Kenting National Park

Kenting occupies the blunt southern end of Taiwan, where the Central Mountain Range finally runs out into the Bashi Channel. It was the island's first national park and it protects an unusual mixture: coral-fringed bays, uplifted limestone that has been pushed out of the sea and colonised by tropical forest, grasslands grazed by cattle, and the southernmost lighthouse at Eluanbi. Taiwan's weather makes this the one part of the island with a reliable beach season, and in winter, when Taipei is grey and wet at fifteen degrees, Kenting is warm. Autumn brings a different spectacle at Manzhou, where tens of thousands of grey-faced buzzards funnel through on migration and the whole town turns out to watch them spiral overhead.

What you actually see

• Eluanbi lighthouse and park - the island's southern point, with coral paths through pandanus scrub.
• Kenting Forest Recreation Area - uplifted coral limestone riddled with caves and fig-strangled clefts.
• Longpan grassland - open cliff-top pasture with a straight drop to the Pacific.
• Baisha Bay - the calmest swimming water on the peninsula, away from the main strip.

When to go

October to April for warm dry weather and the buzzard migration in October. Summer is hot, humid and inside the typhoon season, and the water can be dangerous. Chinese New Year and summer weekends fill the peninsula with domestic visitors.

Honest expectations

Kenting town itself is a loud strip of night-market stalls, bars and scooter traffic that has little to do with the national park around it, and people who came for nature are often taken aback. The good beaches and the quiet forest are several kilometres away, which effectively requires a scooter. Riptides along this coast are serious and the lifeguarded areas are limited.

Nearby

Hengchun's walled old town is close by; Kaohsiung's port city is two hours north.