Exactly a year ago, I booked our tickets to Taiwan!!
It was a quiet night for me, the kids are asleep. I was browsing the internet and then decided I want to be able to travel again internationally. Our first one was in Hong Kong in 2018, which I felt happened a long time ago so.. I decided to write down an itinerary. I know I wanted to visit Taiwan next but I am not sure why. I felt baka boring, the kids will not enjoy it, or it will just be super boring travel for us. What do you expect? It was not like Hong Kong na merong Disneyland or Singapore na maraming activities.
Having that in mind, I still feel like I want Taiwan to be our next destination. I did my research on the best places to go and how to get there. I looked at Google Maps to have a feel at how the streets looked like and get myself familiarized, lol! And lastly, how much it would cost us. The last thing in mind that I had at the time was to look at airfare. I told myself that I wanted to have an idea of how much do we need to be able to apull this off soa I went to Cebu Pacific website which is my go-to airline and was so surprised to find out that they were actually doing a piso sale that day!! I got so excited and took that as a sign hahah! I was able to find a fare of around Php 13,000 for 4 people both ways. Super cheap if you asked me. Our ticket to Hong Kong was around 20k+ for the three of us.
I immediately went to book the flight but got so sad to find out it got fully booked in a snap! I decided to book only from Manila to Taipei flight for Php6,000 for the four of us. Our flight date was November 25, 2023 which gave us 7 months of preparation. We're not rich so I need a lot of time to save and plan for our upcoming trip. Since I have written out every place that I want to visit, and only booked one way, our trip will be flexible and will let me decide on tours and itinerary while looking for a cheaper return ticket.
One of the reasons why I want to visit Taiwan is because I am a fan of the OG Metor Garden cast. I wanted to visit National Chung Cheng University where they shoot most of the scenes from the series. However, upon research, it will take almost 2-hour travel from Taipei. I was worried that it it may be difficult for the kids so I decided not to include that in our itinerary and only focused on Taipei area and the North Coast.
Google Maps is super helpful in planning the itinerary. It gives you an idea of where each tourist spots are located and which are the ones you can go to that are close to each other. I also asked my sister for tips since she traveled to Taiwan multiple times already. When I was doing my research, I got so hyped and excited because I found out that Taiwan is an interesting country and not boring at all. If you are into activities like Disneyland etc, it may be a little boring for you since Taiwan does not offer those kinds of activities. It is more on a chill side of traveling which I really looked forward to because it will be our first time traveling with Vince and Dwyane. I was kinda afraid that it will be difficult for us to roam around so I only wanted this trip to be as chill as possible.
Two months before our trip, I was able to find a hotel that's cheaper and so close to Ximen station and Ximending night market. I booked via Agoda. For our tours, I decided not to book any from Klook this time because I really just wanted it to be relaxing and not rushed like our Hong Kong trip. It was also a plus that forex is more affordable than HK so I thought I wouldn't need to book ahead of time. I also found out that kids below 6 years old are free in their trains, buses and most attractions just as long as they are with a full paying adult. I thought I'll just buy tickets there rather than book ahead to make sure that Vince will actually get free transportation etc.
For our pocket money, I looked at our itinerary and looked for fares from Google maps anda tried to compute the total expense for a rough figure. I also decided to allot 500 NTD for the 4 of us for each meal (breakfast, lunch and dinner) so that's 1,500 NTD per day. I joined a Facebook group that gives a lot of tips for traveling in Taiwan and they said you'd need approximately 1k NTD per head per day to be able to eat decent meals, transportation, etc. I thought that might be too much for us, besides, I am a budgetarian traveler, that's too steep for me lol! But if you have the means, do not limit yourself. We are all different in how we travel, our appetites, and our wants, so you do you.
So that's about it. In my next post, I'll share more details of our day-to-day went, the tourist spots, and a lot more tips when going to Taiwan. See you on our next post!
