3 Days Taipei Suburb Tour

YehLiu Geopark

The main attractions in Yeliu Geopark are naturally formed mushroom rocks and ginger rocks. You may see the Queen’s Head, Dragon’s Head Rock, elephant rock, fairy’s shoe, earth rock and peanut rock. Queen’s Head, by appearance, looks like Queen Elizabeth I, which takes more than 4000 years to form. The length of its neck is 125 cm and has been weathered at a rate of 0.2 to 0.5 cm per year. It is expected to be broken in the next few years or the next earthquake. Here attracts more and more tourists from all over the world.

1 hour

Jiufen Old Street

Jiufan was an isolated village, used to be housed nine families, thus the village would request "nine portions" every time shipments arrived from town. Later Kau-hun (meaning "nine portions" in Hokkien) became the name of the village. In 1890, workmen discovered flakes of gold while constructing the railway. The resulting gold rush hastened the village's development into a town and reached its peak during the Japanese colonial period, Many present features of Jiufen reflect the era under Japanese colonization, with many Japanese inns open till now. Gold mining activities declined after World War II and the mine was shut off in 1971. Jiufen quickly went into decline and the town was mostly forgotten. In 1989, director Hou Hsiao-Hsien’s A City of Sadness won acclaim around the world. The nostalgic scenery of Jiufen as seen in the film charmed many people into visiting Jiufen. At the beginning of the 1990s, Jiufen experienced a tourist boom that shaped the town as a tourist attraction. Jiufen also became popular in 2001 due to the Japanese anime movie “Spirited Away” by Studio Ghibli. Jiufen soon attracted Japanese tourists. Jiufen is also introduced by many Japanese travel magazines and guidebooks.

1 hour 30 minutes • Admission Ticket Free

Houtong Cat Village

Houtong was once a rich small mining town in Ruifang. During its prosperous years, the area produced around 220,000 tons of coal per year, the largest coal output of a single area in Taiwan. The area also declined in the 1990s. Young residents started to emigrate to look for other opportunities. Eventually only a few hundred residents remained when the mining industry had died out. However, things started turning better in 2008, when a local cat lover organized volunteers to start offering abandoned cats a better life. They posted the cats' pictures online, resulting in an overwhelming response from other cat lovers around the nation. Soon, Houtong became a center for cat lovers as word spread, and the number of cats living there increased – thus reviving a declining village, and transforming it into a tourist destination.

1 hour • Admission Ticket Free

Shifen Old Street

Shifen Old Streets is located in the Pingxi area. Shifen railway station area is originally built for transporting coal during the Japanese era. The station and tracks run straight through the village. It was famous for its sky lantern activities. A sky lantern, also known as a Kongming lantern or Chinese lantern, is a small hot air balloon made of paper, with an opening at the bottom where a small fire is suspended. Shifen is now famous for thousands of lanterns released into the sky during the Lantern festival.

1 hour • Admission Ticket Free

Meals： None

Accommodation： Taipei

We will drop you off the airport.

Meals： None

Accommodation：