Accessing free WIFI in Taipei

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
1

Hi.

I am traveling to Taiwan at the end of December. I’m planning to meet friends in Taipei on the day of my arrival before heading down to Kaohsiung where I will meet up with family.

I will not have a local SIM card upon my arrival, so I will be depending on free WIFI to communicate with my friends. I was last in Taiwan in 2019. IIRC, at the time there was “Taipei Free” WIFI (or something like that) which was widely accessible but IIRC, one needed a textable phone number to receive the login credentials. In other words, while it was free to use, it required an initial working cell phone number to access the first time. I will not have that.

It’s important to me that I do not miss this meet up in Taipei with my friends. Taoyuan airport will undoubtedly have freely accessible WIFI. But in the event that I can’t access it, or it’s offline or whatever, and I travel to Taipei without making firm plans with my friends, once I’m in Taipei (say in the MRT), is there free WIFI for me to use? Do 7-11s have free WIFI? In North America, any given Walmart/Starbucks/McDs all have freely accessible WIFI. What is the situation like in Taipei nowadays?

Thanks in advance.

2

From what I remember, unless changed, you can go to a Taiwan Tourism Bureau booth at Taoyuan or Sungshan airport or any booth located at various MRT stations, show your passport, and they’ll help you sign up for the various free government hotspots, which are usually near government buildings or schools or transportation stations.

3

Then spend the peanuts it costs to buy the bloody SIM card at the airport.

It’s cheap. It’s not worth it to fiddle with Taipei’s useless free wifi.

4

You could check out this: