This is my series on our 2018 Round the Island World Schooling Trip. For more posts, you can check out the index page or subscribe to my Facebook page. You can also subscribe to my Instagram for pics.
Our Taiwan trip will be the second time I spent two+ stressful weeks hunting down AirBnB lodging with only 6-8 weeks out from our flight date. Though I hear that, on average, people book AirBnBa about 6 weeks before their trip. So I was being average compared with friends who look 6+ months ahead.
An Epic Education has an ultimate guide for booking AirBnB with families as well as an awesome podcast that talks about it, if you’d rather listen instead of read. Definitely check it out before you continue with this post. Those tips are super relevant to people who are planning to stay long term at an AirBnB.
For my post, I just want to talk about tips for traveling around Taiwan, though some of these tips could apply to people who are staying 1-2 months in Taipei for the summer.
First, our lodging needs. For both our Japan and Taiwan trips, I had to look for lodging for 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, and 8 people, because we traveled with family or friends and if lodging for the whole group didn’t work, we had to split into two AirBnB units. So I’ve spent countless hours figuring out how to search AirBnB for various lodging needs.
My AirBnB search this time around was particularly hard because I was really trying to look for cheaper lodging. I started with a random daily budget of $100-$125 for food, lodging, transportation, and experiences. Once I factored in those other costs, I knew our daily lodging had to be $40-$70, preferably around $50. I was essentially trying to book 7-8 people at 4 people prices.
Tips to Make Your Stay Comfortable
1. Many places don’t have kitchens, or if they do, it’s not fully useable.
Just because you check that Kitchen option, doesn’t mean there’s a real kitchen. Read the descriptions and look at kitchen pictures very carefully, see if there is actually a stove or if they’ve covered it and provided one small electric burner instead. Sometimes the host will say that you are not allowed to cook in the unit, even if there is a kitchen.
The reason is probably because cooking means food, food means cockroaches, cockroaches means bad reviews.
Since we were only staying 3 nights In Taipei, we deliberately chose places with just kitchenettes, which typically has sink, water hotpot, maybe some dishes. We didn’t expect to eat in the apartment so it was fine we didn’t have a kichen.
In Hualian, I looked at a place that had a nice looking kitchen, then finally saw the fine print that you can’t cook there the third time I read the long description. Then the AirBnB we did ultimately stay at had a kitchen that looked good online, but really I should have been forewarned by the strange picture angle. It was so tiny and unlit (unlike the pic) that we barely used it during our week there.
2. Book your lodging during the middle of the week
Generally in Taiwan, expect between $60-$150 a night, with $100+ being the average if you want washer and kitchen. This pricing applies from 2-4 people and up. In Taipei, prices are closer to $110-$150 and up for a family of 4.
I was surprised that housing wasn’t that much cheaper elsewhere, especially in touristy places like Hualian or Taidong, which technically is way remote and so should charge you less. However, these are touristy places so they charge tourist prices.
We even looked at backpacking hostels. But since most of these count by number of people, it was often MORE expensive.
Costs are the most expensive on Saturday nights, and second most expensive on Friday and Sunday nights. Taiwan is so small, many Taiwanese people like to do short weekend trips anywhere on the island. So I highly recommend that you schedule your 3-4 day trips during the week, only booking weekends on longer stays. This is what we did for Sun Moon Lake and Taidong and it saved us some money.
3. Many places don’t come with towels or toilet paper.
Make sure you read the descriptions and reviews! Some people complain about lack of towels. But it sounds like it’s just a very country-specific way of doing things. I suspect it is because some of their guests take toilet paper and towels with them.
The place we were originally going to rent in Taichung didn’t come with towels. I ended up just telling many hosts that we will bring our own towels as a way to say we are easy guests.
Sometimes people also complain about the thin, disposable looking towels. But this is very Taiwanese. Most of my relatives use small, thin, hand towels after their shower. A thick fluffy towel is not going to dry in the Taiwanese humid weather. However, most professional hosts that are accustomed to dealing with Western guests will provide regular thick towels.
4. Expect to hang your laundry instead of using a dryer.
Electricity is expensive. Sometimes the washer comes with a dryer (e.g. combo). Those take forever to dry. You can always hang laundry in front of AC overnight and turn on dehumidifier setting. Guaranteed to dry overnight.
We also tend to do our laundry every day or every other day. Just imagine the things that can grow in your hot and sweaty dirty laundry in a humid country if you wait a week.
When there’s no washer, you can send things out. This is what we did at Sun Moon Lake. Only $$3 USD for a huge trash bag! What this means is you can get by with 3 sets of clothing. Just to be safe I brought 4 sets.
Most AirBnB have a balcony that you can hang laundry. Sometimes there aren’t enough hangers, sometimes you’re hanging your laundry with the hosts’ own laundry, sometimes the rod is way high and you have to use a dodad to hang it up. We made do but it would have been nice to bring our own $1.50 clothesline from Daiso.
Usually laundry can dry overnight if you bring quick-dry clothing, or hang them in front of the AC or run a fan. In Taidong, our balcony was completely enclosed and my non quick-dry clothing took 2 days to dry, which doesn’t work when we were only staying 3 nights! So I ended up just hanging them in our bedroom and running the AC.
5. Not that much AirBnB options in major tourist attractions, east coast, or in the countryside.
Traditional B&Bs still abound in Taiwan. Some are huge “homes” that people build with 5-10 rooms and a common living area and kitchen. We ended up with one such B&B in Taidong, which was a lovely experience.
Others are converted homes that people run as B&Bs, such as the place we stayed in Puli. You won’t find all of them on AirBnB. I found my Tainan lodging through online blogger’s review of unique Tainan B&Bs, and I thoroughly enjoyed our experience living in an old house.
For Sun Moon Lake, we only found hotels.
6. Bring some items to make your stay more comfortable
The next time we travel in Taiwan, we’re going to bring/purchase these items:
- soap or Dr. Bronner
- table mop 抹布
- sponge
- bowls, chopsticks, spoons, forks, straws
- hand towel
I’m not sure why, but we often found no soap next to the kitchen or bathroom sinks. We ended up buying a 6 pack and dropped one at every location we stayed long term at. A small 3 oz bottle of Dr. Bronner soap is also a good option as it can double as soup when you’re in public restrooms that have none, or use it in your lodging.
Similarly, most AirBnB we stayed at had really nasty table mop and sponges for washing dishes. We also ended up buying a pack at PXMart to last us the whole trip. Most places also don’t provide paper towels, so if you spill anything you either use the really thin tissues or you can mop it with a table mop.
As I mentioned, I don’t like asking hosts for stuff cuz I’m weird. Waiting for hosts to respond and come with those items can also take time, not useful when you need it now. I happened to pack 2 sets of utensils to be environmental friendly (rather than use plastic) and Fleur happened to have bought 4 metal bowls for her kids. Those all came in handy when we stayed at places that did not have these things.
The chopsticks came in super handy the first night we stayed in Taipei. The AirBnB description says kitchenette, but they had only plates and no chopsticks whatsoever. Good thing I had some chopsticks on hand so we could eat some ramen that night. (Yes I could have also gotten some chopsticks at 7-11. 7-11 has everything!)
You may not have similar issues if you’re traveling as a group of 4 or under. But carrying metal utensils and straws are good for the environment. So many plastics are used in Taiwan because it’s so easy to eat take out.
Searching Tips
1. Read your descriptions very carefully.
You will find many regular B&B listing on AirBnB, especially in tourist areas. These are more your traditional bed and breakfast, with individual rooms and showers but shared kitchen/living or none. They will say in the listing you can 包棟, e.g. reserve the whole place, if you have enough people. That is one option if you have enough people in your party. Otherwise be careful or you’ll show up at a lodging and find out you only reserved a room.
I point this out because these listings WILL show up when you search for Entire Place even though you won’t get the entire place by yourself if you don’t 包棟.
2. Location location location
If you’re budget conscious and traveling with children, always try to stay close to a railroad station, or in Taipei and Taichung, a major bus stop. Always double any walking time mentioned in reviews. So if someone says it takes them 5 minutes to from MRT to apartment, make it 10-15. They didn’t account for the time it took for them to get out of the station. They also didn’t account for short-legged children who walk slowly and easily get distracted.
Needing to take a connecting bus takes time. Especially in the beginning when the children are not used to walking 10-15k steps a day, it is so hard after a long day to have to walk another 15-20 minutes to get home or wait for a bus to take you home. (Yes you can take taxis, but we’re talking low budget traveling here.)
Hosts sometimes exaggerate or lie about their location so it looks better on the search map. This has happened to me twice, where the host gave us an address that was not what’s listed on AirBnB once we booked. Try to find hints in the reviews.
In Taiwan especially, hosts take pics that often show their address. Or they are traditional B&Bs that list on AirBnB. So you can just Google their name and find their hotel listing info.
3. Discount super young children when you search
If your child sleeps with you, don’t count them when you search. In Japan especially, they count heads for towels and bedsheets purpose. In Taiwan it seems more arbitrary since they often don’t provide towels.
We always don’t count our preschooler when we search, then if we see a listing we’re interested, we contact the host and ask if we can book for 6 people instead of 7. This has allowed us to pull up listings meant for 6 people. Often the host will specify that you can add beds for an extra cost, but AirBnB sometimes miss those listening if you start with a lot of people in your search.
Basically think about how many people are going to sleep in one bed. So even though Fleur had 3 kids, we could go with 1 queen and 1 twin for her. Or, just 1 queen and her one child squeezes with us on 2 queens.
4. Search for beds instead of bedrooms
I was pulling my hair out trying to find lodging options in Hualian until I read An Epic Education’s post and searched by the number of queen size bed we needed. Suddenly, all these new apartments showed up! So it seems that AirBnB has an algorithm that automagically takes into account the number of guests and searching by beds can override that algorithm.
Some people don’t really have a living room and searching by bedrooms will exclude them.
5. Search by bedrooms when you want a specific type of space.
For example, in Tainan, where we are going to stay for 2+ weeks, I searched for a 3 bedroom place. This almost guarantees you will be living in a larger apartment than most, since most places outside of Taipei put only 1 queen bed in each bedroom.
But I would recommend searching by number of beds before you search by number of bedrooms.
6. Search for one more bedroom or bed than you need if you can’t find what you’re looking for.
We didn’t really need 3 bedrooms in Tainan. But since we couldn’t find two bedrooms, I broadened my search and then contacted the host and asked if we can just stay in 2 of the 3 bedrooms with a discount.
They agreed to the 2 bedroom price but told us we could just use the 3rd bedroom.
7. Narrow Your Choices by filtering must-haves
I don’t know why I kept unchecking that washer and kitchen box to see if I could find better deals. Because at the end of the day I always wanted a washer. If you have pocket wifi, you may not need wifi in your lodging. But I always checked that too in case our wifi went out for some reason. Can’t live without data!
When I couldn’t find places with washers, I unchecked the washer box. But, I’m so glad ultimately I persisted in my search for places with washers, with 7-8 people in our party, we generated a load of laundry a day. It would have wasted a lot of our fun travel time to have to make trips to the laundromat every few days.
8. Always chat the host up and ask for discounts
This was a particularly good advice from An Epic Education that I wish I’d learned earlier in my reservation process! I don’t like dealing with people directly and never really chatted hosts before this trip, often just relying on AirBnB description and reviews. I hated asking the hosts for stuff I needed.
If you plan to live at any place for longer than 3 nights, ask if they have discounts. At the end of my research and after chatting with multiple hosts, I realized that discounts is probably built into the price structure, as in, they expect people to ask. So, it never hurts to ask. Typically I frame it in terms of how many beds we need and how many children we have and ask if there are discounts (折扣).
From the podcast, I learned to contact the Airbnb host, tell them our situation (that we plan to cook at home, that 1-2 children sleep with mom), and make sure I have seen pics of kitchen cookware & utensils, washer, and bathroom.
It’s also how we scored our lodging in Tainan. The posting had 1 king and 1 queen beds. When I told the host our situation, Baba visiting half way through our stay and tiny young kids who still sleeps with mom, she told us about her other listing that was not on her website, provided an extra mattress, and it had enough space for us to squeeze in. The listing also did not say anything about washer but through chatting we learned that she had all of those things.
The amazing part was, since I asked about discounts, she offered us 50% for staying 12 nights! That shocked me and also taught me, once again, it doesn’t hurt to ask.
Our last 3 days in Taipei, our lodging had 3 bedrooms and many more beds than we needed. I asked the hosts if I could reserve and use just 2 of the 3 rooms and if there is a discount for that. One host charged us for use of 2 rooms but told us we could use 3 and just not use one of the beds.
It’s good to ask for confirmation of kitchen cookware and utensils you need. We found, at a minimum, we needed 1 pot, 1 pan, 1 colander, 1 large slotted spoon, one spatula, salt, oil, knife and cutting board, and enough bowls and utensils for 6 people. You’ll be surprised that despite telling the host we plan to cook before hand, we often arrived at our apartment and found there weren’t enough dishes and spoons for all of us. So next time, I’m going to ask for pictures if we plan to stay for awhile and give them my list of required kitchen cookware. I know many of my friends who stay in Taipei have no such issue. They always meet great hosts who are super responsive with the things they need.
Lastly, don’t be afraid to tell the AirBNB host that the place is over your budget. Though we didn’t ultimately book another place in Tainan, when I told the host the apartment was out of our budget, he immediately asked us what our budget was. Basically, think $100+ for pretty decent and enjoyable 4-6 people rooms with kitchen and washer. For cheap lodging, we found $40-$50 per family for 6-8 people rooms (so total $100+). But if we were to do 4 people cheap lodging it’s closer to $60-$80 per night.
9. Think twice about apartments without elevators.
If you are planning to buy a lot of books or have a lot of luggage, or a stroller, think twice about booking an apartment high up without an elevator.
Many old apartments won’t have one. Do you want to lug 13 50lb boxes of books down 4 flights of stairs? That’s what Fleur had to do. We knew going in that we had to but I won’t do it again.
10. Other Booking Tips
If you’re willing to chance it, ask your AirBnB hosts if you can chat them on Line, most Taiwanese have a Line account. Then propose to book the first night on AirBnB and pay the rest in cash. Ask for discounts for doing this. They should charge you less because you save on AirBnB service fees and what not. For our lodging in Taichung, we booked 1 night in AirB&B and then the rest we will pay him in person when we get there. This saved us a chunk of money.
However, said Taichung lodging then cancelled on us 3 days before we were to fly to Taipei. If we’d booked completely with AirBnB, they probably would have helped us find similar lodging and pay for the difference since it’s so last minute. But it was nail biting whether or not they would have helped me pay for the difference and it was hard finding lodging that fit our criteria so late in the game.
Instead, I ended up looking outside my price range, then chatting an AirBnB host up and told them our sob story, and our budget of $100 a night max. Though her price was more $190 a night for 6-7 people, she agreed to our price. So we ended up with an amazing place that costs the same or less than our original lodging.
That’s how I learned it doesn’t hurt to ask. I mean, granted in this instance, it also didn’t hurt we were booking about 1 week in advance and it wasn’t likely our host would get such a big party for her 3 bedroom to reserve her apartment, at an off travel season.
Lastly, remember AirBnB isn’t quite legal in Taiwan so many hosts asked us to keep our voices down and tell people we are friends of the host.
Overall, I’m happy we mostly went the AirBnB route instead of hotels and B&Bs. It’s nice to have your own space, washer/dryer, and kitchen when you travel with children. I’m sure I’ve missed some stuff but hopefully these tips will give you an idea of how to search for lodging in Taiwan and what to expect when you actually get there.
If you don’t have an account with AirBnB you can get up to $40 off your first stay. (referral link)
