Hiking Taiwan’s waterfalls: hot springs, lakes and swimming holes around Taipei – an adventurer’s guide

Sometimes it takes a winding path to reach an uncommon destination. Today, Asher Leiss, 33, calls Taiwan his home. It is where the North Carolinian makes a living, exploring the mountainous nation’s back country, seeking out hard-to-find waterfalls and swimming holes.

He shares his findings on his website Follow Xiaofei (tw.followxiaofei.com), which helps hikers reach Taiwan's lesser-known points of spectacular beauty by providing exact coordinates. But it took Leiss many a crooked mile to get to where he is.

When we meet over lunch in Taipei City, he is slight, unassuming, bespectacled, looking more like an accountant, albeit a fit one, than a rugged explorer. The only thing that gives him away as an outdoorsman is the heavy duty backpack. A true outdoorsman is exactly what Leiss is, however, and he is one of Taiwan’s best and most visible, local or foreign.

Leiss spent his formative years in the great outdoors. Back home in the American south, across from the family homestead, was 400 acres (161 hectares) of cow pasture. His property was a few acres, mostly forest save a humble home with a wood-burning stove for heat and hot water.

At age 10, tragedy struck when his mother passed away. About the same time his father, now a single parent, was struck by a digestive problem that sapped much of his strength. For about a decade, any forays into the wilderness were put on hold.

In his early 20s, Leiss went on a couple of long-term, round-the-world backpacking trips, hitting East Africa, Asia, Europe, the United Kingdom, Australia and the North American continent.

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Between trips he joined his brother, who at the time was working as a teacher with a travelling circus that meandered around the US via rail, teaching the children of circus performers during the day while their parents were busy practising and putting on a show for the fans. While his brother was in the mobile classroom, Leiss tended a booth selling snow cones.

“You work for 18 hours and you make like US$70. It’s super exploitative,” he recalls, though the bitterness of the memory fails to dampen his naturally bright disposition. The circus, he says, has since shut down, owing to the public’s growing distaste for entertainment at the expense of animal welfare. Ironically, however, he says, “The animals were treated a lot better than the people.”

The idea of running away and joining the circus did not appeal to Leiss, and he spent only a few months with the troupe. During the course of further travel he settled for a while to study at a university in Kathmandu, Nepal. After a stint in Israel and in Hangzhou, China, working in a hotel and teaching English respectively, seven years ago Leiss set his eyes on Taiwan for the first time, and – landing in the southern port city of Kaohsiung – liked what he saw.

He studied Chinese and eventually signed up for a four-year university programme. He also started getting back into hiking, finding a website run by Taiwan-based travel writer Kirk Beiser that specialised in Taiwan's waterfalls.

“He had like 50 waterfalls on his site. I went to all 50 of them. And I was like, ‘Now what do I do?’” Leiss says.

Hitting those first 50 took about a year. After that, he decided to set up his own website, documenting his adventures. Leiss has since visited over 300 waterfalls throughout Taiwan – getting into a few dangerous situations along the way. A trip to Ali Waterfall, one of southern Taiwan’s tallest cascades, saw him dangling precariously over a high precipice as he made the final push towards the column of water.

“There were two pegs in the wall,” he says of a traverse he had to make across a washed out section of a long-abandoned road, a relic of the Japanese-era logging industry, “and a rotten, slimy rope that you should definitely not put your weight on. We just grabbed it and crossed, leaning over an 80-metre (262-feet) cliff on a rotten rope. It was a really stupid idea.”

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Thanks to his intrepid nature and willingness to share lesser-known locations with the public, Leiss now has hundreds of thousands of online followers. Soon, his site will be open to other contributors for the first time, as his list of places he wants to visit has ballooned well into the thousands.

It is a number he cannot possibly manage on his own, especially since the landscape and routes can change due to heavy rain and he wants all the information on his site to be kept up-to-date.

“It can happen overnight. You never see the same places twice. There are lakes that form and disappear. It never ceases to amaze me,” he says.

His growing following has attracted the corporate world, with the likes of Taiwanese electric scooter brand Gogoro and Swedish car brand Volvo approaching Leiss to help them with their branding.

He has also founded his own company, of which he is currently the sole employee, and commissioned a custom-built van he can travel and live in. From the van, he can edit his new YouTube series that documents his travels around Taiwan and includes various guests, hiking and shots of Leiss partaking in other activities.

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It is a mammoth undertaking for one man, and he is not averse to seeking outside help at some point. But thus far, he has made it all work on his own. As for possibly slowing down, maybe visiting fewer places, settling down?

“Not gonna happen,” he says with a smile. Taiwan simply has too much left to offer for a man with a wandering spirit.

Xiaofei’s top Taipei area waterfalls and swimming holes

1. Wulai hot springs and Jaijiuliao water-Slide, New Taipei City

Around Taipei, there are hot springs, and I'm not talking about the hotels,” says Leiss. “You go up to Wulai, and in the river you can dig a hole and just soak like in a hot tub. There is a natural water slide there in Wulai – a proper water slide – and it wasn’t there five years ago.”

From Taipei’s Xindian MRT Station, catch the 849 bus on Beixin Road, which takes about an hour to get to your next stop, Chenggong. From Chenggong, it’s about a 45-minute hike to the water slide, located at the following GPS coordinates: 24.87771, 121.5287.

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2. The Wormhole, Shiding District

“It's the best. You’ve got to go,” says Leiss. “It's like a slot canyon, about 100 metres (323 feet) long and 15 metres (49 feet) high. You just swim through it. It’'s a really cool experience.”

To find it, head to the Muzha MRT Station in Taipei, and from there walk about 200 metres (656 feet) to the Bojia Elementary School Bus Stop. Then, get on the 795 Extend Shifen Bus, and take that to the Fengqiaotou stop. The Wormhole is located less than 100 metres from the bus stop.

3. Lingjiao Waterfall, Pingxi District

“Lingjiao Waterfall is another one of my favourites. You can jump off it. It’s about 11 metres (36 feet),” says Leiss, adding that in the same area there are several more waterfalls along the Sandiaoling Waterfall Trail, including Wanggu Waterfall.

To get there, from Songshan Station in Taipei, catch the 4030 train bound for Su Ao Xin, and get off at the Ruifang stop. Transfer to the 4728 to Jingtong, and get off at the Lingjiao stop. From Lingjiao Station, it’s about a two-minute walk to Lingjiao waterfall.