Latest Taiwan prices vs. the Bay Area, California

Taiwan Living in Taiwan
21

A regular “decent” shabu shabu place, not the cheaper chain stores, should have set meals around 350, and if you order the best beef it could go up to 500. For surf and turf sets then that’s when you are looking at 600 plus. However, 600 to 900 sounds like those all you can eat hotpot buffets, then yeah, 600 is the bare minimum for places like that.

Just got gas today. 27.9 per litter for 95 (equivalent to PLUS), which would be around 7 USD per gallon. I recall call in the US to be around this price in the past.

22

so 4 liters is a bit more than a gallon so 27 x 4 is 108nt/gallon which is less than 4 a gallon. We are currently around 3.99 to 4.89 a gallon depends on what brand of gasoline and where you buy it. it has gone up to 5 to 6 bucks in the bay area not long ago and almost 8 bucks a gallon in LA.. other parts of the country im told is under 3 bucks a gallon for regular which is 87 which is 91 RON. so regular here is your 91 , your 95 would be our 91 which is premium. wE also have midgrade of 89 . Its usually around 20cents a gallon more per increment at the same station

23

The thing I can’t get over is how expensive hotels in Taiwan (everywhere, not just the major cities) have become. As a Londoner, Taiwan still feels like a largely cheap country to me even though things seem to get more expensive every time I return, but hotel prices are totally disproportionate to everything else even when I go out to less popular areas.

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24

what are prices looking like?

25

If you want a room that doesn’t give you the cheap motel vibe, but just a decent motel vibe, it’s probably going to be over 5K NTD. If you don’t want any kind of motel vibe, then it’s going to be at least 12K. Some resorts are easily over 20K. So, I guess Taiwan hotel prices are equivalent to US hotel prices.

26

On weekdays, 6k should already afford a decent place in most places (standard room including breakfast). If one books early, 4k-5k is also possible sometimes.

Weekends and holidays are a different story:
I’ve seen hostels with shared bathroom charging >5k per night on weekends in Taipei and Taichung…

27

jaysus

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:face_with_diagonal_mouth:

:face_with_raised_eyebrow:

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29

Plenty o f the price listed in that image hovers around 12K. For those listed around 6K, say Courtyard by Marriott Taipei Downtown, on regular weekends costs near 8K.

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Still seems like a steal though. I’ve never seen it show up when I search for a hotel room near that area before, probably means it’s always sold out.

30

there must be good two star places that are less than 2000nt a night no?

31

Yes. They would look and smell like cheap motels.

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32

I used to always put up a fight to encourage Western friends to visit Taiwan instead of Thailand or Japan, but it’s becoming increasingly difficult to do so in good conscience especially with the crazy high hotel prices. For bang for your buck, Thailand is incredible; whereas if you’re willing to pay good money, Japan is a no-brainer. Taiwan seems to straddle somewhere between the two, with hotel prices closer to (maybe even exceeding) Japan, though it looks from the outside that it should be a “cheap country”.

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33

If you can escape the tourist bubble for the countryside life in Japan can be remarkably cheap because the average Japanese person has very limited buying power these days. I’m paying ¥3,000 a day for a RAV4 rental car while my car is in the shop. ¥100,000 a month will rent a nice house in a small town or village. ¥5,000 for four hour ski lift tickets. A room with two kings and breakfast included in a nice hotel goes for ¥20,000 multiple occupancy. A world class sushi dinner at a local diner will set you back ¥6,000. Hot spring tickets in an onsen freqented by locals go for ¥800.

Anything imported such as petroleum products or imported foods are very expensive though. Likewise anything you pay for inside a tourist bubble is sky high.

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34

With the depreciation of the JPY, I do find myself thinking “Oh, cheaper than I expected!” even in touristy areas in Japan when comparing things to prices in Taiwan.

One example: Coffee. Most sit-down coffee places in Taiwan charge NT$120-180 for a latte now. In Japan, the range was more like JPY500-800.

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35

imagine that ? Japan being cheaper than TAiwan to vacation in? Mindboggling.

36

Especially considering the value received, I would consider this to be the case now, yeah.

I wouldn’t mind paying some of the hotel prices in Taiwan if I could rely on always receiving a spotless room and great service.

But paying >NT$6000 per night for a room with old furniture, no heat in winter and a cockroach family living in the desk underneath the TV? That didn’t spark joy…

(Ok, this was a “touristy” place in the mountains that’s often booked out - but still…)

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37

And while we’re on the topic of hotels in Taiwan, a short rant:

I do understand that hotels like to charge the credit card before arrival to guarantee the booking because otherwise they don’t have much reconciliation in case of a no-show. And sometimes, one can get a better deal by prepaying the entire reservation fully ahead. Ok, fair.

What I’ve only experienced in Taiwan so far, though, is that even when booking with free cancellation, some places will charge a deposit way before the end of the free cancellation period.

In this case, I booked in November last year for a stay in March with free cancellation until the beginning of March. They immediately charged a 30% deposit to my card (yeah, this was mentioned somewhere in the fine-print and I didn’t notice while booking. But okay…).

Two weeks ago, I cancelled because I had found a better place to stay.

One week later, I hadn’t received back the deposit back, so I wrote to the hotel asking them to please refund my deposit (in other parts of the world, I would have at least received an automated message by now that my refund had been processed or something. But in that case? Nothing!)

One day later, they sent me this:

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If it’s that freaking complicated for a hotel to issue a refund, then maybe don’t charge the deposit that early…?!? Why they don’t just wait to charge the deposit 8 (or maybe 10) days before the stay to avoid probably 90% of all possible refunds?

Situations like this just give me the feeling that the tourist industry in Taiwan just doesn’t seem to understand that customer satisfaction and the quality of the service provided is an important part in attracting visitors…

I often feel like hotels etc. in Taiwan give off the impression that they’re doing their guests a favor for allowing them to stay at their precious property. And not the other way around.

Looking for hotels in Taiwan always fills me up with dread. And in the end, in most cases I feel like I’m probably overpaying for a sub-par room.

Sure, there are happy exceptions sometimes - but domestic travel in Taiwan is not something that lives up to the standard of Japan in my experience…

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