Travel is one of my favorite forms of vacation. I like the idea of planning out a location to visit and making it a reality.
In one of my past trips, I had a goal of taking my brother to Japan. While looking for flights, I noticed there was a long layover at Taipei, Taiwan for over 10 hours.
While looking up potential sightseeing tours, this link came up: Free Half-Day Tour.
Seeing a free layover tour seems to be too good to be true, so I took a closer look to see what the catch is.
For the Taipei Half-Day tour, the following considerations need to be made:
- Transit or transfer passengers with 7- to 24-hour layovers before their next connecting flight, who have valid R.O.C. visas or come from countries eligible for visa-exempt entry.
- Valid Passports and completed immigration embarkation/disembarkation card
- Limited seats are available, and you need to register on-site (there are up to 18 seats available and you can only participate in 1 tour)
Luckily, when we arrived at the airport, I was able to get myself and my brother a seat at this bus tour. We did the morning tour (they have 1 morning and 1 afternoon tour, going to separate locations). For those wondering, they have a booth within the Taoyuan International Airport (it's the Tourist Service Center located within Terminal 1 or 2).
At the assigned time, a bus comes to pick up those admitted to the tour group, and they will stop at both Terminals prior to following the itinerary.
Here is a compiled version of images that I took from the half-day tour (Sanxia-Yingge Half-Day Tour).
Aside from Taipei, there are a lot of other Free Layover tours. If you are interested, there is a short compilation that someone made here: 7 Airports That Offer Free Layover Tours.
Has anyone else experienced the free layover tour? If so - which one did you try, and how was your experience?