Hi, we're Vicky and Jason. Inside Hsinchu is our guide to Hsinchu City, Zhubei and the rest of Hsinchu County, written for the people who live here, the people thinking about moving here, and the people who come for work and want to know where to eat once the meeting ends.
Why Hsinchu is different
Our other guides are mostly for visitors. This one isn't. Most people who search for Hsinchu want to know where to live, how long the drive to the Science Park really takes, which schools their children could go to, and what there is to do on a Saturday. Those are the questions this site answers first. The temples, the night market and the mountains are here too, written for someone who will go back to them again and again.
Our Hsinchu
Jason lived in the Hsinchu area for several years, mostly in Zhubei (竹北). So this isn't a city we're discovering from the outside: Zhubei's towers and wide roads, the HSR station out in the fields that became a neighborhood, the wind that comes down the coast every autumn, and the hills that start twenty minutes east of town are all familiar. That shapes what we cover and what we tell you to watch out for.
What it doesn't do is replace checking. Where we recommend something, it's because the facts and the people who live here back it up, not because we're telling you a story about it.
Vicky
Vicky was born and raised in Tainan. She brings the local's view: how Taiwanese families actually choose a neighborhood, deal with a landlord, find a clinic and spend a weekend, and what to ask when the official page doesn't say.
Jason
Jason is the foreigner of the pair. He has lived in Taiwan for around a decade, several of those years in the Hsinchu area. He knows what confuses a newcomer, from the two stations called "Hsinchu" to registering an address, so when something needs explaining, that's Jason's job.
How we write this guide
Every fact on this site comes from an official source or established press, and every page says when we last checked it. Rules on residence, health insurance and schools depend on your nationality, your job and your family, so we say who a rule applies to and link the agency's own page rather than pretending to give legal advice. We don't invent rents, commute times or school places. Where something couldn't be confirmed, we say so.
If you live here and we got something wrong, or you know something we should add, please tell us. That's how a guide like this gets better.
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