Ita Thao is the busiest of the three lakeside villages and the one where you will probably eat. It is a compact grid of a few streets directly below the ropeway station, packed with food stalls, indigenous craft shops, guesthouses and cafés looking out over the water.
It is also the home of the Thao, who at fewer than 900 people are the smallest of Taiwan’s sixteen officially recognised indigenous groups. Their ancestral territory was drowned when the lake was dammed, and the community was resettled here. There is a real history under the souvenir shops, and the small cultural performances staged in the village are run by Thao people rather than for them.
Top things to do at Ita Thao
Eat your way down the food street
Wild boar sausage, millet wine, assam black tea grown on the hills above the lake, and president fish — the local name for a lake fish supposedly favoured by Chiang Kai-shek. Come hungry and graze rather than sitting down for a single meal.
Watch a Thao performance
Short daily shows of pestle music and dance are staged in the village square. They are modest and unglossy compared with the big production at the Culture Village, which is precisely what makes them worth twenty minutes.
Use it as your ropeway and ferry base
Ita Thao is the only village with both a ropeway station and a ferry pier, which makes it the most practical place to start a day of moving around the lake without a car.
How to get to Ita Thao
- The round-the-lake public ferry connects Ita Thao with Shuishe in about 15 minutes and runs regularly through the day.
- Round-the-lake buses stop at Ita Thao roughly every hour; by road it is around 20 minutes from Shuishe.
- The village is at its liveliest in the early evening, after the day tours have gone and the lanterns come on.
- Ropeway queues at Ita Thao are longest between 11:00 and 14:00 — go early or late.
- Staying in Ita Thao is cheaper than Shuishe and puts you closer to the ropeway, at the cost of a slightly less polished waterfront.
Best tours & tickets for Ita Thao
These top-rated experiences are the easiest way to enjoy Ita Thao and its surroundings:
Attraction ticket from $6 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
Day trip with audio guide from $29 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
Water activity from $70 Sun Moon Lake: Stand-Up Paddleboarding Experience
Sun Moon Lake sits in a bowl of mountains at 748 m, which keeps the water unusually still — ideal conditions for a first time on a paddleboard. Sessions run from a quiet stretch of shoreline away from the ferry routes, with all the kit and a short briefing before you go. The early slots are the ones to book: the lake is at its glassiest just after dawn, mist sits in the folds of the hills, and you have the surface almost to yourself before the tour boats start running. A genuinely different way to see a lake most people only photograph.
- Paddle the calm, motor-restricted water of Taiwan’s largest lake
- Board, paddle, buoyancy aid and a briefing all included
- Sunrise sessions with mist still lifting off the surface
