Has anyone ever joined a Taiwanese tour group to travel either around Taiwan or abroad? It seems to me that joining one of these tour groups can be a lot cheaper than arranging and booking the same travel by yourself.
For instance I was watching a TV shopping channel and they had a deal for a 5 day tour to Jinmen and Xiamen including all flights, hotel accommodation and food for less than $8000. I can’t find flights alone for less than that – never mind the accommodation fees.
I also think that it would be a good cultural experience to travel with 30 other Taiwanese people to see how they behave and what the social norms and customs are. It is also an opportunity to meet new people. The only problem that I can foresee is if the majority of the group speak Taiwanese then I am stuck because I can’t understand a word of Taiwanese. Maybe a tour departing from Taipei would ensure the majority of the people were Mandarin speakers?
However my Taiwanese wife is dead against the idea. She refuses to join such a tour. Does she have a valid reason to be against it? Has anyone on here ever joined such a tour?
I’ve done bus tours a few times. It’s pretty good, especially if you’re going somewhere that wouldn’t be practical for independent travel. The only real problems are:
you’re stuck with a schedule (“be back at the bus in 20 minutes”) which most likely won’t fit with your personal interests.
some of them will rattle around six different destinations in a single day, which means you spend 90% of your time on the bus. Choose a more leisurely pace if you have the option.
food (if provided as a group meal) tends to be pretty basic, or downright crap. Often you’ll get dropped at a “recommended” restaurant, which is presumably someone the tour group has an arrangement with, not necessarily the best place to eat.
the tour guide will ramble on and on and on when you’d rather they just STFU for a bit.
No idea about accommodation - I’ve only ever done daytrips and a ‘custom’ package (small group) where we booked our own guesthouse. It’s a cheap way to see a lot of things that you might not otherwise have the time or the inclination to get to by yourself.
btw, you do get quite a lot of oldies, and a lot of Taiwanese, but I doubt anyone would struggle to speak to you in Mandarin. The guides will do their thing in Mandarin, and in my experience will try a bit of English if you don’t understand.
Back in the days when the missus and I were dating, we went on a few group tours and had a fun time on all of them. Obviously, it would help if you could speak a bit of Mandarin, as the tour guide mostly uses that. I do not remember at all any of the tour guides using Taiwanese. The tour guides were all young, under 30, so were very nice. One guy even gave some free cigars to me, as he got those for his own package. The food is usually Chinese (hard to believe, right, ha!), or something that is special to that area, like Korean BBQ or Ginseng meals in South Korea. At most you may meet one other foreigner in the tour group who is also with his Taiwanese girlfriend or wife.
It’s the luck of the draw and where you go that results in the makeup of the tour groups. Went to Okinawa, Langkawi in Malaysia, South Korea (during Chinese New Year break and boy was that butt-cold and snowing, but fun), and Palau (by far one of the best trips I have ever taken since I’ve lived in Taiwan. I heartily recommend going there on a snorkeling tour. Fun all-around). Thus, we were with mostly a young group. Most of the others in the group were under mid-40. Some husbands and wives, some boyfriends and girlfriends, and some were groups of 3-4 single girls (nice if you are single guy) having a vacation together. Even 1 or 2 families with young children. So, you’ll get a wide range of members to tour around with.
Overall, I think the price (cheap) well made up for any “schedule”-type tour. You can always check the tour online and see how often they make stops. Also, the positive is that you can nap on the bus between stops to make up for getting up early to get that “scheduled” breakfast.
Yes, they stop at shops that usually kick-back money to the tour company for bringing you there, but you don’t have to buy anything. Just roam around and eat the free stuff.
My wife actually met one of her best friends on one of those early tours.
[quote=“Milkybar_Kid”]Has anyone ever joined a Taiwanese tour group to travel either around Taiwan or abroad? It seems to me that joining one of these tour groups can be a lot cheaper than arranging and booking the same travel by yourself.
For instance I was watching a TV shopping channel and they had a deal for a 5 day tour to Jinmen and Xiamen including all flights, hotel accommodation and food for less than $8000. I can’t find flights alone for less than that – never mind the accommodation fees.
I also think that it would be a good cultural experience to travel with 30 other Taiwanese people to see how they behave and what the social norms and customs are. It is also an opportunity to meet new people. The only problem that I can foresee is if the majority of the group speak Taiwanese then I am stuck because I can’t understand a word of Taiwanese. Maybe a tour departing from Taipei would ensure the majority of the people were Mandarin speakers?
However my Taiwanese wife is dead against the idea. She refuses to join such a tour. Does she have a valid reason to be against it? Has anyone on here ever joined such a tour?
Thanks[/quote]
I have done some group tours in Taiwan. However all of the tourist where Mainland Chinese.
The one thing I remember is they always said lu 不 lu(sorry I don’t know what character it is) instead of 累不累. I had no problem understanding the Taiwanese tour guide, but sometimes I didn’t understand the Mainland Chinese.
If it is too good to be true, it is. That is way underpriced, beware hidden costs, as there have been several problems with that regard in past months. If you are interested in a toir, book it from a reputable agancy, better not from TV channel, especially not certain Eastern TV shopping channel.
I have had it all: from the tour guide only talking in Taiwanese -on a trip booked by our Hong Kong based company, and after several requests from like half of us who did not speak Taiwu to explain things in Mandarin too- to being put in double bed with our coworkers -fine for us girls, bad for the guys, and no, no mixed arrangements.
I have used local tours locally several times, yes, as said, the schedule is fixed, the food communal and the shoping stop a nuisance. But it is cheaper. There is also the option of hiring a local guide yourself, no biggie.
Jinmen as you have said is a special case. Transportation is complicated, and there are many hidden corners beyond the brewery and the underground museum that are available only through guided visits.
I have been on a few of these tours either in Taiwan, or with a Taiwanese tour group in another country, and I try to avoid them as much as possible. I pretty much only take them now if I can get a good deal on airfare (and/or the hotel) and ditch the site seeing to do my own thing.