan (It was really inconvenient)
Thank you for tolerating everything and being willing to share with us about all your feeling and suggestions :D
We learned a lot by making this video. Thank you for contributing to the conversation.
This has been a problem only after Covid when people in Taiwan couldn't travel outside of Taiwan easily, before Covid spontaneous trips are actually doable since a huge portion of people would travel abroad to nearby countries so domestic travels weren't as crowded compared to now. Let's just hope international travels would resume in the near future so people wouldn't need fight for such limited domestic travel resources.
That's a very good point, that something we learned by making this video is how competitive it has become to travel throughout Taiwan. We want to see more of this country and be able to afford to do so. Thank you for watching :-)
This video is very informative. I never thought to live in Taiwan but I do want to visit. Thanks for the video.
I think it would be easier to travel for a short time than to actually live here and travel.
Most tourists plan far in advance and focus travel on stressing that cater to larger numbers of visitors. ~JB
Yea traffic can be terrible during the national holidays in TW. There’s actually flight options in Taiwan, I used to fly from Taipei (Songshan airport) to Taitung airport, it costed only NT$ 1,350 with 40min flight one-way. Besides Taipei, there’s also airports in Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung you can consider.
That's a thought! We've yet to fly domestically here. Listen I have to consider that on the next trip we take.
I was having thoughts Taiwan was nice place and currency great.
Between if Taiwan really sucks , then why you guys there at first place ?
I'm so sorry but we have never ever said Taiwan sucks. Taiwan is an amazing country with so much to offer and learn from. This video is is talking about yet another opportunity to learn to redefine travel expectations in a new country. I hope you get a chance to catch it.
別來台灣
Hi . I love your content. I am looking to move to Taiwan with my wife and child who is turning 2 yrz old, I just wanted to know how we would go about getting a baby sitter and also which city is friendly for an international school
Hello!! Since Justin and I don't have little ones together, my information may be a bit limited. I believe there are several expat groups that you can join on Facebook where you could post your questions and receive great suggestions and feedback. The same goes for finding a great international school - although I did find this website that might help for a starting point. www.international-schools-database.com/in/taipei Sorry we couldn't be of any additional help. Best of luck in your new journey!!
Eh..... having spent two weeks in Taiwan back in 2017, I feel a lot of your issues were due to poor planning on your part. You can't just go somewhere on a whim. Not every country operates that way. But to be fair, going for a 2 week vacation is different then working there and doing weekend trips.
I personally didn't find it as bad as you describe, though we did end up having to skip a few places, because they were either too difficult to get to or we ran out of time. But my only real complaint is the High Speed Rail. It's designed more for business travelers, so it doesn't really stop in the tourist centers, except in Taipei and Kaohsiung. So we ended up having to skip Lukang and Tainan. I see if I had two extra weeks we would've seen it all. We still saw more on our own than we have elsewhere, and it was amazing how many day trips we were able to take from Taipei. But I see now that you need to do the north and south of the island separately, because although the public transit is really good, it's not perfect. Personally, I would limit your sight seeing to places you can get to and back within a day, and planning ahead. I would also highly recommend getting the Taipei Transit Card. And I personally didn't find Taiwan that expensive at all.
Thanks for the insights. Can we have different feelings about this if we were merely vacationing here but living here and trying to compete with every other person who wants to take a weekend trip it is becoming far more frustrating than it has been fun. Well, we still have fun but the logistical aspect of a trip sometimes makes us reconsider taking a trip at all. Thanks for watching and sharing.
It’s true that traveling during major holidays here in taiwan is quite horrific. Chinese New Year particularly because it is the time when people go back to their hometown, so all the trains will be booked out way before. Driving is not any better because the express ways will be jammed a couple days before the new years eve. I think its probably best to travel on the scooter and take the less traveled routes. However, its my favorite time of the year in taipei city because it is quiet for a couple of days. There are a lot fewer cars on the street. Its great for me, but definitely sucks for people who want to travel.
It was amazing how quiet Hanoi would get during Tet (lunar New Year's). It was quite a peaceful time for us as well. My first time experiencing lunar New Year was over 20 years ago in Hong Kong. There was a cafe that sat above the railroad station and they were open 24/7 because trains were leaving out of their non-stop and getting a table by a window or on the balcony and watching hundreds of thousands of people gather board and leave was an impressive sight!
I absolutely agreed with what you two said, including the word “shit”, lol I also want to add that Taiwan is very very polluted now, but luckily, wearing mask is still mandate
We are hoping to find more bidget friendly ways to travel this year. If we do we'll make some videos about it.
Booking TRA tickets for traditional holidays has always been an issue. It's like getting concert tickets to a mega pop artist--sold out in minutes. And the fact that because of the pandemic when traveling overseas for leisure has become very difficult or too costly, people in Taiwan just travel around the country more. You are competing with the whole nation for transportation and hotel rooms. People do have to plan ahead especially if it's going to be a long weekend that coincides with a traditional holiday like Mid-Autumn Festival, Dragon Boat Festival, Tomb Sweeping Day/spring vacation ... etc and of course the lunar new year holidays. I do agree that outside of big cities like Taipei, Taichung and Kaohsiung, public transportation is not as useful, if you don't drive yourself. Someone commented on domestic flights, AFAIK, except Taipei Songshan-Taitung, intra-island flights are no more, since the HSR took over most of the business along the west coast corridor. You cannot take the HSR to Penghu, Kinmen or Matsu Islands, so. Unless you want to go by boat. Another point I want to make is, I don't think it's fair comparing the cost between Taiwan and Vietnam considering the average income. But there are definitely places that Taiwan can and should improve. ... By the way, there are saunas in Taiwan (not sure if they are still open during the pandemic) that you can stay overnight, but it is often thought that people go there for the happy ending and these business are seen and regulated as if it's a red-light district kind of place. Just a very different culture compared to say South Korea.
We really appreciate your reply. This is how we learn. We know that getting around the country better depends on us adapting and adopting the practices of the locals. We're just not there yet. We only brought up Vietnam and S. Korea because for us it was much easier and less of a financial risk if we traveled without planning as much as you must do in Taiwan. I think it's fair for our experience as we are talking about travel. It's not an overall comparison between the countries. Someone also brought up the point that the mountains constrain travel to two main corridors on the island and that does play a factor in how the population of TW is able to move about the country. We're so happy to be in TW and hope we can see more of it, just with less hassle. Thanks for watching and commenting. These interactions are what keep us making videos.
@@Justin_Leah Vietnam is a great place to travel indeed. The option of hopping on a Grab Bike scooter ride making things even more accessible and convenient in places like HCMC. ... Back to Taiwan, since the outbreak last May, more 2 to 3-star hotels have converted themselves to quarantine hotels, possibly making it a little bit harder for regular travelers to book cheaper rooms around Taiwan. But I guess AirBnB options are still there. ... 228 Memorial Day, a long weekend, is next week. Or the Spring vacation/Tomb Sweeping Day is coming in April. You might want to start planning if you want to go somewhere. Travel safely and have fun!
Me and my girlfriend visited taiwan in 2018 and traveled the whole country visited many cities and went up lots of mountains and went too lots of beaches. We were both 19 at the time and we found it very easy to travel around. You just need to learn a bit of chinese and yiy can travel around very easily
We got some good tips from makin this video and we certainly want to find a better travel stratagy for sure. We're woking on it! Thanks for watching.
@@Justin_Leah sounds like a plan. Tbf you're living your best life and getting out there and doing what other people only talk about. Very enviable. Good luck to you.
We hope more people will join us. We just visited the states for a month and it seems a bit bleak to imagine returning to the U. S. for the long term.
Hello, I'm trying to enter Taiwan to teach English in September but its difficult getting clear information on how to enter the country. Most jobs I apply to ask me to contact them once I'm in the country. But I heard that you cannot enter Taiwan currently on a tourist visa. I emailed the woman "Sunday" that you recommended in a previous video but she hasn't responded in a week. Is there anyway you can help me with this information please?
I would first suggest that you reach out to Teach Taiwan...
www.teachtaiwan.com.tw/
Good to know. Will have to plan ahead. Hope you fully recover soon!
It's imperative you plan ahead especially on the holidays. And also helps if you're a destination is flexible. As we said we had no intention of going to Green Island but it was one of the few places that fit into our budget. We were just lucky we could find transportation tickets to get us to our destination. Thank you for well, wishes I'm on the mend.
@@Justin_Leah Glad you were able to overcome these hurdles and turn them into a great adventure! And very glad you're on the mend!
Thank you for the week wishes and thank you for watching. ~JB
Yes you need a little planning to make trips
Even though Taiwan is fairly small
A weekend trip is best just hanging around north Taiwan if you live in north Taiwan and south Taiwan if you live in south Taiwan
To go to the north when you are south and vice versus
May mean possibly a late high speed rail in a Friday night or an early morning flight Saturday morning and a flight back Sunday night or high speed train back Sunday evening
And possibly renting a car while you are in the wrong half so to speak
Usually I only bothered to go to the wrong half only if there were three days to play
Because just because you are in kaohsiung ir Taipei you are not yet at the place you wanted to go necessarily
Oluanpi is still far. Etc
We're just not used to having to plan so far ahead. Even planning ahead requires completing the logistic puzzle however. I still have to find accommodation within our budget secure those accommodations and then make sure we have viable and transportation to our destination. Don't get me wrong, we're happy to be here it's just we've been homebound more than we expected to be.
Wow. Really cumbersome to get from point A to B. How do locals manage to go on spontaneous trips? I am very curious.
We don't know! That's what we're trying to figure out. Either they are much more willing to pay exorbitant expenses or they have pre-purchased or they have a secret that we must tap into! We're not giving up! We will figure this out! We're too happy here otherwise :-)
Thanks for watching!
You forget having two main transportation tools except for public transportation tools such as bus, train, high speed train, plane and MRT: cars and motorcycles.
Most ride motorcycles.
When you only have the weekend to travel and it takes half a day to get to the other side of the island it really limits where you can go
@@Justin_Leah How long does it take to go from Seattle to Tacoma by public transportation? Including wait time.
Domestic travel has exploded since the pandemic because Taiwanese can't go abroad. Travelling the island during weekends or holidays is highly unrecommended during this time. What I do is take a day or two before holiday begins, or begin the trip at the end of holiday. That way, you get to enjoy more freedom and hotels are much cheaper.
Since we work 9 to 5:00 Monday through Friday we don't have the luxury of taking off before the holiday begins. But we did notice that traveling to Green Island in the offseason there was certainly a few people with whom we had to share space. So do you think as international travel opens up that domestic travel will become less hectic? There's so much of Taiwan we want to see but the competition's pretty hefty right now. Thanks for watching and of course thanks for commenting it's this interaction that keeps us making more and more videos.
I wouldn't come to, say, the US expecting that I'd be able to go any places on a whim by Greyhound, and then complaining about the price of Enterprise when I find out car rental is really the way to move around. I'd think when you go to a foreign country, some level of due diligence and an open mind are necessary. Otherwise, you might be better off staying at home.
Thanks for the comment. We've learned a lot by making this video. To clarify we live in Taiwan and we work in Taiwan. Compared to other countries in which we've lived and worked we find traveling to be more challenging than other countries we've lived in, thus the impetus to make such a video. We thought we made that point clear that we were comparing our experiences to other experiences and that we were conveying particular challenges that exist here that don't exist elsewhere. Perhaps we fell short of our objective.
i am korean who have lived in taiwan for 7 years.
speaking of your tickets and hotel rooms, it is unlucky that you just picked wrong days.
in most cases, taiwan public trasportation is half full or almost empty. taiwanes people do not prefer the public ones. scooter is more convenient for them and they have one.
it is beautiful that taiwanese family members often get together when they have chances to meet unlike koreans.
you traveled when they moved to their family.... 😀
even if all train seats are taken, you can still take the train but standing during the trip.
jjim jil bang..... hmmm. nothing can beat it.... nothing better for travelers with less money.
better luck next time.
It's our goal to find better ways to travel this year. We're optimistic :)
Logistics make our heads hurt! we're currently only planning a couple of days ahead on our travels and fortunately it's pretty straightforward to find transport and accommodation last minute in Europe. Must be very frustrating trying to get everything to align when things get sold out so easily. Glad you managed to get to Green Island :)
There's so much we want to do here, so many places to go and we just haven't had the opportunity. Even if things don't sell out the only accommodations and ticket options left are outside of our budget. I can't imagine how expensive it is to travel in Europe ~JB
@@Justin_Leah we're looking forward to seeing what other parts of Taiwan you visit :D Europe hasn't been too ridiciously expensive so far, although Central America and Asia are definitely a lot cheaper!
Were you in the states long enough to make a comparison between the expense of the States versus europe? I'm quite interested to see if there's a big discrepancy or if they are on par with each other
@@Justin_Leah We were in the US for 2 months, travelling all the way up the east coast from Miami to New York. The US is much more expensive. We paid about 25% more for accommodation and got much less for that money. Trains also cost a lot more in the US and the trains generally drop you in the middle of nowhere. Much easier travelling through Europe. And hopefully once we get to eastern Europe it will be even cheaper.
Ok, Taiwan is not paradise. Surprised? LOL Isn't public transportation on higher demand during weekends and holidays in other countries? Or people don't travel as much in other countries? Taiwanese spontaneous trip means not booking anything. We drive or ride motorcycles. Solve accommodation problems while there or sleep in the car. Also, high speed rails might be hard to get but slower trains are usually not as packed.
Everything you're describing does not sound like fun to us. I don't want to sleep in a car! And we can't afford a car. With limited time off fuxing trains eat up too much of our travel time plus you're not always guaranteed a seat. And trans and accommodations sell out on regular weekends too. It's not just holidays that things are busy. We were surprised we were able to take a trip at all last minute during the lunar New Year. We're happy to live in Taiwan. The quality of life here is great. We just think that traveling is far more challenging than it needs to be. There is too much competition for the resources. Thanks for watching and thanks for commenting. Some other comments on here have open our eyes to understanding why things are so difficult. More people are traveling domestically than usual because international travel has been limited.
Did you watch the entire video? I think we said that we are learning. There were many helpful comments to this video that helped us learn about why it is so difficult to travel in Taiwan. I'm not sure you understood the video. Maybe if you watch it again it will help. We absolutely love Taiwan. We are happy to be here. But it is not easy to travel when there's so much competition for the resources.
And traveling around Taiwan during Chinese new year is generally not the thing to do
We knew it was a long shot to find anything open for us. However, even weekend trips are challenging to make without planning months in advance. We're just not used to traveling like that. We'll figure it out, hopefully, sooner than later.
I think compared to most North American countries; Taiwan has awesome public transport.
We love public transportation here in fact we made a video about how much we love the high-speed rail. However, that does not change the fact that public transportation sells out easily and quickly around holidays which happens to be the time most folks travel
Taiwan travel agency got affordable 1 day trip tour could be booking
Do you enjoy traveling with a tour group? We've never found it to be that pleasant of an experience. But we do like to try new things. Maybe we should consider it!
Taiwan, Vietnam-- Apples & Oranges
Certainly they are different countries but we've had travel experiences in both. We were not comparing the countries overall but talking about the travel and how difficult the travel is in Taiwan. Thanks the watching.
台灣不大，高山大海夜市美食應有盡有！
台灣不大，國際選評世界最宜居的國家！
We're so happy to be in Taiwan! We're want to see all of Taiwan 😃 我們很高興來到台灣！我們想看到整個台灣😃
Wow, logistics sound like it really sucks. Sorry it puts a kink in your spontaneity.
Not a kink Aunt Cindy. We just have a adjust to learning a new way to travel. ❤️
My wife is black and I'm white, what is the least racist country you have visited?
Do you want your racism expressed overtly or covertly? Because it isn't really anywhere that black skin doesn't go on notice and uncommented upon. That being said, Taiwan does have little more innocence to its ignorance on the melanated people of the world. Vietnam was definitely more blatant about its ignorance.
@@Justin_Leah Why do you think I said Least racist? And it's not a racist question this question is for HER FATHER, I can't stop everything but I can at least choose the options where I'm least likely to have a confrontation or worse a fight because someone had a problem with my wife over something as stupid as skin color even though her father is happy that I'm taking her abroad. I'm not sure if I should say thank you now or not, but I appreciate the info, my father in law now thinks you're a retarded sjw btw for saying his question is racist.
I think you posted something and then deleted it. I dictated the previous message rather than typing it, so perhaps there are some errors.
What I was trying to say is that there is racism in all countries. How those countries show their racism or rather express their racism can be blatantly or latently, as in overtly versus covertly. No one was suggesting that your question was racist. There are far too many melanated folks having a grand life abroad. You should certainly look into it. But it helps to understand that the type of racism one might experience in a predominantly white society differs from the type of experience one might have in the predominantly non-wise society. That is, Asian racism is different than American white racism or european white racism. There is a little less hatred and disgust in Asian racism. Quite often, the racism extends from ignorance rather than hatred. I hope this clarifies something for you and I will make a better effort in issuing a reply. Mostly, I'll check for any misunderstanding that could come across through dictating a message rather than writing it.
@@Justin_Leah Wow sorry man, Thank you. Yeah it definitely looked wrong the way your comment was written when it says "do you want your" making it sound like the racism is now mine, I personally would've said "do you want the racism". Now I get where you're coming from, I apologize, communicating through writing on the internet clearly can be rough, that's why I like calling people not txting.
Have you given Taiwan any more consideration for a visit or possible relocation? It really is safe and friendly and welcoming here.
OK, Taiwan is not paradise. Which country is? 🤣
But the quality of living here is fantastic! Have you been? Are you here now?
I have no idea where ‘your problem’ comes from - no idea at all. And it hilarious that you compared travel cost between Vietnam & Taiwan, umm maybe bcos Vietnam pays very, very low wage?! And sorry (not really) if Taiwan’s CCPvirus health policy put a damper on your travel
Wow! Clearly we did that articulate ourselves well enough. The purpose of comparing different countries to one another is to share what our experience has been. It's a demonstration of how we have travel than other countries and comparing the ease versus the challenges between those countries. And, we made more money and worked for fewer hours in Vietnam. So we had more disposable income than what we do in Taiwan. With less disposable income and a higher cost of living combined with a much higher cost of travel we feel is though there is substantial reason to add commentary on the quality and the conditions of travel here in Taiwan. It's unfortunate these points did not come through in our presentation. We will try to do a better job next time. We learned a lot from the comments in video. Some people made some excellent points about why there are these types of challenges to travel in Taiwan. Mostly, it's the fact that so many people work banking hours and only have the weekend off to travel and the destinations and the means to get to those destinations become saturated. Thank you for watching. Thank you for commenting.
you look poor travel planner
Comments are open for tips and recommendations :)
Sorry I stopped watching half way through. Tired of listening to you two whine. Last minute during Chinese New Years??? Really???? Duh.
That was one example of many experiences. It was a story to demonstrate all of our experiences not just one experience. I'm sorry that you think we were whining we were sharing our experience. Again, I think you are not being accurate in your evaluation.