Winter

Winter brings a reprieve from the typhoons of late-summer. In general winter here is mild, there is less rainfall, and weather patterns are more stable. In the cities, temperatures rarely fall below 13 C (55 F), but Taiwan’s 3000-meter mountains will see snow during this period.

The Outdoors & Nature

Cycling

The chillier weather makes this a great season for exploring the outdoors. Over the past several years, interest in outdoor activities has grown exponentially, and today, cycling and hiking routes are well established, and feature plenty of useful amenities. The winter is a perfect time for multi-day cycling tours of Taiwan. Shorter trips include 2-3 tours throughout the beautiful, rural and relatively flat East Rift Valley in Eastern Taiwan, or around the mountains of Nantou, while longer options include supported tours around the island.

Wellness & Hot Springs

Every winter, Taiwanese look forward to bathing in hot springs. Taiwan has over 128 individual hot springs. Many of these have been developed into leisure and wellness retreats with multiple hotels, restaurants, and of course, due to their proximity to nature and the mountains, many walking paths and hiking paths.

A tourist soaks in an indoor pool at the luxury Hoshinoya hot spring resort.

A man bathes in an outdoor hot spring at night.

A woman bathes in the nude in a gender-segregated bathing area.

A person's feet can be seen coming out of the water as they soak in a hot spring.

winter-hoshinoya-indoor-pool

miaoli-onsen-papawaqa-nighttime-bathing

miaoli-onsen-papawaqa-outdoor-bathing-area

winter-onsen-papawaqa-public-area-soaking

Lunar New Year

The celebration of Lunar New Year, Taiwan’s longest holiday period (it can be up to ten days in length) and most important festival usually takes place at the end of January or in early February. As one of the themes of the festival is the reuniting of families separated by generations and careers, for the first several days, the highways of Taiwan are packed with families returning to the homes of their parents and grandparents. Narrow alleyways in small countryside towns are suddenly host to impromptu fireworks displays, old streets and traditional markets are filled with special New Year’s products and snacks, and temples around the country become busy with visitors praying for luck in the New Year.

Candy is sold wholesale at New Year's markets around Taiwan.

Red and gold New Year's decorations are being sold on the side of the street.

winter-lunar-new-year-market-candy

winter-lunar-new-year-market-decorations

Lantern Festival & February Folk Festivals:

Three of Taiwan’s most interesting and unique folk festivals take place two weeks after the New Year. The Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival, the Firecracked Bombing of Lord Handan and the Pingxi Lantern Festival all take place as part of Taiwan’s larger Lantern Festival, which was previously declared by Discovery Channel’s Fantastic Festivals of the World as one of the best festivals in the world. The festival is held to promote folk culture around the island, and mark the end of the New Year’s celebrations. During this time, many smaller festivals are held around the country in addition to the three above, and are hosted by temples and municipal governments. Some, like the Luerman Mazu Temple High-altitude Fireworks show mentioned below, draw crowds in the hundreds of thousands.

Taiwan Lantern Festival

The Taiwan Lantern Festival is a vibrant celebration that combines ancient traditions with modern high-tech displays, giant animated robots and beautiful lantern installations. During the festival, the public spaces of the host city are adorned with beautifully crafted lanterns depicting traditional symbols, animals, or famous characters from mythology and folklore. The 2023 festival was held in Taipei and attracted a record 12 million visitors!

The main lantern for the 2023 Lantern Festival in Taipei, a gigantic robot rabbit, can be seen with Taipei 101 in the background.

A large lantern display with an illuminated bunny, carrots, and other lanterns.

A tall mechanical lantern with a glowing bird towers above a crowd as a light show happens in the background.

A lantern that is the size of a massive temple gate features two animated dragons.

Crowds move around a lantern display which combines temples, figures, animals, and fruits.

winter-taiwan-lantern-festival-robot

winter-taiwan-lantern-festival-rabbit-display

winter-taiwan-lantern-festival-bird

winter-taiwan-lantern-festival-dragons

winter-taiwan-lantern-festival-crowd-around-lantern

Luerman Mazu Temple High-altitude Fireworks

This high-altitude fireworks show draws thousands of photographers and hundreds of thousands of spectators every winter (the estimated attendance for 2023 was 300,000 people). This massive event occurs at the stunningly large Orthodox Luermen Shengmu (Mazu) Temple just north of Tainan, and makes a great companion to the Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival.

Fountain-shaped fireworks erupt from within Luerman Mazu Temple.

Spectators observing the fireworks from fields a significant distance away have an excellent view.

Firecrackers shoot in every direction including at the crowd in a beehive-style display.

A fireworks barrage illuminates the sky as the character for "Love" is displayed on Luerman Mazu Temple.

Hundreds of photographers with tripods set up await the beginning of the fireworks show.

Luerman Mazu Temple seen from above during the day.

winter-luerman-mazu-temple-fireworks-fountains

winter-luerman-mazu-temple-fireworks-display

winter-luerman-mazu-temple-fireworks-beehive

winter-luerman-mazu-temple-fireworks-love

winter-luerman-mazu-temple-fireworks-photographers

winter-luerman-mazu-temple-drone

Pingxi Lantern Festival

Awarded “Best Winter Trip” by National Geographic Travel in 2016, the Pingxi Lantern Festival is Taiwan’s most well known large-scale lantern festival. Held in Shifen in New Taipei City yearly, the festival draws crowds of over 100,000 people coming to observe the riveting simultaneous release of hundreds of glowing sky lanterns into the black night sky. The lanterns glow a bright red as they drift away, carrying wishings for blessings and good luck in the new year.

Attendees prepare in group to launch their lanterns.

One of the large heart-shaped special event lanterns is being held down before release.

Slide

winter-pingxi-lanten-festival-lantern-release-glowing-red

winter-pingxi-lanten-festival-group-launch

winter-pingxi-lanten-festival-big-lantern

winter-pingxi-lanten-festival-lantern-release

Firecracker Bombing of Lord Handan

The Firecracker Bombing of Lord Handan is a folk festival held in Taitung during the Lantern Festival. During this electrifying celebration, volunteers, who assume the place of Lord Handan (the god of wealth), are willingly bombarded by barrages of firecrackers as they are paraded around the streets of Taitung in nothing but a towel and shorts. The government once attempted to suppress this cultural tradition as dangerous and superstitious, but has since embraced and promoted this strange ritual.

"Lord Handan" is paraded on a grassy field as temple volunteers bombard him with firecrackers.

Volunteers toss firecrackers up at "Lord Handan".

A cloud of smoke from firecrackers obscures the front of Xuanwu Temple after a round of bombardment.

winter-bombing-master-handan-seaside-park

winter-bombing-master-handan-parade

winter-bombing-master-handan-xuanwu-temple

Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival

The Yanshui Beehive Fireworks Festival is the most famous and photogenic counterpart to the Pingxi Lantern Festival. The highlight of this controversial festival, which is said to have originated during a cholera epidemic in the 1800s, features “bee hives”—essentially massive structures filled with bottle rockets—shooting rockets into the surrounding crowds to ward off bad spirits and bring good luck. The festival attracts willing attendees from all around the country who don multiple layers of thick clothing and motorcycle helmets, only to face the bottle rocket bombardment. It is said that the more hits one receives, the better their luck will be in the coming year.