Use the menu above to scroll through various articles I’ve written about Taiwan or click on the links below for more articles about Taiwan.
For more recent articles about Taiwan, click over to Taiwan Scene, the publishing arm of MyTaiwanTour. 
Map of Taiwan courtesy of Taiwanball.
ARTICLES ABOUT TAIWAN
The Four Stages of Life of Life (as experienced through Taiwanese cuisine)
Childhood: Consequence-Free Dining at the Night Market
Will was on assignment in Taiwan, one of a group of bloggers, YouTubers, and other influencers invited by the Tourism Bureau to produce millennial-friendly content promoting Taiwan on the internet. It was his first day in town, so I figured the night market was a good place to start.
I texted my suggestion. When he replied, “Take me where the locals go,” I knew I was dealing with a fellow travel professional.
While Taipei’s night market scene is well-known, the casual traveler generally tends to stick to the big three as promoted heavily by the folks in the aforementioned bureau: the ever-popular yet…
Wind Warriors of The Pescadores
(A tale of windsurfing derring-do I wrote for the HK Standard in 2006.
It’s eight AM on the first day of the sixth annual Penghu ProAm windsurfing tournament, the first stop on the 2006-2007 Asian Windsurfing Tour, and the event promises to be a veritable sailing whirlwind. The crème de la crème of the windsurfing world are…
From Yilan: A Culinary Quartet
Yuanshan Township: Taiwan’s Best Chicken
Vegetarians can’t comprehend the visceral, savage joy of ripping apart a roasted bird with their bare hands, and this is one of several reasons they (and their more diet-restricted vegan brethren) should give Old Mamma’s Barrel Chicken a wide berth. If the powerful aroma of roasting bird…
An explosive experience at the Yanshui Fireworks Festival
It’s just past midnight. In a few moments all hell breaks loose.
Twenty feet ahead of me and a few hundred fellow festival-goers stands a crate two stories high and a city block wide. This specially-built crate is called a castle, and it’s stuffed to the roof with bottle rockets laid on horizontal slats and pointing in all directions. Soon the crate will be set on fire, and explosive bolts will shoot in all directions…
Taken somewhere on the road from our 2015 Taiwan cycling tour.
TAIWAN: FROM BIKE KINGDOM TO CYCLIST’S PARADISE
Taiwan is now a mecca not just for bicycle importers but for enthusiasts as well.
“Ni Fengle!” (You’re crazy!)
I remember fondly those words, spoken by my Taiwanese landlady Ms. Yeh on hearing my plan to cycle to Taipei from our shared home in Shuangshi, a small town on the outskirts of the Hsinchu Science Park. She’d never seen a man clad head to toe in skin-tight spandex and apparently found my costume shocking. But Ms. Yeh was not alone in thinking me mad. Ours was a small town, and as the strange foreign transplant I was often Shuangshi’s unofficial source of entertainment. Before I’d gotten past the betel nut stand marking the town’s edge, several neighbors had come out to wish me well on my journey, with more than a few casually dropping a derogatory comment about the helmet.
It was Spring 1995, and while Taiwan was being called The Bicycle Kingdom, this was a title earned…
Five Reasons why Taiwan should be on your bucket list
Scenery
Visually stunning, Taiwan is a shutter-bug’s paradise. Running down Taiwan’s spine is the Central Mountain Range, a magnet for mountaineers looking to scale…
A Traveler’s Guide to Buying Jade
Valued throughout Asia for its beauty and elegance, jade is an especially desired keepsake for visitors to Taipei, which has hundreds of stores specializing in jade as well as the colossal weekend Jade Market. As a long-time resident of Taiwan, I’ve been asked on more than one occasion to accompany visiting friends to purchase jade…
The Winding Road To Smangus
This remote indigenous village lives on tourism but is determined to preserve its traditional way of life.
The road to Smangus (司馬庫斯) is difficult, especially for a travel writer prone to motion sickness. If the idea of a motion-sick travel writer strikes you as odd, so be it. Smangus is a study in balanced contradictions…
A Trio of Offbeat Hotels
f three solid months traveling around the island researching a new memoir/ travel book while introducing Taiwan to my partner Stephanie has taught me anything, it’s this: Taiwan marches to its own beat.
From a massive spherical shopping mall to a humble countryside church that happens to resemble a gigantic glass slipper, the Taiwanese have a penchant for creating venues that are unique and often downright quirky.
A Glimpse at Taiwan’s Bicycle Racing Scene
Looking for a uniquely Taiwanese cycling challenge but can’t get two weeks off to huan dao (circle the island)?
Have you become so good at navigating Taipei’s frequently changing bike-lane system that you’re lacing your coffee with Whisbih just to keep it interesting? Then you, cycling friend, ought to consider joining an organized cycling race.
The most established of these is the Tour De Taiwan (TDT)…
Media About Taiwan
For first time visitors (and visitors to be) to Isla Formosa, a (hopefully growing) list of books, magazines, movies and other media resources designed to introduce the landscape, culture and history of Taiwan.
