Hostel Hospitality:

The sketches drawn in ball-point pen that hang on the white walls of the Star Hostel record the appearance of the hostel’s lounge over time, with the “artists” all being people who have stayed there.

A house within a hostel

The top-floor Star Hostel, with its huge glass windows, seems to collect all the sunshine in Taipei. The high-ceilinged lounge, decorated with green plants, gives people who hang out there the feeling of being in a greenhouse bathed in warm sunlight. The lounge space also contains a two-story wooden house, and this is the feature of the hostel most often depicted in the drawings on the walls. Joyce Han, a management consultant to the hostel, reveals that the house is based on small-home designs used in Taiwan in the 1940s and 1950s. Built of recycled Japanese cedar, it is floored with tatamis made by Taiwanese artisans.

Unlike the noisy common rooms one finds in many hostels, Star Hostel’s lounge not only provides a venue where travelers can freely interact, it also offers a number of wood-built “hideaway corners,” giving even guests who need privacy an incentive to enter the lounge.

In the afternoons it is common to see casually dressed travelers walking about in the lounge in indoor sandals. Han says that guests are asked to change into sandals from the moment they move in. “This is because this is the Taiwanese custom, and the design of the house inside the lounge is like an old Taiwanese home, a place where every traveler can chill out.”

Framed sketches hanging in the common room at the Star Hostel record the appearance of the lounge as seen by travelers during their stays there.

On a rainy afternoon, travelers gather round a low table in the lounge to enjoy some delicious snacks.

By providing illustrations of well-known tourist spots, Star Hostel helps visitors to easily plan their activities in Taipei.

Hostels typically offer bunk beds like those seen in student dormitories.

The Huayin Street shopping area has become a must-see tourist destination for many foreign visitors to Taipei in recent years.

Seeing Taipei from different perspectives

Star Hostel is located in the commercial district behind Taipei’s main train station, a walk of only ten minutes or so from the airport metro line.

In the surrounding back streets, there are handwritten old shop signs for businesses including plastic goods dealers, needlework supplies shops, and hardware stores, interspersed with restaurants serving local delicacies such as crispy fried spareribs, thick rice noodles with shaved ice, and pepper buns with pork filling. Within walking distance of the hostel there are various tourist attractions, including a night market and historic sites.

Partners of the hostel take advantage of its location to guide travelers to explore many places that are known only to Taiwanese, including the Ningxia Night Market, nearby mountain areas, or traditional markets, giving visitors an in-depth Taipei experience.

Han states that through the unique perspective offered by each member of the hostel staff, travelers who are new to Taipei can be introduced to other aspects of life in the city besides its features as a major metropolis. “We hope that foreign visitors will take the hostel as their starting point to get to know Taipei and then go on to other places in Taiwan,” she says.

Bookshelves extending from the basement to the first floor, a grid of criss-crossing rebars, and a cozy but not claustrophobic arts space are all features of CaoJi Book Inn that already existed when the place was a bookshop.

Emily Chuang has made the first floor of CaoJi Book Inn into an open space that welcomes fellow booklovers to come inside and read.

With features like beds built into bookcases and green-and-white wash bags for each guest, visitors staying at CaoJi Book Inn can experience the unique atmosphere of Tainan.

Sleeping with the aroma of books

Taiwan’s well-developed transportation network enables travelers to get around in various ways, including conventional and high-speed rail, to explore places across the island.

Among them, centuries-old Tainan, the island’s former capital, is like a microcosm of Taiwanese history concentrated into one city.

Moreover, the coffee shop that opens at 5 a.m., the noodle stand that stays open until 11 p.m., and the small eateries that insist on closing on weekends and holidays are part of the identity of Tainan residents, which outside visitors need to adjust to.

CaoJi bookshop, known as Taiwan’s most characterful secondhand bookstore, was taken over in 2017 by store manager Emily Chuang and her husband, Chou Jung-tang. They converted the store into a hostel—CaoJi Book Inn—that incorporates former owner Cai Hanzhong’s fondness for and dedication to books.

Walking past the bookshelves that extend the length of the hallway to the reception area, you feel as if you are being welcomed by two open arms into a sea of books. The venue has more than 50,000 volumes.

The process of opening a door in one set of bookshelves and entering another set to find one’s bed has been described by guests as being like entering a fantasy kingdom, says Chuang. But as one lies in bed surrounded by bookshelves, the fragrance of wood and old books beside one’s pillow is very much real.

Hualien Wow Hostel hopes to serve as a hub to guide visitors from around the world in exploring Hualien’s myriad possibilities.

Besides the usual bunkbed rooms, Hualien Wow Hostel offers rooms for cyclists with space to store their bikes right under their beds.

So long as you have an open mind, hostels are great places to make new friends.

Warm interactions, strict rules

Unlike most hostels, which have their common area in a basement, CaoJi Book Inn has its public lounge on the first floor. It welcomes passersby to come in and read, the only condition being that they must read for at least a full hour.

Chuang explains: “This is because these days there are too few people who like to read, so I treasure people who love books.” This seemingly rigid rule in fact means that only genuine booklovers are attracted in to keep the books company.

She shares the following story: Once a young child discovered a beloved foreign-­language book and asked if he could buy it. Chuang, who doesn’t sell books, invited the child to come in and read and choose which books he liked. After confirming what the child really wanted, ultimately she generously gave him several books free of charge.

Chuang makes no concessions when it comes to her fixed standards, arguing that only with mutual respect can a comfortable living environment be created.

This principle reflects the meticulous concern she feels for her guests. For instance, she eschews track curtains in favor of quieter wooden curtain rods and uses combination locks for the lockers, both examples of how she insists on creating a high-quality environment in the leisure space. Having inspected numerous hostels, she also provides each bed with a small tote bag to use as a wash bag, to enable ­every guest to have a relaxing experience when washing up.

In this space which appears at first glance to have been designed with willful disregard for convention, each part in fact is very carefully arranged. CaoJi Book Inn is perhaps the only hostel in Tainan with such a unique approach.

Stepping into Hualien Wow Hostel, one can feel the special character of Taiwan.

Final stop on the fun tour

“If we say that Taipei is where journeys to Taiwan begin, then Hualien is their final destination.” This statement by Hualien Wow Hostel chairman Marco Yeh describes the mindset of many visitors to Hualien.

This county in Eastern Taiwan, which stretches 150 kilo­meters north to south and is flanked by the mountains of the Central Range on one side and the Coastal Range on the other, is best known for its abundance of beautiful natural scenery, and indeed many people who travel to Hualien do so to enjoy these masterpieces crafted by nature. However, says Yeh, “That’s far from being all that Hualien has to offer.”

He raises his right hand with three fingers extended to represent the three main recreational itineraries in Hualien. First, heading north from downtown Hualien City, there is Qixingtan Beach, where one can pile up seven stones to bring good fortune; the Xincheng Catholic Church, which combines the heritage of three religions in one place; and majestic Taroko National Park. Second, following Provincial Highway 9 southward, one can see well-preserved Japanese-era buildings including Qingxiu Temple in Ji’an; Lake Liyu, ringed by verdant mountains; and Lintianshan Forestry Culture Park in Fenglin. Third, taking Provincial Highway 11, which runs between the Coastal Range and the sea, one can travel in the company of the vast Pacific Ocean to scenic spots such as Shitiping, the terraced rice paddies of Xinshe, the Dashibishan Trail, and Niushan (Huting).

At this point Yeh says straightforwadly: “You can’t list all the fun places in a short time, and you can’t see all there is to see in Hualien in a single day.”

Guests depict their impressions of their visits to Hualien on a wall, making shared memories part of the living environment.

Hostels are for everyone

Yeh argues that hotels and hostels are simply “hubs” where travelers can rest when they are visiting a strange land. But he notes that the youthful backpacker spirit of hostels attracts travelers who aspire to explore Hualien in depth. Their existence infuses Hualien with vitality.

He adds that today, hostels are not exclusively for young people. In his analysis, in the wake of the uncertainty about life caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, people in the prime of life and even elderly people have begun to enjoy a “second youth.”

Yeh suggests that mature people from home and abroad come to Hualien because they don’t want to waste the later years of their lives. They don’t disdain bunk beds that they have to climb into and out of, but in fact wax nostalgic. “They say, ‘In this life I’ve stayed in some really good hotels, but until now I’d never stayed anywhere with just old friends, old classmates, and old colleagues.’”

It was perhaps with a similar mindset that Yeh returned to his hometown at the age of 50. It was only after he had traveled the globe for work, climbed tall mountains worldwide, and seen beautiful scenery in many countries that he realized that he had never introduced the beautiful mountains and rivers of his native land to people from around the world. He sighs: “It was only then that I discovered that the truly beautiful scenery was to be found by looking back at the road I had traveled.” This is what prompted him to found Hualien Wow Hostel, and embark on a second spring in his own life.

Are you still wondering where to visit in Taiwan? Using hostels as your jumping off point, you can explore the limitless possibilities of localities and experience the immense warmth and kindness of the Taiwanese people, as well as the boundless potential of your own future life.

Having traveled widely, Marco Yeh ultimately opted to return to Hualien to introduce its beauty to the world.

Hualien artist Hsieh Chung-hui captured the thrill of white-water rafting in a corner of Hualien Wow Hostel, showing a unique scene of Taiwan to guests from around the world.