If it feels like everyone you know is suddenly going to Japan, that's probably because they are. The East Asian nation welcomed a record 42.7 million tourists last year, according to figures from the Japan National Tourism Organisation (JNTO). In February 2026 alone, arrivals achieved a high of 3.46 million. As the JNTO said, 'Japan is booming'.
But with so many visitors, overtourism is a real risk. Authorities have already been forced to erect a huge barrier in front of a Mount Fuji viewpoint due to overcrowding, and access to parts of the Geisha district in Kyoto have been restricted due to tourists 'harassing' the working geisha. So, when planning my next East Asian adventure, I decided to try somewhere different: Taiwan.
Long treated as a stopover or lumped lazily into the 'somewhere near China and Japan' category, the island is quietly becoming one of Asia's most compelling alternatives — an alternative that delivers much of what travellers love about Japan, but with fewer tourists. In 2025, figures from the Tourism Administration show that Taiwan welcomed just 8.57 million visitors, a fraction of its East Asian rivals.
But don't be lured into a false sense of security. That figure represents a 9% increase year-on-year, signalling that while Taiwan is currently the reserve of the more savvy traveller, more tourists are starting to pay attention. Lonely Planet calls the island 'delightful', recognising its 'wondrous vistas' and 'lively traditions'.
Sample the street eats
Taipei is a playground for the gastronomically obsessed, serving up everything from soup dumplings to the infamously pungent challenge of stinky tofu. But to truly eat like a local, you need to ditch the neon tourist traps and hit the pavement where the real magic happens.
Enter A Chef's Tour Taipei, experts of the Taiwanese street food scene. Helmed by a collective of passionate foodies and professional chefs, they specialise in hyper-local, food-focused itineraries that bypass the fluff and get straight to the flavour. Their four-hour evening crawl is a deep-dive through the capital's backstreets and hidden night markets.
With 12-plus massive tastings on the menu, you'll tuck into authentic lu rou fan (braised pork rice), local fish tempura, and golden, chewy sweet potato balls. It's an expertly curated experience that completely removes the intimidation factor — you'll be tasting guarded family recipes and navigating legendary stalls you'd never find on your own, all under the wing of the best local guides in the business.
Experience temple culture
Taipei is not as instantly polished as Kyoto, and that is partly why it is so interesting. Its temples do not sit apart from the city like museum pieces. They are wedged between apartment blocks, traffic lights, convenience stores and scooter-packed streets, with incense smoke drifting across the pavement and worshippers moving between carved dragons, red lanterns and food offerings.
Taiwan's religious culture is also fascinatingly layered. Taoist, Buddhist and folk traditions often overlap in the same temple complex, creating a spiritual world that feels far less neatly labelled than many visitors might expect. For outsiders, it can be hard to know exactly where one tradition ends and another begins. For locals, that fusion seems to be part of the point.
Taipei 101 provides the skyline moment, but the more memorable scenes are often at street level: a temple courtyard in the heat, a tea stop after lunch, a backstreet market stall, or the sudden realisation that the city's best moments are not always the ones that look best on a postcard. This is where travelling with guides makes a difference. Wendy Wu Tours' fully hosted Taiwan itineraries include temples, markets, villages, rail journeys and cultural encounters, with on-the-ground guides explaining the rituals, beliefs and histories behind the places visitors might otherwise breeze through in a blur of incense and camera snaps.
Spa in style
For many travellers, Japan and hot springs are an inseparable duo. But while Japan may have perfected the art, it doesn't hold exclusive rights to geothermal bliss. Taiwan sits atop its own restless geology, and Beitou — located less than an hour from central Taipei — is where the capital's neon glow dissolves into ethereal steam.
For those seeking the absolute zenith of luxury, Villa 32 is the undisputed crown jewel of the valley. This isn't just a retreat; it is an ultra-exclusive sanctuary that redefines the hot spring experience. An adults-only haven tucked into the lush Beitou hillside, the property is a masterpiece of privacy, boasting just five suites and a quiet, cloistered atmosphere that feels worlds away from the city.
The traditional rooms come with private hot spring baths, delivering the sort of ritualised soak many travellers chase in Japan. There are also public bathing areas and a polished spa sensibility that makes it feel less like a day trip and more like a proper reset. The restaurant is worth lingering for too, serving refined, Western-leaning cuisine in a calm stone-and-wood setting. After an afternoon immersed in healing mineral water, dinner here feels less like indulgence and more like common sense.
Escape to the mountains
Taiwan's cities get the attention, but the island is far more mountainous than many first-time visitors expect. Head inland and the mood changes quickly. The roads climb, the air cools and the landscape becomes steep, green and cinematic.
At HOSHINOYA Guguan near Taichung, the hot spring theme continues in a mountain setting. The resort is tucked into forested valleys, with private in-room hot spring baths and a design that nods to Japanese ryokan culture while remaining distinctly Taiwanese. It is all thermal water, quiet architecture and the sort of calm that makes checking your phone feel faintly vulgar.
Dinner is another reason to stay. The kaiseki-style menu applies Japanese technique to Taiwanese ingredients, unfolding slowly across multiple courses rather than arriving as a chaotic buffet. Local produce, mountain fish and delicate presentation turn the meal into part of the place rather than just something to fill the evening. If Taipei is the buzz, Guguan is the reset.
The not-to-be-missed Sun Moon Lake
If you need proof that Taiwan is not just a city break, go to Sun Moon Lake. Taiwan's largest lake sits among mountains and is one of the country's most famous scenic areas. It is also a key stop on Wendy Wu's broader Taiwan itineraries, including Treasures of Taiwan.
The lake is made for slow travel: boat rides, lakeside walking, temple visits and cycling paths that allow visitors to feel virtuous without requiring them to become one of those people who pack Lycra on holiday. The surrounding region is also tea country, which in Taiwan is not a casual matter.
Tea here is grown, graded, brewed, discussed and revered with the seriousness other nations reserve for wine, whisky or football. Oolong, black tea and high-mountain teas are woven into the island's identity, and tea farms around the central highlands offer an insight into one of Taiwan's great obsessions.
At Ita Thao Village, on the lake's edge, visitors can learn more about the Indigenous Thao people, browse handicrafts and wander the waterfront. Nearby Wen Wu Temple rises above the lake in ornate Chinese palace style, with sweeping roofs, stone lions and views that make the climb feel more reasonable once it is over.
Where to stay
For anyone who still thinks of Taipei as a stopover city, Capella Taipei delivers a quick correction. Set in Songshan, the hotel is styled as a contemporary 'modern mansion', with 86 rooms and suites, skyline views, a rooftop pool and service polished enough to place it firmly in the serious luxury category.
The property leans into local connection through its Capella Culturists, who curate personalised experiences for guests, while the interiors give Taipei a softer, residential interpretation rather than the anonymous gloss of a standard city hotel. The spa is a major draw, with individual treatment rooms, saunas, steam rooms and a couple's suite with a Hinoki wood bathtub.
Treatments draw on herbalism, aromatherapy and lunar-cycle-inspired rituals, which may sound elaborate until jet lag kicks in and you become suddenly open to anything involving essential oils and silence. Breakfast, meanwhile, is where restraint goes to die. Champagne and oysters are not usually the building blocks of a sensible morning, but here they make an impressive case for abandoning normal breakfast rules altogether.
The hotel's Cantonese restaurant, Rong Ju, also deserves attention. Named after the ancient banyan trees on the property and recognised in the Michelin Guide, it is led by a Hong Kong chef with decades of experience and focuses on Cantonese traditions reworked with lighter, more modern technique. After two nights here, Taipei feels far less like Asia's overlooked stopover and far more like a city that has been quietly getting on with becoming properly luxe.
Paul Ewart was a guest of Wendy Wu Tours, which offers several Taiwan itineraries for travellers, including the 15-day Treasures of Taiwan group tour, the 10-day Taiwan by Rail and the eight-day private Taiwan Express itinerary.
