The easiest way to explore Taiwan with young children is by private car, but do you get a driver or drive yourself? This was the question we asked ourselves. It seemed like most, if not all, of our friends who had visited Taiwan and used a private vehicle had chartered a driver rather than self drive. But why not rent a car and drive yourself? We gave it a shot and here’s our experience as foreigners renting and driving a car in Taiwan.
Self driving in Taiwan – Booking and renting a car in Taipei
The adventure started with trying to rent a car before our trip. We decided to go with Chailease (which is also available via Klook), as we felt they were the most foreigner friendly, being a Hertz partner and having an English website. However, when we attempted to reserve the car for our dates, it kept returning an error message in Mandarin. This message stated that we could only book a car within 30 days of the date of rental.
We kept trying day after day, and found that on exactly 30 days before the start date of our rental, we were finally able to complete the booking process. We also added two car seats for our kids, and confusingly, we were not allowed to elect for extra insurance coverage at the point of booking.
After we finally managed to make the booking, Chailease got in touch with us and asked us to send over a photo of our IDP to ensure that it was in order before the trip. We thought this was a pretty thoughtful gesture.
Self driving in Taiwan – Driver requirements
Foreigners who intend to drive in Taiwan are required to have an International Driver’s Permit (IDP) and present this at the point of rental. This is not uncommon for non-English speaking countries, and we had to present an IDP to drive in Jeju, Korea, and Fukuoka, Japan as well.
Side note: it’s possible to get your IDP done entirely online via the AA website. However, it takes up to 10 working days for delivery, and you have to pay a fee for courier service. We’ve preferred to walk in to apply for the IDP, and in the past two years, we’ve gone twice during weekday lunch time and had no waiting time. The approval is immediate and you can get the IDP on the spot.
Self driving in Taiwan – collecting the rental car
We had opted to collect the car at Taipei Main Station, and soon found out that there are actually no car rental offices at the station, and the station is merely used as a convenient point of pick up and return of the vehicles. We found our contact easily, and he gave us a briefing on the paperwork, including asking if we wanted to purchase the extra insurance coverage (we always do this!) and providing essential information on tolls and what to do in case of an accident. We then walked over to the nearby car park where our rental car was parked.
We had requested for two child seats, but they had forgotten to install the seats before driving the car over to us. One of the guys from Chailease told us that we would have to go to their office to pick up the seats. After completing the initial inspection of the car, he got into the driver’s seat and drove us to pick up the car seats. The kids had no car seats for this ride. Not ideal, but we were in a country where car seat safety isn’t a big thing.
This lack of emphasis on proper car seat installation and use continued after we arrived at the office, where we were parked along the side of a busy road and the guys from the car rental company brought out two seats to install in the car. One of the seats appeared to be wrongly put together as we were unable to tighten the shoulder straps over our child when seated in it. They didn’t seem to think it was an issue and told us that it was the tightest the straps could go (if you know how car seats work, you’d know this isn’t true), but they were very friendly about it and happy to accede to our request to have that seat changed out for a new one.
Finally, we were in our rental car with everyone safely buckled into their seats. It took us about an hour longer than expected, but overall, with the friendliness of the people we encountered, it was not a bad experience.
Driving the rental car as a foreigner
The car we rented did not have an in-car GPS, so we relied solely on Google Maps for navigation. The directions provided were generally reliable, but the driving practices in Taiwan made it a little tricky for us. For one, road names on Google Maps appeared in English, sometimes (but not all the time) with accompanying Chinese characters. The road signs were in Chinese characters, with English words for major roads. This made it a little tricky to quickly decipher which road we were supposed to turn onto.
Google Maps also didn’t usually tell us which lane to turn into, which wouldn’t be an issue in our home country but turned out to be quite an issue in Taiwan. Often roads were split into two with a physical divider or double white line (do not cross) down the middle. The speed limit on one side would be higher than the other. It would also be impossible to turn right if you chose the left lane, and vice versa. If we didn’t choose the right lane from the start, we would be unable to make a right turn and had to take a long detour instead. This made turns highly stressful and I had to actively help navigate by checking the route ahead and making decisions as to which lanes we should be taking.
There are also plenty of scooters on the roads, particularly in the city areas (we drove in Taipei, Yilan and Luodong). This can make driving stressful as you have to be conscious of the small and fast moving scooters weaving in and out of traffic around you. We also found traffic to be relatively heavy, even in Yilan and Luodong.
Driving in the more rural areas and up mountain roads such as to Taipingshan did not differ much from our experience in Kyushu. However, the roads are full of bends and turns and can be very narrow without any barriers. This may be intimidating if this is something you’re not used to or conditions that you aren’t confident about driving in.
Would we recommend self driving in Taiwan?
If you’re considering self driving in Taiwan, we’d also recommend that you consider the option of hiring a private driver. While self driving is entirely possible, it might not be worth the extra stress of having to navigate foreign roads and foreign traffic rules, particularly in a country that is not foreign driver friendly.
For us, we still enjoyed the experience overall, but may choose to do things differently next time and perhaps take the high speed rail out to a more rural area, and pick up a rental car from there instead. We might also choose to use a driver for certain more difficult areas such as Sun Moon Lake or Taroko Gorge (which we did not visit on this trip).
If you are up for some adventure (and don’t mind a bit of misadventure!), then renting a car is still a safe and enjoyable option in Taiwan! You can make your booking from a local company directly, or use a platform such as Klook to help with the language barrier.
Looking for other self-driving holidays? Check out our trips to Jeju and Kyushu, and make sure you have all your road trip essentials packed!
