Despite being shunned by the travel guides, this small southern city is proving to be one of Taiwan’s most charming vacation spots.

Story and photos by DINAH GARDNER

When I told friends I was heading to Pingtung City for a holiday earlier this year, I was met with confusion.

“Don’t you mean Kenting?” they would ask, referring to the well-known beach resort area in the south of Pingtung County.

Once I clarified that I was in fact heading to the county seat, their confusion deepened. “What’s there?” they wanted to know. After all, it’s just a sleepy town with a population of fewer than 200,000.

But as I found out, Pingtung City is one of Taiwan’s most under-recognized destinations. Precisely because it’s off the tourist trail, a stay here is luxuriously mellow. There is no need to navigate hordes of travelers, locals are friendly, and food and accommodation are cheaper than the tourist hotspots of nearby Tainan and Kaohsiung.

Crucially, it’s also full of things to see and do. There’s a glorious, sprawling Mazu temple complex, impressive even for those unmoved by religious buildings; an award-winning “forest library”; and one of the largest, best preserved, and most imaginatively developed military dependents’ villages in Taiwan.

Facebook post beginnings

At the start of this year, a Facebook announcement caught my attention. A British couple, who had been running a literary publishing house called Wind&Bones Books from Tainan for the past couple of years, had relocated to Pingtung City. The post raved about “the small bookshops” and the cafés and noted that the “relaxed pace of life in Pingtung makes it the ideal place for writing and doing philosophy.”

I was intrigued. The accompanying photos showed lush vegetation, retro-style coffee shops, Japanese-era villas, quirky statues, and sunny clear skies. They told of a place that needed to be explored at a slow and luxuriant pace.

Walled to walkable

Pingtung City has its roots in the 18th century, when it was an urban center of modest importance built by Chinese settlers. Called Ahou or Akau — likely after the Indigenous name for the area — over the next hundred years it grew into a walled city.

Today, just a single piece of that wall remains. The Japanese colonial power tore it down to make way for roads after taking over in 1895. Tokyo also renamed the city Heito (Pingtung is the Chinese pronunciation of the Japanese characters). In the 1920s, they built an airbase for the Imperial Army in Pingtung and constructed residences for military personnel in town. Post-1949, this area was enlarged into a military dependents’ village for Kuomintang (KMT) airmen and their families. Today, with the occupants long gone, the homes have been revamped into a fantastic tourist attraction called Victorystar in Pingtung (V.I.P. Zone).

Pingtung City is still small enough to explore by foot or bicycle, with traffic light enough to pedal without fear. In 2018, the local government introduced some unique pedestrian traffic lights, which still exist. One version features a couple of lovers, while another shows a family with a small child.

The city can be divided into three imagined districts — historical Pingtung, cultural Pingtung, and retro Pingtung. You could easily spend a day or more in each, and tag on a couple more for day trips, making a stay here of around four to five days eminently worthwhile.

Historical Pingtung

This first district comprises the network of streets that extend directly north from the train station. The vibe here is living history, with old markets, narrow lanes populated by potted plants and slinky cats, and family-run shops and restaurants with a distinctly last-century feel.

The top sight, Mazu Temple (also called Cifeng Palace), towers over the T-junction formed by Zhongshan and Yongfu Roads. A poster at the entrance boasts that it is “one of the top ten most effective temples in Taiwan.” I assume this refers to the good luck bestowed by the resident deities. Mr. Zhang, an affable volunteer who looks to be in his 70s, tells me that this temple’s particular specialty is in blessing drivers and their vehicles so that they would stay safe on the roads.

The temple traces its origins back to 1661, but the current structure was almost completely rebuilt in the 1980s following a fire. The old one was even battered by World War II bombs.

Today the temple is magnificent. Every square inch is covered with paintings, lanterns, statues, and embroidery, extending up four floors — walls and rooftops alike. Even the stairwell ceilings are covered in artwork depicting birds, flowers, horses, knights, and gods. Climb up to the very top for good views of the city juxtaposed against rooftop carvings of dragons in dance and phoenixes in flight.

Meandering eastward takes you to Central Market, a circular hub with radiating lanes extending several blocks. You’ll find vegetable sellers, tailors, purveyors of cheap fashions, Vietnamese-style nail salons, and traditional beauty clinics that also offer fortune telling through face reading. Strong coffee and thick-cut omelet toast are served at the Civilization Café, a 1990s-era establishment with two feuding cats. It’s located at one of the market’s eastern entrances — look out for the green shutters and the sign in French (Café des Civilizations). A few blocks east on Fujian Road is the handsome Pingtung Presbyterian Church, with its red brick and cream façade, built in 1921. The church’s Bible Museum (reservations needed), in the imposing white building next door, has handwritten and Braille versions of the holy book.

Finally, just south of here, the night market along Minzu Road opens to foot and, unfortunately, chaotic scooter traffic, as dusk falls. Pingtung’s famous meatballs are heavily represented.

Cultural Pingtung

The three shopping malls on Gongyuan Road (one with a multiplex cinema) mark the start of this area. It has a distinctly more open-space feel with leafy parks, a mellow temple, and two cultural venues.

Zhongshan Park, on the north side of Gongyuan Road and facing the malls, is a tranquil landscaped garden with ponds, pavilions, fountains, and flowering trees. In March, the park was a blaze of pinks, oranges, reds, and purples. At its southwestern corner is Pingtung Art Museum, an attractive heritage building with a sloping, black-tiled roof. Exhibitions are always rotating. During my visit, I was impressed by the creative range on display: paper cuts, twiggy sculptures, mosaics, and classical Chinese landscape paintings of craggy mountains into which modern-day hikers were incongruously painted.

As you walk north through the park you will encounter Ahou (Chaoyang) City Gate — the only remaining piece of the Qing Dynasty wall. This structure of red brick and cobblestones is smaller than the ancient gates we have in Taipei (you’d be hard pressed to drive a car through it). The crenellations on the top were added in the 1950s, although the original gate would have been built in the early 1800s.

Keep going past the enormous sports stadium to arrive at the Pingtung Confucius Temple (Pingtung Academy) on Shengli East Road. This 1815 complex is worth visiting for its moon gates, swallowtail roofs, two book-lined reading rooms, and the way, when the sun is strong but low in the sky, the red painted walls shine vermillion.

Over in Qianxi Park, a 10-minute walk east along Shengli Road, is the absolutely wonderful Pingtung County Library, dubbed the “Forest Library” for its grove of camphor trees. This stunning glass-sided building, which has won several architectural awards, is full of memorable features including a central spiral staircase, floor-to-ceiling windows, comfy armchairs (many that face the park), an amphitheater seating area, and a large wall bust of a zebra’s head.

Retro Pingtung

The final slice of Pingtung is the city’s best and is all about nostalgia — a yearning for a prewar Japanese aesthetic. Victorystar in Pingtung (V.I.P. Zone) is the result of a huge redevelopment project to convert the city’s sprawling military dependents’ village into a tourist attraction with both commercial and cultural value.

Heading west along Shengli Road back past the Confucius Temple brings you to Shengli New Village Victory Star, the largest of the two districts in the V.I.P. Zone. Here the dozens of restored elegant Japanese villas are set in landscaped gardens. Inside, the wooden floors emanate the soothing smell of cypress, though remember to take off your shoes when entering. Originally homes for Japanese military service members, the structures date back to the 1920s and 1930s. Today, most of them have been tastefully repurposed into restaurants, cafés, bookshops, souvenir stores, artisanal bakeries, and shaved ice parlors. Posters of vintage Japanese advertisements and period furniture add to the retro vibe.

Two venues that stand out are independent bookstore Akauwbooks, for its pro-democracy inventory and cozy interior, and Istanbul Bazaar, a Turkish café and crafts store where you can make a mosaic glass Ottoman lamp in their workshop.

Wander in the alleyways between the homes to spot playful murals painted on the brick walls. There’s a tourist map available from the General Sun Li-jen Museum (see below) that also labels all the old trees in this neighborhood — White Orchid, Lychee, Mahogany, and Mango.

The second zone, Chenggong District, is a five-minute walk south and follows the same layout as Shengli Star Village. The two-story mansion on the corner of Zhongshan and Shengli Roads is the General Sun Li-jen Residence (孫立人將軍行館). Originally built in 1937 for a Japanese Army commander, it became the home of General Sun after World War II. Sun was widely regarded as one of the Republic of China’s greatest military leaders, but during martial law he was wrongly accused by the KMT-led government of “harboring Communists” and spent more than three decades under house arrest in Tai-chung. Don’t miss Jungle Café tucked behind the shrubbery next door. It serves some of the best coffee and home-baked cakes in town.

My favorite part of Pingtung is the section of the military village that hasn’t been commercially redeveloped. Directly to the west and north of Shengli Star Village are two heritage parks where the ruined homes have only been made safe with the removal of dangerous structures such as broken glass or unstable beams. They provide a glimpse into what the area was like before the restoration program began.

These homes were built by the Japanese in the 1940s and taken over by KMT air force personnel and their families after the war. Many original fixtures such as bathtubs, window grilles, kitchen infrastructure, and patterned tiles are visible among the rubble. Some of these shells of homes have trees growing through their crumbling walls and what remains of the roofs, like a kind of poor man’s Angkor Wat. Art installations have been set up here, including a huge clock and giant lanterns that project Moorish-inspired geometric patterns onto the crumbling walls like a kaleidoscope.

The best time to come is during the evening when the parks are lit up, the ruins are cast in moving shadows, and geckos provide the night’s soundtrack. The effect is both beautiful and haunting.

GETTING TO PINGTUNG

The fastest way to get to Pingtung from Taipei is to take the HSR to Zuo-ying (Kaohsiung) (about two hours) and then transfer (same building) to New Zuoying Station and catch a train to Pingtung (about half an hour).

Where to stay
Love Hotel: Budget novelty rooms in 1980’s glamor near the train station.
Victory Guest House: Sleep on futons in a traditional Japanese villa in Shengli Star Village.

Where to eat & drink
西部牛仔泡沫餐坊 (no English sign): Raucous rechao (Taiwanese stir fry restaurant) that keeps the beer flowing.
Mu Guan: Flavorful cold noodles in a Japanese heritage home.
Qiao Qiao Breakfast Restaurant: Hands down the best danbing (egg pancakes) in Taiwan.
秋林牛乳大王 (no English sign, “Papaya Milk King”): Traditional fruit juice and shaved ice store, running since 1960. Their signature drink, papaya milk, is rich, refreshing, and creamy.

Daytrip ideas
Pingtung 1936 Tobacco Culture Base: A huge disused tobacco factory, built by the Japanese in the 1930s, is now a cavernous museum with atmospheric tours just outside of town. Also on site are two excellent museums — the Pingtung Hakka Museum and the Pingtung Indigenous People’s Museum use lighting, sound, and video to bring their exhibits imaginatively to life. In early 2026, another of the old warehouses was converted into the Pingtung County Art Museum.
A cacao farm: Pingtung has numerous cacao farms that offer tours and chocolate workshops to tourists. See page 22
Gaopoing Old Iron Bridge: This ruined national monument, more than 100 years old, connects Pingtung to Kaohsiung and has a skywalk for pedestrians.
Wutai: Catch a bus up the winding mountain road to this village, home to the Indigenous Rukai people, where you can also spend the night in a traditional slate house.