A few days after our first tour with KKday in Taiwan, we went on another day tour to explore other cities such as Jiufen, Yehliu, and Shifen. These cities are located on the Northern coast of Taiwan and offer spectacular landscapes and historic landmarks.

A post shared by Maryrose + Reid | Travel (@wanderlustyleblog) on Jul 6, 2018 at 2:23pm PDT

The day tour from Taipei to Jiufen, Yehlie, and Shifen was 8 hours (from 8:45am to 5pm). It cost only $32.72 per adult because most of the stops offer food for purchase and activities are optional. You’re basically paying for a tour guide and a ride to each location; Totally worth it! For this tour, we were split into two group where one tour guide spoke English while the other an unfamiliar to my ears foreign language. What I love about KKday tours is that they offer different types of tours specifically for the major languages.

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Our meeting point was at Taipei Main Station, where we met our tour guide along with the rest of the group. Then, we boarded the KKday tour bus and watched the mandatory safety announcement while riding the bus followed by a quick video about our itinerary for the day.

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For our first stop, we had one hour in Yehliu to explore Yehliu Geopark, famed for its unusual rock formations, including the iconic “Queen’s Head”. The natural landscape of this place was eroded by the sea. It was one of the places I was looking forward to seeing in real life. It was such an incredible way to see the way nature takes its course and create these magnificent rocks.

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Next, we headed off to visit the quaint village of Shifen where we stayed for an hour and a half. It’s gained a lot of attention over the past few years with tourist because it’s the only place in Taiwan where you can legally release your own sky lantern. It’s located along the old train tracks and winding lanes within Shifen Old Street (Pingxi). Here, you have an option of purchasing a lantern since it’s not included in the tour. There’s a ton of vendors selling the same lanterns, so there’s one for everyone! Once you purchase a lantern, you’re given a paintbrush to write your wishes, after, one of the workers will light up the flame for the lantern’s release. For each lantern being released, there’s a worker taking photos for you and lighting your lantern. Then it’s time to release and hope for your wishes to come true!

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Then, we took a quick drive to Shifen waterfall, where we witnessed such a beautiful waterfall. The falls’ total height is 20 meters and 40 meters in width, making it the broadest waterfall in Taiwan. It was such a refreshing stop! Wishing we were able to take a dip during our visit – we might need to let KKday know to incorporate it in their future tour.

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Lastly, our favorite stop, the mountain town of Jiufen! This magnificent place is known for its narrow alleyways of its old town, packed with teahouses, street-food shacks, and souvenir shops. There are only two ways to enter the old town where the shops and food vendors are. The first option is to walk 200 steps up and second, would be to take a bus or taxi to the mountain entrance since the tour buses are not allowed to drop off in that area. If you’re able to do the first option, definitely do so as there are plenty of tea houses along the way and it’s also where you can take the photo shown above.

Exploring Jiufen, Yehliu, and Shifen was definitely a highlight of our trip! This KKday tour was very affordable and saved a lot of time having your own tour bus and tour guide. Even though the attraction admissions, sky lantern expenses, and food WERE NOT included in the tour payment, it was still inexpensive. This is a tour not worth missing during your trip to Taiwan!