Day Trip Itinerary
Kaohsiung + Tainan, One Day via HSR
A niche-but-beautiful loop through two cities, stitched together by a 15-minute High Speed Rail hop. Old city walls and banyan roots on one end, coral-rock trails and harbor sunsets on the other.
Kaohsiung
Tainan
Kaohsiung
7:00 AM
East Gate (Fengyi Gate), Zuoying Old City Wall
Taiwan's oldest walled city gate. Quiet before crowds arrive — and it's a short walk from the HSR station.
8:00 AM
HSR · Zuoying → Tainan
~15 min, frequent departures, no advance booking needed
8:45 AM
Shennong Street
Old brick shophouses strung with red lanterns. Best seen before the shops open and the street fills in.
10:15 AM
Anping Tree House
A 19th-century warehouse slowly overtaken by banyan roots. Quieter and stranger than Anping Old Street next door.
12:00 PM
Blueprint Culture & Creative Park
An indigo-dyed art park with cafes tucked in — a good lunch stop on paper.
Check before you go — main hall opens at 1:00 PM, an hour after this stop starts. Individual cafés/shops in the open-air complex may open earlier, but confirm, or swap this slot with Anping Tree House.
1:30 PM
HSR · Tainan → Zuoying
~15 min ride back
2:15 PM
Shoushan (Monkey Mountain)
Coral-reef rock trails, wild macaques, and harbor-view pavilions rising straight out of the city.
4:00 PM
Hamasen Museum of Taiwan Railway
Free, open-air rail yard with century-old locomotives left out in the open.
5:30 PM
The British Consulate at Takow
Sunset over the harbor from a terrace cafe, in a building built for exactly that view.
7:30 PM
Yancheng Old Street
A low-key old shopping lane to close the day out with dinner.
Notes
- Full day, tightly scheduled — if it feels like too much, drop the afternoon Kaohsiung leg (Shoushan) and linger longer in Tainan instead.
- Route flows in one direction with no backtracking.
- HSR tickets can be bought at the station or via the THSR app/website (thsrc.com.tw).
- Tainan's own HSR station sits on the city outskirts — budget a ~15–20 min taxi or bus into the historic core on each end.
Source: kaohsiung-tainan-itinerary.md