Getting There By Air

Taoyuan International Airport (TPE)
Tel: (03) 398 2143 (T1) or 398 3274 (T2).
Website: www.taoyuanairport.gov.tw

Taoyuan International Airport is located 40km (25 miles) south of the city centre.

Airport facilities: T2 is newer, with more services: a bank, post office, medical, nursery, duty free, hotel reservations, car hire, shops, beauty salon, massage and basic restaurants. Business facilities include executive lounges, limousine services, payphones, mobile-phone hire, Internet and meeting rooms. T2 has a business centre and convention hall. The Skytrain provides free, regular transportation service between T1 and T2 until midnight.

Transport to the city: Hotels will arrange airport transfers by limousine or minibus. There is no direct rail connection, but taxis or an inexpensive private airbus take passengers into the city centre in just under an hour.

Getting There By Water

The ports of Taichung, Hualien and Suao are only visited by cargo ships. Weekly international passenger ferries run between the Taiwanese Keelung and Kaohsiung ports and Naha, the capital of the southern Japanese-island of Okinawa. The overnight ferry, which takes from 16 to 20 hours to reach Keelung, departs from Okinawa on Thursday or Friday. Star Cruises' Gemini is the most reliable (tel: + 81 (03) 6403 5188 in Japan or (02) 2731 0808 in Taiwan; website: www.starcruises.com.tw). There are also sea links between Kaosiung and Maca.

Getting There By Rail

The new Taiwan High Speed Rail link (tel: (02) 6626 8000; website: www.thsrc.com.tw) runs north-south from Taipei to Kaoshiung. The link has made it possible to travel in comfort from one end of Taiwan to the other in less than three hours at speeds of up to 300kph (186mph). There are eight stops with four expecting completion by 2010. Electrified train services run along the west coast and diesel trains along the east coast. Services are slow, but frequent, and less expensive than flying (tel: (02) 2381 5226; website: www.railway.gov.tw). The main city station is Taipei railway station, 3 Beiping W. Road, Jhongjheng District.

Getting There By Road

As Taiwan is an island, you can't drive to Taipei from any other country. Two freeways run north to south. There are two major freeways into Taipei: Freeway 1 or the Chung-Shan freeway and Freeway 3 or the north-south freeway, known locally as the second freeway. Both go more or less north/south. From Freeway 1, take the Chung-Ching South Road and pass Chien-Kuo South Road to Chung-Hsio East Road to get into the city. From Freeway 3, take the Mu-Chia Road, pass Hsin-Hai Road and Fu-Hsing South Road to Chung-Hsio East Road. Taiwan has a higher car ownership per head than any country in the world, so the freeways are often congested.

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