Taiwan’s mountain heart — lake, high peaks and tea

Nantou: Sun Moon Lake Ropeway, Boat Trip & Bike Ride Combo

The single smartest ticket at Sun Moon Lake, and the cheapest way to start booking with us. Instead of queueing separately at three counters, you pre-book the ropeway, the round-the-lake ferry and a bike in one go, then redeem each with a QR code. The gondola climbs to 1,044 m for the postcard view over the whole lake; the ferry is genuinely useful transport between the three villages; and the bike path along the northwestern shore is the one CNN famously named among the world’s finest. Buy the pieces you want and skip the rest.

• Ride the Sun Moon Lake Ropeway high above the water for the classic panorama
• Hop-on hop-off boat between Shuishe, Ita Thao and Xuanguang piers
• Bike hire on the lakeside path rated one of the world’s most beautiful

From Taipei: Nantou and Sun Moon Lake View Day Tour

Nantou’s single most-booked day tour, and with more than 200 reviews the safest choice if you only have one free day in Taipei. A comfortable coach covers the 220 km each way while a guide fills in the history of the lake, the Thao people who have lived on its shores for centuries, and the Japanese-era hydroelectric scheme that gave the lake its modern shape. You get proper time on the water and at the lakeside temples without renting a car or piecing together three buses. Long day, minimal effort.

• Round-trip coach from Taipei — no driving, no timetable stress
• Time at Sun Moon Lake including the Shuishe waterfront
• Learn the story of the indigenous Thao people, Taiwan’s smallest tribe

Nantou: Qingjing Farm Green Green Grassland Ticket & Combos

Cingjing Farm is Taiwan’s "Little Switzerland" — rolling green meadows grazed by hundreds of sheep, set on a ridge at 1,750 m with the Central Mountain Range filling the horizon. Pre-booking saves you the ticket-window queue, which on weekends and holidays is genuinely long. The Green Green Grassland is the main event, with a sheep-shearing show by a New Zealand shearer and a Mongolian-style horsemanship display most days. Combo tickets that add the Skywalk are the better value if you are staying more than a couple of hours.

• Entry to the Green Green Grassland at 1,750 m above sea level
• Sheep-shearing show and the daily horsemanship display
• Alpine meadows and sea-of-clouds views over the Central Range

Nantou: Cingjing Skywalk Ticket with Optional Attractions

At barely the price of a coffee this is the best-value ticket in Nantou, and the easiest way to understand why people call this the roof of central Taiwan. The Cingjing Skywalk is a 1.2 km elevated timber-and-steel boardwalk running along the mountainside at around 1,700 m, suspended high enough above the slope that you walk level with the treetops and look straight down the valley toward Puli. It is completely step-free, takes about an hour at a gentle pace, and is at its best in the early morning when cloud is still pooled in the valleys below.

• Walk the 1.2 km elevated boardwalk — the highest of its kind in Taiwan
• Suspended up to 70 m above the hillside with uninterrupted valley views
• Barrier-free the whole way, so it suits every fitness level

From Taichung: Sun Moon Lake Day Trip with Audio Guide

If you are already in Taichung, this is the sensible way to reach Sun Moon Lake. Taichung is only about 90 minutes away, so you spend far less of the day on the road than you would from Taipei, and the audio guide means you get the history without being marched around in a group. You are dropped at the lake with a solid block of free time to ride the ropeway, take the ferry to Ita Thao or simply eat your way along the waterfront, then collected for the run back. The best price-to-time ratio of any Sun Moon Lake tour we list.

• Round-trip transport from Taichung, the closest major city
• Multilingual audio guide instead of a fixed group pace
• Free time at the lake to choose your own boat, bike or temple stops

Sun Moon Lake: Classic Tour with Sky & Lake

The most complete single day at Sun Moon Lake, designed for people already staying in the area who want everything organised. "Sky" is the ropeway that lifts you over the ridge for the full panorama; "Lake" is the boat that carries you between Shuishe, Lalu Island and Ita Thao. A meal is included and a guide ties the day together — the Thao village, the temples on the northern shore, and the trails that most day-trippers never find. Pricier than a bare ticket, but you finish the day having actually seen the lake rather than chased it.

• Both halves of the lake experience — the ropeway above and the boat below
• Lunch included, so no hunting for a table in peak season
• Hotel or pier pickup around the Sun Moon Lake area

Sun Moon Lake

Taiwan’s great mountain lake

The largest body of fresh water in Taiwan, held in a bowl of forested mountains at 748 m. A ropeway, a ring of temples, a famous cycling path and a ferry between three villages make it the country’s most complete lakeside destination.

Formosan Aboriginal Culture Village

Culture park and theme park in one

A large hillside park combining reconstructed villages of Taiwan’s indigenous peoples, daily song and dance performances, a European garden and a proper amusement park — linked directly to the lake by the ropeway.

Cingjing Farm

Taiwan’s little Switzerland

Rolling alpine meadows at 1,750 m where hundreds of sheep graze against the wall of the Central Mountain Range. Add the elevated Skywalk, a sea of cloud most mornings and temperatures ten degrees below the plains.

Hehuanshan

The peak you can drive to

Taiwan’s most accessible high mountain: a road tops out at 3,275 m, putting genuine alpine terrain, snow in winter and an internationally certified Dark Sky Park within reach of anyone with a car and a warm jacket.

Xitou Nature Education Area

Cedar cathedral at 1,150 m

A former National Taiwan University experimental forest turned reserve: towering Japanese cedar, a 180 m walkway suspended through the canopy, a bamboo hall and a sunken pond, all a good ten degrees cooler than the lowlands.

Chung Tai Chan Monastery

A cathedral of modern Buddhism

One of the most extraordinary religious buildings in Asia — a 150 m tower of granite, glass and bronze rising out of the fields near Puli, designed by C. Y. Lee, the architect of Taipei 101. The interior is astonishing and free to visit.