Jiaoxi Hot Spring Park

Jiaoxi Hot Spring Park is the thermal bathing hub of Jiaoxi township in Yilan County, northeastern Taiwan, one of the island's most celebrated and accessible hot spring destinations where naturally cold bicarbonate sodium chloride spring water — unique among Taiwanese hot springs for being at a nearly ambient temperature rather than scalding hot — is pumped into hotel foot basins and public soaking parks throughout the town. Jiaoxi's foot-soaking culture is perhaps its most distinctive feature: throughout the township's streets, public foot bath basins line the pavements allowing visitors to soak their feet in the freely flowing mineral spring water, creating an atmosphere of casual public thermal immersion found in few other places in the world. The Yilan County setting — accessed via a spectacular mountain tunnel from Taipei — combines with the Lanyang Museum (designed by Kris Yao in the form of a geological strata formation), the Luodong Night Market, and the Yilan Distillery's award-winning Kavalan whisky to create one of Taiwan's most rewarding and diverse regional travel experiences. Jiaoxi's unique ambient-temperature sodium bicarbonate springs, its foot-bathing street culture, and its position at the gateway to Yilan's extraordinary natural and cultural landscape make it one of Taiwan's most distinctive and accessible hot spring destinations.