Taiwan county billed as a Bali alternative seeks to make island digital nomad friendly amid talent shortage
- Some Taiwanese local authorities, including Taitung county, are taking steps to attract digital nomads as a way of bolstering the local economy
- But remote workers say Taiwan must provide smoother banking services, visas and easier access to housing if it wants to compete internationally
Every morning, American Kelly Davis rose to exercise and take coffee at the same cafe in the quiet southern Taiwanese city where coconut palms grow like weeds and the Pacific Ocean crashes onto wide sandy beaches.
From 2-10pm she logged online to run the global English-language school she co-founded years earlier while living in the nearby industrial city of Kaohsiung.
Davis’ leisurely mornings and evenings of online work were part of an experiment in living as a digital nomad in Taitung during 2021 and early 2022.
But after three months of on-again-off-again living in the city of 107,000, she decided it was not for her.
“It was hard,” said Davis, 35, who came to Taiwan almost a decade ago to try teaching English and speaks some Mandarin. “Taiwan has something special, but when we work there and compare it on a global scale, [in Taitung] there’s no community in which you can participate and no co-working space where you can meet like-minded people.”
