Jiufen

Before the tour buses clog Route 102, Shuqi Road looks entirely different. Back in the colonial mining era, this steep vertical spine was just a rudimentary path connecting miners' homes. Today, those same stone steps — draped in rows of red lanterns that glow against the mountain mist — are the town's visual signature, famous ever since Taiwanese cinema claimed the backdrop as its own. You'll navigate narrow pedestrian arteries along Jishan Street and Shuqi Road to sample local street food and sink into wooden teahouses that cling to the slope. Just time it right: visit before 11:00 AM or after 7:00 PM if you want to dodge the severe pedestrian gridlock that turns the main steps into a bottleneck.

📍 Jiufen Old Street

Set right on the old grounds of the Taiwan Metal Mining Corporation, this hillside park traces the East Asian gold rush that peaked here under Japanese rule back in the 1930s. You'll walk through original administrative offices, put your hands on a 220-kilogram, 999-pure gold bar, and strap on a hard hat to head straight into the dark of the Benshan Fifth Tunnel. Give yourself at least two hours to wander the tiered grounds and check out the Japanese-style Crown Prince Chalet.

📍 Gold Museum, New Taipei City Government

Built in 1898 by the Nippon Mining Company to watch over their miners, the Jinguashi Shinto Shrine didn't survive the end of World War II intact. Most of it was torn down. What’s left behind are raw stone torii gates and lonely pillars clinging to the mountainside. You’ll find them at the top of a steady, 20-minute uphill slog on stone steps that starts just past the Gold Museum. It’s hard work, but the payoff is real: a set of open-air stone pillars framing wide-open views down the valley all the way to Keelung Mountain and the sea.

📍 Jinguashi Shrine

The amber-orange water tumbling down the hillside looks less like nature and more like someone poured liquid rust over the rocks. Heavy regional rainfall filtering through abandoned pyrite and copper mining veins triggers a natural chemical oxidation, which explains why the Golden Waterfall carries that striking metallic hue. You'll find it right along the winding mountain road below Jinguashi. Don't try walking here—the roadway is too narrow and fast for pedestrians. Instead, grab bus 856 or 788 from Jiufen and take it straight to the roadside stop. The multi-tiered cascade isn't a place for a hike. The smart move is shooting your photos from the designated viewing platform sitting right beside the road, where you get the clearest angle on the copper-stained stone.

📍 Golden Waterfall

Before the tour buses hit Jiufen up the road, the air around Jinguashi stays dead quiet. It’s hard to reconcile that stillness with what happened here during World War II, when the Japanese military carved the Kinkaseki POW camp right out of these steep mountain slopes. More than 1,000 Allied prisoners—mostly British, Commonwealth, and American soldiers pulled from the fall of Southeast Asia—were marched straight into brutal copper mining labor in the shafts below. They weren't meant to survive it. Today, a quiet memorial wall, a bronze statue, and an eternal flame stand in solemn remembrance of the men who perished in the dark. Tucked away in lower Jinguashi, it’s a sober, educational 30-minute stop that demands you slow down.

📍 Taiwan POW Memorial and Peace Park (Kinkaseki POW Camp)

Before it was a feline sanctuary, Houtong was Taiwan’s heavy-hitting coal capital, housing over 6,000 workers on its steep hillsides. When the coal dried up, the town emptied out. Then came the cats. A grassroots rescue effort turned the fading settlement into a sprawling home for more than 200 resident felines. Cross the footbridge from the station’s rusted, historic coal-sorting plant, and you're immediately in their territory. You'll find cat-themed cafes lining the paths, alongside well-tended outdoor feeding stations and sleeping spots built into the hillside. Take the local Pingxi Line train straight into Houtong Station. Go early — if you hit the midday heat, you won't see much of the cats, as they're smart enough to sleep out of sight until the sun dips.

📍 Houtong Cat Village

Dug in 1927, the Wufan Tunnel used to be a bustling extraction portal where ore carts hauled gold rock down to the crushing plants, run by both Taiwanese and Japanese syndicates. Today, the sealed stone portal and preserved mining rail tracks form a small, breezy community park with clear coastal lookouts—and crucially, none of the commercial crowds you'll battle just a five-minute walk away at the southern end of Jiufen Old Street. It's totally free, wonderfully quiet, and a welcome break when you've had enough of the main drag.

📍 Wufankengdao Memorial Park

Founded by a veteran who spent his youth carving out the subterranean shafts, this private museum does the heavy lifting most state-backed spots miss. Inside, you'll find authentic gear, pans worn smooth by use, rock specimens, and the raw oral histories of the town's boom era. It's not just a dusty archive, either. You can watch live demonstrations of artisanal gold-refining techniques and actually handle historical mining tools under the guidance of staff who know what they're talking about. Just check the hours before you make the trek up — because it's privately run, they'll occasionally lock the doors when mountain weather turns ugly.

📍 Jioufen Goldore Museum