What do people think budget and mid-range travellers are going to spend here on average for food/accom/transport and the sights?
Some readers complained I low balled it for the last LP Taiwan so I want to open the mike to some sound feedback. 
[quote=âMucha Manâ]What do people think budget and mid-range travellers are going to spend here on average for food/accom/transport and the sights?
Some readers complained I low balled it for the last LP Taiwan so I want to open the mike to some sound feedback. [/quote]
accommodations (budget 500 - 1500 per day for A/C)
transport ~500 day (going from town to town or taking a couple of cabs in a town, you canât expect travelers to take public transport everywhere, especially when cabs are so cheap).
food ~500 day
[quote=âDeuce Dropperâ][quote=âMucha Manâ]What do people think budget and mid-range travellers are going to spend here on average for food/accom/transport and the sights?
Some readers complained I low balled it for the last LP Taiwan so I want to open the mike to some sound feedback. [/quote]
accommodations (budget 500 - 1500 per day for A/C)
transport ~500 day
food ~500 day[/quote]
Also ticket prices. So add another 500
Budget in Taiwan often means love hotels or cruddyâŚin my experience. Mid-range is 2000- 4000 NTD for mingshu and hotspring resorts. Then 5 star and resorts 5000 NTD+ There can also be a large price difference between weekends and weekdays and hot/slow season. I sympathise with pricing statements.
I would recommend putting in more mid-range Mingshu, at least for us locals 
Thanks. Couple questions. NT500 for budget transport seems pretty high. You can bus to Kaohsiung for NT400.
NT500 for sights? What are you seeing each day that would cost so much?
[quote=âheadhonchoIIâ]Budget in Taiwan often means love hotels or cruddyâŚin my experience. Mid-range is 2000- 4000 NTD for mingshu and hotspring resorts. Then 5 star and resorts 5000 NTD+ There can also be a large price difference between weekends and weekdays and hot/slow season. I sympathise with pricing statements.
I would recommend putting in more mid-range Mingshu, at least for us locals [/quote]
There are a fair amount of hostels and youth guesthouse network places now in addition to campgrounds.
Yeah pricing is tricky. Some readers compain that budget accomm is listed as NT300-1200. How can NT1200 be budget? Well, itâs relative of course. Some really do think we just arenât looking hard enough for those NT100 places. 
NPM and 101???
you go to any other museum, it will cost atleat 200 NTDâŚand doesnât it all pan out?? One day you spend 700 in Taipei and 300 in TainanâŚeven tickets to places like Lalashan and other trails cost money right?
[quote=âMucha Manâ]Thanks. Couple questions. NT500 for budget transport seems pretty high. You can bus to Kaohsiung for NT400.
NT500 for sights? What are you seeing each day that would cost so much?[/quote]
Lets say people want to go get drunk, or travel around a city at night, or go shopping or sight seeing and have been here a couple of days and could be fucked to go jostle with the locals on a bus or MRT. Cab each way, ~150 a shot.
[quote=âDeuce Dropperâ][quote=âMucha Manâ]Thanks. Couple questions. NT500 for budget transport seems pretty high. You can bus to Kaohsiung for NT400.
NT500 for sights? What are you seeing each day that would cost so much?[/quote]
Lets say people want to go get drunk, or travel around a city at night, or go shopping or sight seeing and have been here a couple of days and could be fucked to go jostle with the locals on a bus or MRT. Cab each way, ~150 a shot.[/quote]
True, but misc expenses like have to be excluded from averages. Those that engage in such activities usually know itâs going to cost them more than average.
NPM and 101???
you go to any other museum, it will cost atleat 200 NTDâŚand doesnât it all pan out?? One day you spend 700 in Taipei and 300 in TainanâŚeven tickets to places like Lalashan and other trails cost money right?[/quote]
Yeah I suppose as an average itâs probably not unreasonable. A lot of museums are free now, though, as are temples, national parks, almost all trails, parks (except forest recreation areas) and the like. Still people can obviously look at the guide and see what the activities they want to do will cost.
Mid-range:
Lodging: NT$3,000-5,000 per room per night (Assuming the traveler stays in bottom tier rooms at hotels/motels/B&Bs around the island. To be honest, I havenât stayed anywhere for less than $3,000 in awhile, but Iâve heard of friends finding places in remote areas for $2,000.)
Food: NT$500-1,000 per day (You can easily spend $200 per person at the nightmarket trying out snacks, drinks, and other small foods; note: many hotels provide guests complimentary meal(s); afternoon tea and evening drinks ranges from $100-300 a drink, which adds up quickly)
Sights: $100-1,000 (Totally depends on interests/what theyâre doing â Iâm imaginging the low figure is for someone going to two cheap museums, the high figure for someone going to a fancy hot spring.)
Transport: $1,000-2,000 per day (The MRT is relatively inexpensive, but taxi and HSR costs add up quickly and thereâs always the possibility that readers will rent scooters or cars (with the added expense of fuel), or bicycles (especially if you mention the Giant rental program))
TOTAL: NT$4,600-9,000 per day
(And after thinking about the last few trips, that looks about right. In Hualien we spent around $20K over three days (train, scooter and car rental plus fuel, B&B, food, and wine). In Sun Moon Lake, around $8K over two days. I might even be lowballing it, since some things are put on credit card and I donât see the bills.)
Edit:
What counts as misc expenses?
[quote=âMucha Manâ]Thanks. Couple questions. NT500 for budget transport seems pretty high. You can bus to Kaohsiung for NT400.
NT500 for sights? What are you seeing each day that would cost so much?[/quote]
If you canât speak Chinese, then using public transportation is difficult at best. Except for the MRT systems in Taipei and Kaoshiung of course. Taxis are much more convenient for travelers. Trying to use public buses can be a pain in the ass for everybody :fume: let alone tourists. So unless you only go out on foot everywhere, taxis are the only option. Buses are easy to find for intercity travel, but once you arrive, youâll have to take a taxi to get anywhere. I think $500 is a good figure, although if they are going to be traveling to a large amount of places in a short time, I might even suggest more.
Ultra-budget!
Taipei
Accommodation: however much it costs to stay at a hostel like Happy Family.
Food: However much it costs to get 3 squares a day from street vendors and noodle shops, plus some drinks from 7-11
Transportation: 2 bus rides + 2 MRT trips from center of town to outskirts: about NT$100
Entry fees: What entry fees? Ultra-budget travelers go to the free places!
Tainan
Bus trip from Taipei to Tainan: NT$400 (BTW, hitchhiking, the preferred ultra-budget way, is free!)
Budget hotel in Tainan: NT$600
Getting around Tainan: by foot
Food: lots of cheap stuff there
Foraging for food here: that is raiding fruit and vegetable patches and perhaps foraging for food on the natural side: nuts and things growing ngon wild ping essene yerson jungle whould be able to live on nothing, for food. River fish. Taranspoirataion is possible hang thumb find yourselves in a cognac haze best financed by another in the actauall finance sector. Taipei 101. Sparkle; Lest ot worry: taiwan never frezzes. Banananas mangos, friends with a boat. Sleepy on zee beachy. Home again, Strained gonodals. Total cosy 1800 nt for a a week!! Not baD!
NT$20k a day seems ridiculous as a midrange level. When my parents visited the most expensive place we stayed was Leader Village in Buluowan for less than $4000- and that was for 3 people, and was pretty damn luxurious, even to my middle-class parents. Everywhere else we stayed was cheaper and definitely at mid-range quality, if not higher (e.g. Ti Lun in Dongpu).
As for public transportation being confusing, isnât the whole point of Lonely Planet to provide advice to people willing to go through the hassle of dealing with public transit in order to save money? Taxis are more convenient, but using public transportation is far from impossible (budget travelers manage to use far more inhospitable buses in other countries) and budget travelers will want to know how much it costs.
I do think the last Lonely Planet underestimated it a bit- you wrote that basic expenses could be NT$400 a day, but you would have to spend only NT100 on food a day to do that, given that accommodation never costs less than 300, and you yourself wrote that NT$200 is the minimum for food (I agree). I would say $500 is the minimum for Taipei, by staying in Happy Family, eating cheap and walking to nearby sights. AFAIK, in cities outside of Taipei, Hualian, and Puli, accom cost NT$600 bare minimum, so it would be more like $800. I think an average of $900 to 1000 is most reasonable for a budget traveler who goes to must-see sights (eg Palace Museum) and takes Ubus between cities, while leaving a little extra for other costs that may come up.
Going farther out is a bit pricier- during a week in Penghu (incl Qimei and other islands) and a day in Tainan I spent NT$10k. I did this by taking a boat from Budai (NT3000, incl getting there after a night in Tainan and going back via Jiayi), taking public transport (annoying yes, but far from impossible), eating cheap food and staying in the cheapest places in the guidebooks (which frankly arenât that cheap for lone travelers). I splurged a little, but I donât think I could have gotten that lower than NT9000 total.
You may have looked into this before, but Iâve heard in many towns, incl Hualian, you can stay in temples for the cost of a donation.
Eh? Are you referring to my post? I said that was for a trip to Hualien (great B&B, lots of wine, yummy food made of day lilies, lots of transportation fees (train, scooter rental, car rental + gas)) and that was $20K over three days. That works out to about ~$8K/day for two people sharing basically everything, even meals. My average, as writ on the original post:
This is about US$100-200, which isnât too bad knowing that includes food, transport, and lodgings. And to be honest, I donât care too much: Iâm on vacation to enjoy the experience, not to save money. Money, shmoney.
(If I wanted to go cheap, I would, as you write, stay at a temple and eat temple food and hang out with the nuns. (No joke; slept on a university gymnasiumâs floor one night and ate at the temple with the nuns and fellow pu-sa. That was a âworking vacationâ, though.))
In most cases, a room is a room. Whether its for one person or four, the price doesnât change. (Well, unless the hotel has double-occupancy rooms and charges a fee for each additional person person.) I donât think MuchaMan can say a room costs $1300/person (based on your scenerio) since a solo traveler at that inn would have to pay $4000 for the room.
I just looked at the notes I made for a hotel I put my friends up at in Taipei recently and it was less than I remember. I recalled their online listed rate (~$6,000) and not the discounted rate (~$3,000) we were given. Just to be safe, I called them up a few minutes ago and asked about a room for tomorrow night and was quoted $3,900 for a room on a Sunday night. Weâve stayed at some really swank places over the years, too, but Iâm not considering them for my âmid-rangeâ averages.
The average for our lodgings sits at around NT$4,000/night. I stand by my averages.
Fair enough about accom, I read that in a rush and am a bit exhausted right now. I still think your definition of midrange seems pretty high end however, though that may be because Iâm a poor student. Everyone after all has different standards. That said I would hardly call places like Friends Star, which costs less than 3000 a night, âbottom tierâ. Also I donât see how a midrange budget would involve spending 1000 on sights in one day- wouldnât a fancy hot spring make it a high-end budget? $1000 a day seems a lot as a minimum for transport- presumably the average midrange traveler wouldnât need to hire a car or scooter, and will mostly depend on public transport and the odd taxi, which can get you to most sights in the island in decent comfort, if not luxury.
Also, you may want to check recent exchange rates- NT9000 is almost US$300. Iâll admit, however, thatâs not an unaffordable amount for a well-off American.
[quote=âMucha Manâ]What do people think budget and mid-range travellers are going to spend here on average for food/accom/transport and the sights?
Some readers complained I low balled it for the last LP Taiwan so I want to open the mike to some sound feedback. [/quote]
What figure did you come up with?
If your schedule is flexible you can get into NPM for free on Saturdays from 6:30PM to 8:30PM.
B.
When I first arrived in Taiwan 2 years ago my boyfriend and I had no problem travelling around on 2000-2500 per day for both of us (or even less sometimes). I think many people here are underestimating the abilities of budget travellers, especially in regard to public transport etc. It doesnât take much effort to get your hotel/hostel staff to write where youâre going in Chinese for you. Now we have a bit more money but still usually only spend 3000 between us per day when we travel around. I think 1500 per day for a budget traveller is pretty reasonable, although it can be done on 1000 or less.
Couchsurfing is also becoming quite popular in Taiwan, especially in cities without hostels as such. Weâre in Tainan and have couchsurfers stay with us every month or two, usually just for a few nights. Most of these travellers are backpacking independently around Taiwan (most of those who stayed with us were females in their early 20s). Combining couchsurfing with hostels, and travelling with a railpass (with a student/youth travel card) itâs relatively easy to travel on under 1000 a day, with the occasional splurge.
Hotel prices can also vary dramatically according to season. The one I like to stay at in Kenting is only 600 a night in March/April, but during summer can be 2000+ per night.