Two weeks in Taiwan with a baby and a toddler — what actually happened

This trip was not a sightseeing trip. We weren't checking off temples or planning day hikes in the mountains. We were going home, back to Taiwan to visit family, with our two daughters in tow. The older one was two and a half. The younger one, our seven-month-old, had just started solid foods.

I've traveled to Taiwan enough times that it feels comfortable. I know the rhythms of the place, I speak the language, I know where to get what I need. But traveling there as a mother of two young children is a completely different experience. This trip taught me that in ways I didn't expect.

Before we even left: the first scare

A few days before our flight, our younger daughter developed a fever. No other symptoms, just the fever, hanging on with no obvious cause. As a parent, your instinct is to cancel everything. As someone who'd booked this trip on my Chase Sapphire card, I knew I had trip cancellation coverage if I could get a doctor's note. I went to her pediatrician ready to do exactly that.

But the doctor cleared her to fly. Fever without symptoms in an infant is often just a viral thing working itself out. She wasn't in distress. We went.

I say this not to alarm anyone, but because this is the kind of thing that actually happens when you travel with young kids. You make calls with incomplete information. You lean on your doctor's judgment. And you go, hoping for the best — but as I'd find out a week later, hoping isn't a plan.

Week one: Taipei, Mu House

We stayed at Mu House, an apartment property managed by a hotel, right at Taipei Main Station. The unit was two bedrooms with a small kitchen area: a sink, a dining table, and a fridge. No stove or microwave in the room, though there is a microwave available in the common area on a different floor. Convenient enough for storing snacks and washing bottles, but not practical for real meal prep. We mostly relied on Uber Eats. There was also an electric kettle in the room, which became essential for making formula. There was a small washer-dryer in the unit, which we ran every single day.

The setup was a little unconventional. The property is an apartment in a mixed-use building: commercial businesses on some floors, residents on others, and the hotel operations on a different floor entirely. It took a moment to orient ourselves to the arrangement. But once we did, it worked well. We had access to the hotel's services, including 24-hour check-in, which matters when you're arriving on Asia time with overtired children.

I'd requested a children's shower bathtub and a high chair before arrival, and both were waiting for us. The room also had a bidet, a small but appreciated detail when you're traveling with babies. That kind of preparation makes a difference. The location, steps from Taipei Main Station, was excellent. MRT access was immediate. Uber was easy. Almost everything we needed in Taipei was navigable from that hub without a car.

One thing worth knowing if you're traveling in winter: the bedroom facing the window was poorly insulated, and Taiwan homes generally don't have central heating. It was cold at night. If you're visiting in warmer months you'll be fine; there's AC in the room. But for a March trip with young children, the chill was noticeable.

On the cleanliness front: it was fine. Not impressive, but acceptable. The space was small for a two-bedroom, and at around NT$5,000 a night it reflected that honestly. It wasn't a luxury stay. It was practical, well-located, and did what we needed it to do.

The week that didn't go as planned

My younger daughter's fever had persisted, and before we left Los Angeles her pediatrician had told me: if the fever doesn't resolve in Taiwan, see a doctor there. So that first Monday, I took her to the National Taiwan University Children's Hospital, a six-minute walk from Mu House. That proximity wasn't coincidence; I'd kept it in the back of my mind when choosing our Taipei base.

Her visit was manageable. Taiwan has a lot of clinics and hospitals even outside the capital. Medical care is accessible throughout the country, and it's affordable. I'd mentally budgeted for this possibility. What I hadn't planned for came the following week.

The second Sunday, the day we were traveling from Taipei to Taichung, my older daughter started running a fever. I wasn't panicked yet. Kids get fevers. We'd been around family all week; exposure happens. We made the move to Taichung and kept an eye on her. But on Monday night her temperature climbed over 104°F. I took her to the emergency room.

She was admitted to a Taichung hospital. She spent four days there.

She recovered fully. She's fine. But those four days were hard: navigating a Taiwanese hospital as a parent, managing the younger one at the same time, processing the medical bills. Taiwan's healthcare is affordable by any standard. But the total between both children's care came to roughly $2,000 USD. That's not nothing, especially when it lands unexpectedly.

"$2,000 in unexpected medical bills is a painful lesson. Travel insurance would have cost a fraction of that. I won't make this mistake again."

— Kejo Liu

I had Chase Sapphire coverage for trip cancellation. What I didn't have was travel medical insurance. That's the gap. Trip cancellation protects you before the trip. Medical coverage protects you during it. For future trips, especially with young children, I will always buy travel insurance that includes medical coverage.

Week two: Taichung, Hotel 7

After the intensity of week one, week two in Taichung felt like exhaling. We stayed at Hotel 7, and it became one of my favorite family stays in recent memory. Not because it was fancy, but because the service was thoughtful.

The rooms are loft-style, with the sleeping area on a second level. It's a fun concept. Our kids thought the staircase was an adventure; I will say the stairs were steep and had significant gaps between steps, which I noticed immediately as a parent of small children. It was fine, but it required attention. If you stay here with very mobile toddlers, just be aware.

They provided a crib and a children's bathtub without issue. The room had a bidet and an electric kettle, useful for making formula at all hours. One honest complaint: the refrigerator was tiny and old, barely enough room for bottles. If cold storage matters to you, bring a small cooler bag. Breakfast was good, with high chairs available. Complimentary parking was offered on request, useful since we had a rental car. The hotel is walkable to a park with a proper playground and to 逢甲夜市, Fengjia Night Market, which is exactly as lively and delicious as it should be.

But the highlight was the laundry. Hotel 7 offers complimentary laundry service for guests. When you are traveling for two weeks with a baby and a toddler (a demographic that produces more laundry than you can imagine), having someone else handle it, for free, is not a small thing. It changed the trip.

The service throughout was excellent in a specific, reliable way. Our nightlight was broken. It couldn't be turned off, which is a real problem when you're trying to get two young children to sleep. I reported it. By the next day it was fixed. No drama, no back-and-forth. Just done. That's what good hospitality actually looks like.

Getting around: MRT, Uber, and rental car

Taipei is easy to navigate without a car. We used the MRT for most things. It's clean, fast, and stroller-accessible in a way that makes life with young kids manageable. Uber filled in the gaps when we had more gear than the MRT could comfortably handle.

For Taichung, we rented a car. Taiwan's cities outside Taipei are more spread out, and with two small children the flexibility of a car makes a real difference. We used 錢比租車 (Qianbi Car Rental), booked through Klook, and I'd recommend them without hesitation.

Their pickup and drop-off location is right by the Airport MRT station. Seamless. They had car seats available. What stood out was how thoroughly they walk you through everything in person: the contract, Taiwan's traffic laws, what to watch out for. They also recommended a specific app for avoiding speeding ticket zones. Their LINE customer service was responsive throughout: questions answered quickly, in both languages. Professional in the best, unglamorous sense of the word.

What I'd do differently

Buy travel insurance. Every time. Especially with young children. Chase Sapphire's trip protection is useful and I'll keep using it, but it does not substitute for medical coverage abroad. A comprehensive policy through Faye or a similar provider would have covered the bulk of what I spent on hospitals. I won't skip it again.

Prioritize laundry. Mu House had a small washer-dryer in the unit, and we used it every day. Hotel 7 had complimentary laundry service, which meant we handed off a bag and it came back clean. Both worked, but the Hotel 7 experience was a completely different level of effortless. For any trip longer than five days with small children, laundry access isn't optional.

Build in more buffer days. A hospitalization took four days out of the middle of this trip. We'd already built this as a low-sightseeing, family-focused trip, which meant losing those days wasn't devastating. But if we'd had a packed itinerary, it would have been. With kids, always plan for things to go sideways.