Taichung
A big cool city for big cool tourists. Wait a minute, that's you!
Posted by: Josh, 16 January 2026
Even with a month or more to explore Taiwan, you won’t have time to go everywhere you want to go and do everything you want to do.
We couldn’t miss out completely on a visit to the West-coast city of Taichung, so we made sure to visit on our way back to Taipei after a jaunt around Sun Moon Lake, Xitou and Sun Link Sea.
Its public transport connections to other cities such as Taipei, Chiayi, and Kaohsiung, and to scenic spots in the mountains, make it the perfect spot for a layover. Here’s some ways to make a layover in Taichung worth your while.
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How to spend a day in Taichung
If you’ve only got a few hours before you need to get to your next stop, staying close to Taichung TRA station – with its easy connection back to the HSR station – might be your best bet.
We mapped out a short route, which would take just over an hour without any breaks, that started at the Railway Cultural Park next to the TRA station. This landmark gets very good reviews from many visitors but was perhaps a bit wasted on us. Its red-brick station front is similar to some you can still find in the UK or other parts of Western Europe, so perhaps it would appeal more to fans of this architectural style, or to tourists from other areas of the globe.
It's a pretty place to look around, and you may be interested in peering into some of the old trains kept out on display. It’s also home to some shops and is used as a space for events and festivals, so how much there is to do will depend slightly on what day you visit.
From there, we turned right and headed for an early lunch at Guanyin Organic Living Hall, a vegetarian restaurant inside a herbal medicine shop that we’d happily recommend to others. The lady running this place, who speaks a good deal of English, was clearly amused by how many Western tourists she'd served on this particular day… which suggests it’s probably more often frequented by locals. That's rarely a bad sign.
Next up, Taichung Park. Why? Though it’s not a particularly noted tourist spot and it isn’t as big as Taipei’s Botanical Gardens, for instance, we wanted to enjoy a bit of the greener side of the city. We ended up staying longer than expected, enthralled as we were by a kingfisher that had made the pond here home. You certainly don’t have to come here, but it’s a lovely park to stroll around and admire the urban wildlife.
From there, we made our way to stroll along Liuchuan Riverside Walk, where Christmas decorations were busy being set up. If you can get down to the riverside, you’ll be sheltered for a while from the busy city around you. Anyone who’s visited Seoul before may be reminded of Cheonggyecheon.
Depending on when you arrived and how much time you have, it’s a slight detour from here to visit the National Museum of Fine Arts, open six days a week – just not on Mondays. Home to a vast collection of modern and contemporary art, much of which is by Taiwanese artists, you’ll probably find it a worthwhile trip and might decide to call the rest of your tour off here.
Taking the route we took, you can then make a pilgrimage to the original Chun Shui Tang Bubble Tea Store, where bubble tea was invented. While bubble tea has, famously and undeniably, since been perfected by the beloved East coast chain Ding Go, it’s still fun to visit the place where it all started. The bubble tea is… well, it’s about the same as most places (i.e. stupendous), but the store front will look nice on your InstaTok and you can grab a bite to eat here too.
The sun starting to set and Taipei calling to us, we wandered back towards Taichung TRA station via the Green River Waterfront Trail, a shorter but even prettier inner-city stream than Liuchuan Riverside. We enjoyed watching the bats performing acrobatics over the stream as they feasted on insects, before ending our whistlestop tour by picking up treats for friends – and ourselves – at Miyahara.
I’ve described this dessert store to others as being like Liberty in London for sweet treats, with its carved wooden interior and thoughtful decoration. It’s expensive, so you might want to stick to the ice cream or a small box of truffles as we did, but it’s a great place to window shop. The pineapple Dawn Cakes we brought home for a friend stayed fresh for two weeks from the date we purchased them – and weren’t an extortionate price. It was the least we could do, considering the treatment she’d received from Rocky when she was cat-sitting for us. He says he's not sorry.
"I call the big one 'Hissy'"
Tips for a longer stay
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Had we stayed overnight, we’d have used some of the extra time to try Minimal ice cream. Famous for being the first ice cream parlour to get a Michelin Star, it’s since lost it after the owner took the decision to stop serving the seven-course tasting menu. Queues are likely to be long if you do visit.
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We’d also loved to have had time to check out Gaomei Wetlands. Read more about this area on Taiwanderers.
Getting there
Read more about public transport in Taiwan on our What to Know Before you Go post
From Taipei, take the High Speed Rail to Taichung HSR station. Depending on which exact train you book, the journey takes around 50 minutes to an hour and will cost around 580NT$ (£14). For our suggested short itinerary, factor in another 20 minutes or so to leave your luggage in a storage locker at the HSR station, costing 60NT$ (£1.45) for every three hours, and to jump on a local train to Taichung TRA station – which we were surprised to learn is not the same place as Taichung HSR.
It's equally easy to get to Taichung from Kaohsiung, and a bit cheaper too. From Zuoying HSR station in Kaohsiung, you can get to Taichung HSR in as little as 45 minutes.
Fast trains from Chiayi, where you may have stopped on a return journey from Alishan, take only 50 minutes but are much less frequent. But there are fast local trains – slightly different – which aren’t expensive and still take as little as 1 hour 25 minutes and take you direct to Taichung TRA station (rather than Taichung HSR). There is baggage storage available at this station too.
From Sun Moon Lake, buses take between 2 hours and 2 hours and 45 minutes. Look for the buses marked 6670. The bus queue at Shuishe gets fairly busy, so we just jumped on the first available, but the 6670D is the quickest if you prefer to wait for it.
Final thoughts on Taichung
Liz's final thoughts
Although there weren’t any famous tourist spots in Taichung that we felt were must-sees, I’m glad we stopped by for the day. It just felt like a lovely and relaxed city with lots of cute places to wander.
I would have loved to have visited the Gaomei Wetlands if we had time – I've heard sunsets there are beautiful. If you visit, drop a comment letting us know what you thought.
Josh's final thoughts
I'll set more time aside to enjoy Taichung whenever we next come back to Taiwan.
The lack of obvious spots to visit meant it slid towards the bottom of our list of places to see, but having visited once I'd love to be able to see more of the city at a more sedate pace.
It's quite hard to explain Taichung's appeal, and I can't guarantee that it will be for everyone. I just think it's neat.
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