What to avoid
Why our routes stay inland.
We'll give you a few discouragements, because you might venture on just the wrong trip if you follow local Taiwanese advice about routes. As said, the west is densely populated and virtually all of the country's heavy industry is located here. Our advice is to stay away from the west coast as much as possible, simply because it's not beautiful. A few major cities (Taichung, Tainan, Kaohsiung) can be considered exceptions.
As this part of the country is mainly flat, Taiwan's official north–south cycling routes tend to pass exactly through this densely populated, industrial part. The beautiful alternative is to venture a little further inland and stay where there are hills and mountains. If you're cycling, this will surely cost you extra days and you'll burn a lot more calories, but we guarantee you'll find it worth the extra effort.
Even the country's famous official round-the-island Route No. 1 runs along the west coast way too much to our liking. Most of the west consists of endless heavy-traffic roads with incessant traffic lights.