Some great travel sites!

Travel Taiwan Travel
1

Hi all,
I have been surfing the net looking for interesting things to do during a vacation, and stumbled accros some great sites:
http://virtualtourist.com :
Members share info on their travel experiences - awesome!
http://infohub.com :
search engine for activities and tour operators (found a great listing of horse tours in Mongolia).
http://www.shaolin-viaggi.net/wushutraining.htm :
Shaolin Wushu Training + Chinese Lesson in Shaolin Area. This is something I will definitely try - learn basic kung fu and Tai Chi, lose some weight (the healthy way - better than fasting in Thailand:-), and get a kick start on stopping smoking, plus learn Chinese for a couple of hours everyday. Only US$1100 for 1 month (airfare not included.

Does anyone have any other great travel sites they could share?

2

bump! :wink:

I’d like to add Alleycats reminder on the website of what I consider the best travel guides I’ve seen:

Lonely Planet

So, any other good travel sites out there?

Iris

3

Iris, you obviously haven’t seen many travel guides. But to be fair LP’s web site is one of the best on the net. I just don’t think that much of their books.

Also look at:
Rough Guides
travel.roughguides.com
Pass Planet
http://www.passplanet.com
Backpacking (budget travel): advice, guide and packing tips
travelindependent.info/
Hostelling International
iyhf.org/

4

Lonely Plant are the most objectionably smug and pretentious bunch of wankers on the planet. I prefer the rough guides - roughguides.com/ - by far.

I browse through travel-companion.net from time to time, but the best place for information on travel, or just about anything, has to be h2g2.com - part of the BBC’s online effort. This one is inspired by the old Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy radio/TV/book series, and aims to be a guide to ‘Life, The Universe, And Everything’ written by Joe Public. The quality of guide entries varies wildly, and some of the subject matter is a bit esoteric, but that adds to the charm.

The offerings on Taiwan are rather poor, but some of the other entries are sublime. Try bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A721243 for instance. I can’t imagine a better introduction to Australia.

Another place is escapeartist.com/ - dedicated to the principle that Americans should leave their country and go take part in the international community.

5

Maybe I should withdraw my over-enthusiastic comment on LP :wink: I still think the LP we used for our China travels in 1997 was great. However, some of the LPs I bought later, including the one on Taiwan, have distinct flaws.

I just found a
travel site on Vietnam and Indochina. What do you think about this one?

HTH
Iris

6

It’s not a guide, but has lots of useful information about accomodations in Thailand.

For hotels in Taiwan, I find ezfly quite useful, though I have never actually booked a room with them.

7

I see from the newspapers that there is some ambitions to increase the tourism in Taiwan. They have a lot of work ahead of them :unamused: , but they should maybe start with an English web-site where foreigners/tourists can read about:

Cities, towns, places, areas, and their:
Accomodations with facilities, price-/quality-range and location (pictures would be great). I mean all, not only the 5-star places.
Attractions, leisure activities, parks, beaches, hiking trails, scenic spots etc.
Map of the areas, with the places above marked.
How to get there and around.

Maybe they should sponsor a couple of hundred “review-tourists” to visit most of the places, and submit their reviews of the places as well.

Next step: What to do with the general level of service :unamused: :?:

If you know any web-site for Taiwan similar to the one i wish for above, please let med know, and I will delete this post (how do Ido that??) :blush:

8

They might not be perfect but there are indeed a number of English travel sites for tourists in Taiwan. These are the ones I came across:

traveling.network.com.tw/default.htm
taiwan-map.com/
sinica.edu.tw/tit/
202.39.225.132/jsp/Eng/html/search/index.jsp

This would be an example for a site on Taipei:
dot.taipei.gov.tw/old/travel … glish.html

And here, you would find some hints on how to get around:
trtc.com.tw/englishnew/index.htm
railway.gov.tw/taiwan/indexe.html

HTH
Iris

9

Hi Iris,
Thank you. I will check them out.

10

Hi again,
I have now looked at the first 4 links you recommended, because they are the ones that seemed most relevant for my case.

traveling.network.com.tw/default.htm :slight_smile:
I like the way they have organized the different things to see and do for the various areas of Taiwan.
They should have more listing of alternative accomodations, and links to those, so the user can read more about the alternatives.

taiwan-map.com/ :cry:
Despite the name, this site only cover Taipei in terms of places to go, stay and visit.

sinica.edu.tw/tit/ :?
Some good descriptions of places to go and see under the “Scenery” section, but too few and some are too old. Need update and additions.
No links for “places to stay”.

202.39.225.132/jsp/Eng/html/search/index.jsp :x
Too many disconnected links to have any value.

I really hope they could organize a web-site where you key in keywords or select options.

Area:
North, East, West, South, Center

Topice of interest:
Dining, Party, hiking, bicycling, diving, swimming, shopping, sightseeing, scenery, nature, etc. etc.

Accomodation:
High standard hotel, mid standard hotel, low standard hotel, motel, cabins, villa, camping, etc.

Facilities:
Shopping Mall, Swimming pool indoor, swimming pool outdoor, playground, non-smoking rooms, resaturant, bar, etc. etc.

Location:
City, town, countryside, mountain, beach, etc.

ETc, etc.

After keying in or selecting the alternatives, the web-site generate a report of alternative places for you to go and stay, with links to relevant information.
The Touristbureau of Taiwan really need to sharpen up their information ability to be able to attract more tourists.

11

Wow, thanks for the detailed description. I basically just bookmarked the sites the very moment I stumbled across them. Please keep us posted if you come across more interesting sites.

Iris

12

I just been spammed with this url:
taiwan.net.tw/flash_intro.htm

a flash intro, a little too heavy on the sea of clouds pictures for me, but the site may be worth exploring.

13

I have found a few good ones.

The Independent travel section
Let’s Go

Sadly these two web sites are lacking info about Taiwan, but they are great for other destinations.

I also found this new site about Taiwan. It’s a community web site and doesn’t have much on it as yet. Travel Taiwan

I also found this government web site: Welcome to Taiwan

14

In general I’ve found very little on Taiwan that’s useful, though a search has turned up some articles on virtualtourist.com, mentioned earlier in this thread.

The trouble is that I’m not in Taipei, whereas a lot of the information out there is for people visiting Taipei.

My own efforts on introducing Taiwan are at a travel story-sharing site not yet mentioned:

www.worldisround.com.

I’m not the only one contributing on Taiwan and I’d love to hear where others are going, etc.

Some people may also find igougo.com interesting.

15

Not to be a kill-joy, John, but I used to date a girl when I was living in Nanjing who was the daughter of city government cadre (and what a lovely thing she was…sigh…) Anyway, she told me that the monks at the Shaolin temples in Henan and Fujian are all charlatans hired by the government who perform acrobatics and a few feats of “kung-fu prowess” such as dragging heavy objects along the ground by a chain attached to their nuts.

This fits pretty well with my own encounters with “Wu Shu” in Mainland China: it was definitely NOT traditional kungfu. Don’t know if that point is relevant to you or not, but just thought you should know…

16

I would like to take my wife on a pleasure trip to Beijing.Does anyone know of any good travel agents that specialise in China tours?tia

17

While by no means, comprehensive, we’re trying to build a site where you can share your Taiwan adventures and find out where to get your outdoors kicks.

Check out toasports.com for some info and add your own under the forums!!

Anthony

18

[quote=“anthonyhomer”]While by no means, comprehensive, we’re trying to build a site where you can share your Taiwan adventures and find out where to get your outdoors kicks.

Check out toasports.com for some info and add your own under the forums!!

Anthony[/quote]
Cracking site, Anthony! Hope it does well. Do you have a banner link on Forumosa? If not, why not? Send a PM to Gus, Tech Admin or Maoman and they’ll sort you out.
I’ll contribute some stuff just as soon as I get one of these:

19

The Beat Magazine is a good source for info on what’s going on here in Bali.

beatmag.com/