🌄 Hsinchu | Beautiful Places in Hsinchu City/County

Looking for suggestion for beautiful places near Hsinchu city/county to go to. It could be natural beauty or architectural beauty or any others.

Only Hsinchu County? Could be things closer and easier to reach but not in the county. County includes from beach huge mountain forest area.

For example, beach st Zhunan isn’t in county but nearby.

濱海森林遊憩區

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Jianshi township. Great mountains and less crowded than other places.

Hsinchu’s City Center is a delight to explore, starting from the iconic Hsinchu TRA station (a Taisho era confection) and the open plaza in front of it. From there, walk up Zhongsheng Road, stopping to have a look at Dongmen (the landmark East Gate) along the way. Further up Zhongzheng Road is the 1930s era Hsinchu Image Museum—and past Zhongyang Road, the handsome red brick Hsinchu City Hall. Turn left along Zhongshan Road to get runbin (Kuo’s is the default shop here) or other drinks and snacks in front of the City God Temple, where you can then turn up Beimen Street and to see its collection of 19th century structures before ending at the Matsu Temple at the top of the street.

There’s much much more to see in this compact part of Hsinchu City, but that would be one way to begin, either on foot or by bicycle. Enjoy!

Guy

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Dapu Reservoir
04 2331 2678

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For me, head east to the mountains :slight_smile: take a scooter and explore. the hills are purdy!

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In general, as mentioned above, drive into the mountains. Go to Neiwan and/or keep going past it towards Jianshi, as far as Smangus if possible. Or take the 122 up to Qingquan and beyond. Depends how far you’re willing to drive/scoot.

Dapu Reservoir is a good one, can rent a bike and explore around there for several hours (especially good for families but worth a visit for all ages).

In Hengshan (a little closer to Zhudong) there’s a nice hike from a temple called “樂善堂”, you can take stone steps or a road up to a great viewpoint looking over the whole area (“大崎崠頂峰涼亭”) (Hike starts here, there’s a giant white Guanyin statue visible for miles around: Google Maps)

As with most interesting sites in Taiwan, these places will be empty during the week but can be messy on the weekends.

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Given the Indigenous managed tourism in that community, going this far into the mountains would I think require some advance planning / bookings.

Guy

Some suggestions in the first few posts here:

https://taiwaneverything.cc/?s=Hsinchu

If you rely on public transport you could take the Neiwan Branch Line through the countryside and get off at a few stops along the way or you could take a bus to the Lion’s Head Mountain area, but if you don’t like the crowds you want to go to both places on a weekday.

If you have your own means of transport, check out Jianshi (Frog Rock) or drive all the way up to Guanwu (great forest) via Qingquan (hot springs). Then there is Smangus (indigenous village). If you like the countryside drive through Beipu Township, check out Emei and Baoshan reservoirs, small towns to visit are Beipu (old street), Guanxi (a bit boring), and Xinpu (dried persimmons). South of Shimen Reservoir is the Mawudu Forest (good for a walk through the woods).

If you like camping in the mountains, there are many campsites scattered around Jianshi and Wufeng.

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Reviving this thread to draw attention to a new report about what researchers believe is the tallest measured tree in East Asia.

This astonishing tree is in Atayal country, in Shei-Pa National Park, growing at around 2000 meters elevation above sea level and standing some 79.1 meters high, a figure determined by airborne laser imaging (aka “lidar” technology).

The researchers involved in this project believe there may be even taller trees further up the Daan River, so stay tuned!

Guy

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Nice find!

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More beauty in Hsinchu County:

Source: Josh Ellis; https://twitter.com/goteamjoshphoto/status/1607295807996432385

Guy

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Trees, kind of like other trees.

You must be an urbanite. :grin:

Guy

Yeah but I can recognize trees from the ground up.

I live near Hsinchu station. What are the nearby locations(except Taipei) that I can travel to? I am willing to go to areas which are at most 2-3 hours away by train. The plan is to start before noon and come back on the same day.

大湖 Miaoli - pick some strawberries. There’s a hot spring nearby as well called 石湯

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You have to go by train?

I think you need to define “location”. What do you want to do in those locations?

I don’t know why I missed out on this one.

If you can travel by car, there are a lot of beautiful places to get to around Hsinchu.

I’ll start with those harder to get to:

Qalang Smangus (司馬庫斯)
image

It’s an Atayal village that takes 2 hours drive up mountain roads to get to. It’s famous for 3 things. 1. tourism for the village is managed communally. 2. ancient forest track. 3. cherry blossoms around February.

The village across the river, Cinsbu (鎮西堡) also has impressive forest track, but is less managed.

Mawgil (觀霧)

Also a 2-hour drive away from the city, it’s a part of the Shue-ba National Park. There are a couple of trails and water falls around the main viewing deck. You could also hike to the Snow Mountain or the Daba Mountain, although it is much more involved.

Now a bit closer to the city
Ptlaman Ancient Forest Trail (北得拉曼)

Eagle Creek (老鷹溪步道)

Matuy Trail (馬胎古道)

Less strenuous
Mountain View Resort (山上人家)


Can hike to the summit of Ogongji mountain (鵝公髻山) from the trail at the back.

Lavender Cottage (薰衣草花園尖石店)
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Digital Sky (數碼天空)

日見森嵐
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This is actually the restaurant of the Ishiue hot spring resort. They remodeled it and it became really famous for some reason.

You can go to Frog Rock Trail if you go to any of the places near Neiwan, such as 日見森嵐 and Lavender Cottage.

By the sea

Dutch Harbor Mangrove Nature Reserve (紅毛港紅樹林)

There are more, and like others said, Hsinchu is only a short hop away from Taoyuan and Miaoli.

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