Saving Moola -- Part I

Transportation & Accommodation

Want to save some money while traveling? This is the first of the series on this topic. We'll have some information specifically for Taiwan, but hopefully, you'll find the information helpful in general when traveling overseas.

First, let's talk about transportation. If you're worry about how to get to/from the wedding place -- no worries. We have already arrange for a shuttle bus on the wedding day.

We found that while within Taipei city, the public transportation system is very good. We wouldn't recommend driving a car in Taipei, especially for a visitor. Even if you can manage to rent a car, and navigate the streets, you will have to compete with the locals for parking space. So as long as your hotel is within walking distance of MRT (Taipei's subway), 90% of the sightseeing places are easily reachable, and you can probably get around without even knowing any Chinese. The story is different once you're outside of Taipei. Most of the sightseeing places are scatter about, and you really need to drive to get around. And getting around might be challenging unless you know how to read/write/speak Chinese.

So as you can imagine, the hotels in Taipei are similar to other big cities like Hong Kong, San Francisco, or New York. The rooms are small, and relatively expensive. If they are good deals, there is usually a good reason for it. And of course, you can find small or expensive hotels anywhere, but there are generally more roomy & affordable options outside of Taipei. As a side note, one thing that we have seen in some of the hotels is that they will charge you MORE because you're a foreigner.

One way to save would be to join a 5 or 6 days tour traveling around Taiwan, and then spend the remainder of the time in Taipei sightseeing on your own. To give you a *rough* idea on the cost & typical activities available, here's some quotes that Sharon has gotten. Of course, as we have more people, we have more leverage on pricing & itinerary.

Tour Info Link #1
Tour Info Link #2

The toughest part is that everyone has a slightly different schedule; so you're planning to attend our wedding, there's a rare opportunity to join with others who are interested.

If joining a tour around Taiwan is something that interests you, let us know! Tell us the timeframe that you're planning / available to stay. Once we get a better feel for how many people is interested and when, we can help with working out a deal that would be suitable for the majority of people.