❀ Except for the car rental, we paid for everything in cash. You can pay with a credit card for hotels and some restaurants, but be prepared with cash for smaller restaurants, food stalls, and markets.
❀ Save coins and small notes to buy drinks in vending machines. Please remember it’s better to avoid this if you can, to decrease the consumption of plastic.
❀ For an Israeli, it wasn’t something unusual, but for others it might be: military presence. In Taiwan, there’s mandatory military service for men. The period of time is at least four months, but it could be longer. So, if you see soldiers on the streets – it’s okay, nothing happened. It’s probably just soldiers on their duty.
❀ Days-off: all official places are closed on Saturday and Sunday, but everything else is open unless mentioned differently. Most places, such as museums, restaurants, night markets, etc, have at least one day-off. Although not all – some are open 7 days a week! Please check what day it is before you go there!
❀ Google maps in Taiwan. Google maps might be good in Taipei, but it’s not a good app to use for transportation between cities. I recommend planning your intercity rides with Rome2Rion, which was found to be reliable on other trips. However, we didn’t need it much in Taiwan, since we had a car.
❀ Taiwan is a rainy country throughout the year, so always carry an umbrella or a poncho in your bag. It served us well when it suddenly started to rain out of nowhere. If you find yourself in the rain without either, you can easily purchase them from the closest convenient store.
❀ Luggage storage. There are lockers in every big station. We had a very large backpack and we had no problem storing it when we needed. Make sure you have coins, or 100 NTD bill to pay for it when you’re done.
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