From Sunday, foreigners are to be able to apply for permits to enter Shei-Pa National Park (雪霸國家公園) in Miaoli County up to four months in advance.
The new rule is being introduced to make it easier for foreigners to plan their trips, the Shei-Pa National Park Headquarters said.
Previously, foreigners, as with domestic visitors, could only apply for entry permits up to one month in advance, it said.
Photo courtesy of Shei-Pa National Park Administration
The change comes as the office prepares for the Tourism Bureau’s Year of Mountain Tourism next year.
Foreigners can submit applications to access Hsuehshan (雪山) from four months before their planned departure date from Taiwan to 35 days before their expected date of entry, the office said.
Applications can be submitted in English via the office’s official Web site, it said.
Applicants would also be able to make reservations for overnight accommodation on the mountain, it said.
From Sundays through Thursdays, with the exception of national holidays, the office is to reserve 24 beds each at the Cika (七卡山莊), Sanlioujiou (三六九山莊) and Jioujiou (九九山莊) cabins per day for advance booking by foreign guests, it said.
There are enough beds in the three cabins to accommodate all hikers at those times, so Taiwanese hikers would not be affected, it said.
Hopefully, the changes would allow the beauty of the national park to be shown to more people, the office said.
Taiwanese were praised for their composure after a video filmed by Taiwanese tourists capturing the moment a magnitude 7.5 earthquake struck Japan’s Aomori Prefecture went viral on social media. The video shows a hotel room shaking violently amid Monday’s quake, with objects falling to the ground. Two Taiwanese began filming with their mobile phones, while two others held the sides of a TV to prevent it from falling. When the shaking stopped, the pair calmly took down the TV and laid it flat on a tatami mat, the video shows. The video also captured the group talking about the safety of their companions bathing
US climber Alex Honnold is to attempt to scale Taipei 101 without a rope and harness in a live Netflix special on Jan. 24, the streaming platform announced on Wednesday. Accounting for the time difference, the two-hour broadcast of Honnold’s climb, called Skyscraper Live, is to air on Jan. 23 in the US, Netflix said in a statement. Honnold, 40, was the first person ever to free solo climb the 900m El Capitan rock formation in Yosemite National Park — a feat that was recorded and later made into the 2018 documentary film Free Solo. Netflix previewed Skyscraper Live in October, after videos
Starting on Jan. 1, YouBike riders must have insurance to use the service, and a six-month trial of NT$5 coupons under certain conditions would be implemented to balance bike shortages, a joint statement from transportation departments across Taipei, New Taipei City and Taoyuan announced yesterday. The rental bike system operator said that coupons would be offered to riders to rent bikes from full stations, for riders who take out an electric-assisted bike from a full station, and for riders who return a bike to an empty station. All riders with YouBike accounts are automatically eligible for the program, and each membership account
A classified Pentagon-produced, multiyear assessment — the Overmatch brief — highlighted unreported Chinese capabilities to destroy US military assets and identified US supply chain choke points, painting a disturbing picture of waning US military might, a New York Times editorial published on Monday said. US Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth’s comments in November last year that “we lose every time” in Pentagon-conducted war games pitting the US against China further highlighted the uncertainty about the US’ capability to intervene in the event of a Chinese invasion of Taiwan. “It shows the Pentagon’s overreliance on expensive, vulnerable weapons as adversaries field cheap, technologically