Here are two of my favorites. Very different but both in Taipei:
The Museum of the Institute of History and Philology, Academia Sinica: A small but very well laid-out museum that’s never crowded. Unfortunately it’s only open on Wednesdays and Saturdays. The exhibits are almost all China-oriented, but they’re engrossing. I especially like the 2,000-year-old letters, reports and weather records written on bamboo slips by soldiers and officials posted to northwestern China.
Watching high-schoolers practice hip-hop dances and cheerleader routines in Taipei TRA/HSR station and the nearby underground malls. OK, so I’m a dirty old man - but it’s a good way of killing time before getting on a train, and I’m fully expecting you guys to come up with even more pervy responses.
Pretty much any temple in the country: Longshan Temple, Xingtian Gong, Matsu Temple in Tainan, etc. (Inner section of Tainan’s Confucius Temple is an exception.)
Night markets are free to visit, of course.
Taipei Botanical Garden.
Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall.
Sun Yat-sen Memorial Hall.
Dihua St., Taipei
Sanxia Old Street
CKS Mausoleum and CKS statue park at Cihu, and the nearby CCK Mausoleum.
Tomb of the Five Concubines, Tainan.
Outer section of Confucius Temple, Tainan.
Almost everything on Kinmen and Matsu is free, even the bike rentals. The only expense is the airfare but once you’re there it costs nothing.
After 9 weeks in China it’s refreshing to be somewhere that doesn’t charge for every little park you enter and then charge extra for shuttle buses and admission to the actual sights within the park.
Most national parks are free. Many museums are free. Taipei county has lots of free museums including the ceramics museum in Yingge.
Temples as Chris mentioned. Most hikes are free. Free bicycle paths. Beaches. Bitan has free concerts all summer long. Some great shows with a lot of foreign performers. Had singers from the Sydney Opera House last month.
IIRC the Taipei Fine Arts Museum on Zhongshan North is free. Not a big collection but often some interesting ones, and right near the center of town. And the Ji-gong temple of the 18 Immortals in Sanzhi is free. Hiking Taroko is free, and you can even shower off the grit in the Curtain waterfall hike when you’re done the steeper climbs, if you wait til the right private moment… Carnegies and the Monkey’s ladies nights are free if you’re a lady or look like one, and someone paid for you and you’re willing to play flirty she-devil all night…
[quote=“Dr. McCoy”]Forumosa, of course.[/quote]Brown-noser - may you be visited by said Carnegies succubi and have your wallet drained of its filthy mammon.
There are a couple small free museums in Danshui on the life and times of George Leslie Mackay. One is in the old Oxford College building at Aletheia University. The other is in the teensy original Mackay Hospital building in Danshui. Fisherman’s Wharf, of course, is free.
In Keelung there’s a Qing Dynasty fort on the hill to the east of the harbor. It’s within a park.
The North Coast Scenic Area is free. Beaches, hiking trails, views, a natural arch, Fugui Cape (Taiwan’s northernmost point), picnic areas, Laomei algal reefs, and, up in the hills, Teresa Teng Memorial Garden.
On Hwy 11 between Hualien and Taitung are a number of free attractions, such as Sanxiantai and Xiao Yeliu.
Um, because the entire mountainside slid down and covered the entrance to the tunnel to the trail. The water curtain was also closed for about 8 years after the 921 Earthquake. Actually it may be open now I am just assuming with all the damage to the trail it would also be closed.
Taroko suffered some horrendous damage last year in that little rain we had.
Seems to me that listing Taiwan’s best free attractions is pretty much the same as listing Taiwan’s best attractions. Aside from museums, forest recreation areas and the odd historic site, what ISN"T free? And frankly, in my book, things that do cost money tend to be less interesting than what’s free, aside from the protected areas of national parks and the National Palace Museum.
Darn it! I’ve been rumbled! A while back I considered writing an article on Taiwan’s best free attractions, but as one poster above said, almost all the good stuff in Taiwan is free…
Perhaps it would be more useful to compile a list of those attractions that you need to pay something significant for and which are very worthwhile, such as the Marine Museum & Aquarium way down in Pingtung County.
A few years back, much to the annoyance of the Tourism Bureau, betel nut girls were a genuine attraction with Singaporean tour groups making detours to take in some of the finest around Kaohsiung.
Can anyone help me, please? I really want to go up to LaoMei Park today and I’ve spent about an hour with Google Maps, Google, and all the bus websites I can find, but I’m afraid my non-existent Chinese reading skills are insufficient :aiyo: and I still have no idea which bus to catch from the Danshui MRT station.
I’m going to put my stuff together and make a sandwich, hoping that one of you nice people who are in the know will see this in time… otherwise, I’m going to cross my fingers that there are good maps up there or that someone in the tourist info office at the station speaks English. I can’t imagine that LaoMei Park is an unusual destination… it does look like it’s on a main bus route, near as I can tell, the Keelung bus.
Many thanks in advance… I don’t want to waste the weekend! I need some fresh air before I’m cooped up in the suite by myself thanks to the typhoon.
I really want to go up to LaoMei today before the typhoon gives me cabin fever… I’ve spent an hour with Google Maps, Google, and all the bus websites I can find, but my non-existent Chinese is insufficient :aiyo: and I still haven’t figured out which bus to take from the Danshui MRT… it looks like the bus to Keelung probably goes via that village but I really want the bus NUMBER since that’s the only reliable way to find the right bus stop. I think it could be the 1062?
Can anyone help me, please? I’m going to put my stuff together and make a sandwich and hopefully someone here will notice this post and has an answer… otherwise, I think I might just head for Danshui and hope that someone in the tourist info office speaks English.
Sorry for the double-post; the board told me I had to login to post so I thought it didn’t go. :fume: It does seem like the universe is a little stacked against me today… I will leave with low expectations, to be sure!
I don’t want to waste the weekend! I need some fresh air before I’m cooped up in the suite by myself thanks to the typhoon.