Taroko Gorge is a beautiful, marble covered river valley on the East Coast of Taiwan, just a little over 2 hours outside of Taipei. Hiking through the stunning scenery there was by far my favorite experience in Taiwan. If you love nature, photography, or hiking, it is definitely an experience you don’t want to miss!
I probably took 1000 pictures during my two days in the park because I was just so in awe of the natural beauty. But pictures don’t even do this place justice. The gorge itself is so unique because it is composed of natural marble. Stone that has been marbleized in a beautiful black and white swirling pattern with occasional touches of bright green.
Where to stay/ how long
To visit the Gorge, I decided to home base in Hualien, which is the closest actual city to the Gorge. From Hualien it takes 30 minutes to drive to the Gorge and the commute time didn’t bother me at all during my trip. There are a few other small towns a bit closer, but with less amenities and things to do in the evenings. Hualien is about a 30 minute drive from the Gorge.
I spent 3 nights in Hualien which gave me two full days to explore the Gorge. This turned out to be the PERFECT amount of time. If you are into hiking and the great outdoors, like me, you will definitely will want to return to the Gorge for a second day, so be sure to put enough space in your itinerary to make that happen.
Getting around the Gorge
Within the Gorge itself, the scenic areas are fairly spread out and require some sort of motorized transport to get from one location to the next. I would NOT AT ALL plan to walk from one scenic spot to the next because you would be walking all day.
With that in mind there are essentially three main ways to see the Gorge.
#1 Take the free shuttle bus from site to site…
I’ve heard only negative things about doing this and overall it appears to be a very inefficient way to see the Gorge. Apparently the buses don’t come very often, don’t stop at every ideal stop and are very slow moving. Unless you want to spend your whole day waiting around at bus stops or risk being stranded at the Gorge overnight if you miss the last bus out, this is not the ideal thing to do. This method of transportation would only be for those with extreme budget restrictions (and honestly, you’d probably be better hitch hiking at that point).
#2 Rent a scooter and DIY tour the gorge
Unless you are very experienced and confident on a scooter, this could be dangerous. The roads are narrow and winding with large tour buses coming around corners, and fallen rocks in the middle of the road. Basically unless you feel particularly adept at scooters, I would again not recommend this one. I guess you could rent a car too- but that did not occur to me until literally just now. The main problem with renting a car would be limited parking spots at many of the trail head (which is not a problem for motor bikes), but something to consider if you have your international drivers license.
#3 Sign up for a guided tour
Sign up for a guided tour. This is the one I chose and I’m soooo happy that I did. I was initially skeptical of signing up for a guided tour. For one, it was expensive, almost $70 USD. For another, I hesitated to bind myself to any group of strangers for an entire day, worried I may get annoyed by my tour guide or tour companions. I’ve been on tours before where the guide talked the whole time and I had to spend all day pretending to care about what he said. I didn’t want to repeat that experience. Ultimately I signed up for two tours and it was THE BEST decision I could have made.
What to do in Taroko Gorge
Day ONE- Better Taroko Gorge Tour with Island Life Taiwan.
I used the tour company Island Life Taiwan and had an incredible experience with them. I sincerely give them my HIGHEST recommendations.
The tour itself included transportation to and from the Gorge with pick up right at your hotel/hostel. Surprise snacks along the way and a sit down lunch at an aboriginal restaurant. A full day of exploring from 7:30-4:30. A killer tour guide who also took some awesome pictures (which they send to you in a google drive at the end of the trip).
Our day exploring the gorge was nothing short of magical. The tour guide Alan was a true gem. He was hilarious, playful, just the right amount of informative and took us to a handful of incredible places in the Gorge.
He was also helpful and quite the photographer, he kept telling me “it’s all about the angles” as he took some fantastic pictures. He totally had the inside scoop on the Gorge and connections that allowed us to go to a secret swimming hole that isn’t technically open to the public.
I also LOVED the group of people I was with. Island Life Taiwan keeps the tour groups purposely small, so we had only 8 people and our personalities all clicked spectacularly. We had an incredible day of taking pictures, going on short hikes, seeing the sites and even had a delicious sit down lunch at an aboriginal restaurant deep in the gorge.
The tour started off early, my pick up time was 7:15am so that we could get to the Gorge before all the big groups of tourists arrived. The entire day was filled with highlights so it feels impossible to single any out, but if I HAD to pick a top three these were the cream of the crop.
Shakadong Trail
This is a nice place to start the day as the trail head is adjacent to the entrance to the national park. We ended up going swimming at a secret swimming hole that only Alan is allowed to use (because he knows a guy), another perk and reason to use Island Life Taiwan for your adventure.
The Bell Tower Hike
The trail head for this is at a small temple and just a short drive past the Shrine of the Eternal Springs. The hike itself is about 15 minutes, all uphill and totally worth the views at the top. If you climb even further to the top of the tower you can ring the bell and make a wish. Apparently, if it comes true you are supposed to come back within the year and say thank you. I’m totally prepared to do that if my wish comes true 🙂
The Tunnel of 9 Turns
This one is incredibly scenic and everywhere you look you see another fantastic angle to take a beautiful photo of the gorge. It is recently reopened, after some rock falls damaged the trails, as of Jan 2020 it was only open 700m. It’s a fairly short walk, and totally worth it for all the epic views. It’s also mostly covered, because your walking through a tunnel (hence the name) so especially nice if it’s raining. Something else to note is that there is only scooter parking here and no parking for cars.
DAY TWO- Old Zhuilu Trail with Unique Fun
If you are an able bodied person capable of hiking 6km, this trail is a MUST do. The views from the cliffs of this trail were so insane and breathtaking.
In order to hike this trail you need a permit as the park rangers limit the capacity to 96 people per day. The easiest way to get the whole permit thing handled is just to sign up for a guided tour. For this tour, I decided to try a different company since it was significantly cheaper than Island Life Taiwan, and I was pleasantly surprised with their quality of service. The company is called Unique Fun and I found them through searching “Old Zhuilu Trail” on Klook to get a deal of around $30 USD.
One of the guides essentially took on the role of my Instagram boyfriend for the day and became very invested in taking beautiful pictures for me as I hiked along the cliff. It was the best.
With the tour we actually only did the half version of the hike which was 6km there and back and took us about 3 hour (including a brief lunch picnic at the top).
The views from this hike were absolutely breathtaking to where I actually got chills. It was a fairly difficult hike. I was sweating and very much out of breath but totally worth it for the insane views.
Since the group I went with were such experienced hikers and finished fairly quickly, our tour guide took us on a little bonus tour to the Quingshui Cliffs. These were beautiful and something that was initially on my radar to see, but something I didn’t think I would end up having time for and so I was willing to let it go.
I’m so happy I got to do this spontaneous little bonus trip and the views were spectacular, however I don’t think it is a MUST see while in this area. As in, I personally would NOT go out of my way to recreate this experience.
However, my tour guide did mention that in summer they offer sunrise kayak tours of the cliffs and the pictures he showed me from that looked absolutely incredible. So if you are visiting Taiwan in the summertime, I totally urge you to check that out.
Taroko Gorge was one of the true highlights of my two week tour around Taiwan and something that totally deserves to be on your bucket list when exploring this beautiful island country. If you have any questions about planning a trip to Taiwan or Taroko Gorge in particular please feel free to send me an email chelseaturgeon@theturquoisetraveler.com
