Travel China and Beyond

Traveling from Taiwan to China - what are the options

You may or may not know that travelling between China and Taiwan is fairly complicated. There are no direct flights between the two countries (except for several days during the year — during the Lunar New Year / Chinese New Year festival (late January or February))

So if you are travelling form Taipei to Shenzhen one good way to make the trip cost effective is to purchase a flight from Taipei to Hong Kong on lets say Cathay Pacific then also at Taipei airport you can purchase a ferry ticket for Hong Kong to Shekou (in Shenzhen) for HK$200.  If you have checked in luggage that luggage will be transfered to the ferry the same way it gets transfered if you switch between planes / flights.

Once you arrive in Hong Kong Airport, just ask for the gate location for the ferry services.  The ferry company I used is CKS .  The gate for the ferry service is located in the transit area of the airport so you do not need to go through immigration or customs.

If you have checked-in luggage make sure that you have at least one and a half hours between the flight and ferry otherwise the luggage will be late.  If that happens the ferry service gate person will ask you to stay for the next ferry — they are every 30 minutes to 1 hour.

Once you arrive at Shekou harbour you can take a cab to Crowne Plaza Shenzhen (the Venetian Hotel), it’s about 20km. away.

I have found this to be a fast and cost effective way to get to Shenzhen.

If you need to travel from Taipei to Shanghai you could travel still to Shenzhen as I described above OR you could travel via Jeju island.  The flights are Taipei to Jeju and then Jeju to Shanghai.  That will save you at least 2-3 hours travel time (vs. a flight Taipei-Hong Kong - Shanghai)

Then if you are flying to Beijing you can take the Shanghai route above or the Shenzhen route or fly via Seoul (Incheon airport).  The flight from Incheon to Beijing is less than one and a half hours duration.

Well, I hope this helps!  Happy Travels and let me know if you have questions.