After our stay at Silks Place Yilan during my third trimester last year, childbirth and life with a newborn kept us from traveling the way we used to. Our first trip out of Taipei with the baby was going back to my parents’ home in Taichung for Lunar New Year. In March, during my parental leave, I planned a light little trip for our family of four. We considered a few destinations in northern Taiwan, and in the end chose Yehliu to see the ocean and stay at a family-friendly hotel, InHouse Hotel Yehliu. It was under an hour’s drive from Taipei without traffic, yet the scenery felt completely different. The hotel was within walking distance of two attractions, and we stopped in Keelung for lunch and a harbor stroll on the way home. With a 5-year-old and a 4-month-old, it turned out to be manageable and a lovely small getaway.

InHouse Hotel Yehliu

A friend who had stayed at the hotel before highly recommended its game room. After our stay, I’d say the game room and the short distance to the Geopark and Ocean World are its biggest strengths – enough to outweigh some minor hardware issues with the room. We parked at the ground-level lot next to the annex building. During our stay, we could drive in and out without a license-plate check, and spaces were available all three days (Sunday to Tuesday). Overall, I’d recommend this hotel for families for a short stay. Our daughter loved the Geopark, and we plan to come back to see the fun rocks again when our son is bigger – we’d probably stay here again.

Game room

The game room is on the first floor of the annex building, conveniently the same building as the family room we stayed in. It opens at 9:30 AM, a little late for our schedule – if it opened earlier, we could have come straight after breakfast. There is also a one-hour break at noon and another in the evening. The space is designed for both adults and kids: the right half has a little car track and a ball pit for releasing energy, while the left has a small play area for children ages 0–2 and arcade machines for all ages. There’s a Switch (controllers at the front desk) plus various arcade machines – my husband and daughter both enjoyed the Mario Kart and Olympics ones. I love Taiko no Tatsujin myself, and on weekdays there was almost no one, so I could practice several songs in a row (the machine seemed to be modified to the simplified-Chinese version with Chinese songs, including kids’ songs). Outside the game room, there were also big and small basketball hoop machines. Even though the smaller basketball arcade machine was challenging for her, we were thrilled whenever she scored.

Room

We booked a LOHAS Family Room with a birthday promotion available only on the official website (limited to three rooms a day, for Sunday-through-Thursday stays) – two double beds, plus a crib (guests can choose either a bed guard or a crib), a baby bathtub, and a bottle sterilizer, for just under NT$10,000 for two nights. We slept fine both nights with no real issues, but I’d still note a few small drawbacks, roughly from bigger to smaller:

• The bathroom window facing the room had no curtain, so when our daughter went to bed earlier, the bathroom light was bright for her.
• The fixtures and fittings felt a bit dated, with some minor wear and tear.
• The bed light switches were easy to press accidentally when sitting up (like when nursing), turning on lights that could disturb everyone else in the room.
• The hallway light switch needed a very firm press – we thought it was broken at first (both my husband and I tried), and only learned we weren’t pressing hard enough after the staff took a look.
• The room wasn’t very big, and with the crib added it felt a little cramped.
• The windows weren’t clear – I’m not sure if it was by design or just not specially cleaned, and there was a notice by the window about condensation during seasons with big temperature swings.

Bottled water wasn’t provided, but it was easy to refill bottles at the water dispenser in the hallway. The crib and bathtub were in decent condition (we’ve stayed at many hotels and have seen some pretty rough ones). Since our son was only four months old, we removed the pillow and comforter and used the Love to Dream swaddle we brought.

Breakfast

The restaurant is on the second floor of the main building, with an accessible elevator right at the entrance which was very convenient with a stroller. The buffet selection was decent. Our son wasn’t on solids yet and sat in the stroller, while our daughter enjoyed a wide variety over the two mornings (whole-wheat toast with jam, congee, vegetables, pan-fried noodles, silver-thread rolls, eggs, milk with cereal, fruit, and more). The window seats fill up first, but the tables are large and the space is roomy overall. We were seated around 8 AM both days and got window seats each time with the Yehliu ocean view.

Day 1

Lunch at iFG mall in Xizhi

We left a bit after 10 AM on a Sunday, and since Xizhi was on the way, we stopped at the iFG food court for lunch. We were impressed by its spaciousness (hard to find in Taipei city) with high ceilings. When we arrived at 11:30 AM, most tables were still empty, so we picked a four-person table and parked our son’s stroller alongside. The three of us each ordered a personal hot pot at 12 mini, and once our son got bored of the stroller, my husband and I took turns pushing him around the mall. There were plenty of restaurants, about four drink shops, a Carrefour supermarket, and bakery and dessert shops too. Parking was inexpensive after applying the discount for our purchases. Elevators sometimes needed a short wait with the stroller, but there were quite a few of them. After the meal, I took our son to the nursing room to nurse while my husband took our daughter to the Tom’s World arcade. iFG had quite a few stores I’d browse, a mall we could stop at again on future drives.

Walking to Guihou Fishing Harbor (龜吼漁港)

After dropping our luggage in the room, we took advantage of the nice weather and walked about 20 minutes to the seafood restaurant street at Guihou Fishing Harbor for dinner. Except for a short stretch of road near the hotel, most of the sidewalks are separated from traffic. The route was mostly stroller-friendly, with a few uneven stretches. The walk along the coast was refreshing, and we could spot some of the same peculiar rocks found in the Geopark. We made photo stops to keep our daughter from getting bored. To encourage our daughter to walk all the way to the restaurant, we let her pick a popsicle at Shang Xian Ji (尚鮮集) after dinner with strawberry milk flavor. It got dark on the way back, and we could see the lights of fishing boats, with noticeably more boats out on the water.

Dinner at Yuzhuang Seafood Restaurant

Gemini recommended this one as stroller-friendly with decent hygiene, so I called ahead and booked a table. It was a Sunday, and from five until we left just before six, we were the only table (nearby restaurants mostly had just one or two as well). The restroom was indeed fairly clean. Perhaps because my experience ordering at seafood restaurants was limited, the dishes I’d read about online weren’t on the menu, and the staff kept recommending seafood we don’t really eat (fried snails and such) or dishes that were too pricey for us (NT$1,000-2,000 – only two adults and one child were eating). Many dishes were listed at market price, so we had to ask how much they cost. The staff grew a little impatient (“you turn down everything I suggest…”), which didn’t feel great. In the end we ordered sushi (no raw seafood in it), an NT$800 salmon belly served two ways (salt-grilled and in miso soup), stir-fried egg with sea vegetables (mostly egg, less seaweed than we imagined), and asparagus shrimp hand rolls (two per order), for a bit over NT$1,000. Everything was fresh and tasty, and our daughter ate well and liked every dish. Our son slept through the whole meal, perhaps enjoying some baby seafood in his dreams.

Day 2

Amazing rocks at Yehliu Geopark

When I described this trip to our daughter beforehand, it was about coming to Yehliu to see funny rocks. My last visit was with my husband during Lunar New Year in 2014, so bringing the kids twelve years later, we compared old photos. There seemed to be fewer tourists than before – I remember lining up last time, but this time the park wasn’t very crowded when we entered at 10 AM. However, by 11 AM, it was getting busier and much hotter.

Nursing room

After breakfast at the hotel, I first nursed our son in the nursing room in the visitor center while my husband and daughter listened in on several tour groups getting their introductions at the entrance. The nursing room felt like a converted storage room, right next to the door. It’s quite small but still usable, the stroller had to stay outside and there wasn’t much space to put things down.

Cafes

The cafe at the visitor center has a menu quite similar to the one at the Queen’s bookstore cafe, though the visitor center’s has waffles. The bookstore is about halfway along the main trail, a great shaded rest stop when walking with kids. My husband and I each got a drink, and we both really liked the bookstore cafe’s atmosphere. The bookstore itself is tiny, mostly children’s books and titles related to Yehliu; it’s fine to browse the books inside but not to take them out, and there are no seats.

Trails

Most of the paths are stroller-friendly, except for one short uphill section. The park isn’t too big, we spent about an hour and a half on the main trail. There are two clusters of rock formations, and walking the loop with our daughter, looking at the sea and the rocks with the occasional fossil right on the ground, was a fun experience. She was excited to find shapes she loves – a pineapple bun, a mermaid’s tail, and the famous Queen’s Head. This was her favorite spot of the whole trip.

Lunch at the hotel’s Ocean Cafe

We originally wanted to try Xian Man Lou seafood restaurant nearby, but people were smoking outside, so we decided on the restaurant on the first floor of the hotel’s main building instead. The menu is mostly Western: my husband ordered a sandwich, and our daughter and I shared a crab risotto and a pizza. Weekday lunches come as sets with a drink, and the freshly blended watermelon juice was refreshing. It wasn’t busy on a weekday and the tables were spacious, comfortable with a small baby, and the friendly staff arranged the innermost table for us.

Yehliu Ocean World

I visited Ocean World with my family as a kid, though I remember little about it. The first floor is an indoor kids’ playground that looked more suited to children under four, and it wasn’t busy on a Monday afternoon; we skipped it since we already had the hotel game room. There are three shows a day, with entry starting 15 minutes beforehand. We first went down to B1 to see the aquarium tanks – reasonably engaging for small kids, though compared to the aquariums we went to in Japan (Okinawa Churaumi, Osaka Kaiyukan) the scale is much smaller. The loop can be finished within half an hour. Visiting on a Monday, we also missed the feeding sessions held on other days. One drawback with a stroller: there’s no elevator at the end of the exhibit, only stairs, so we had to backtrack to the entrance. The second floor is mainly the show area, a shop, and some tables. During our visit, most of the show consisted of diving performances, followed by educational sea lion and dolphin segments in the final twenty to thirty minutes. The sea lions walk right into some of the aisles where we got to observe them up close, it was quite a special experience.

Dinner at Shiwuxiang in Jinshan

When we arrived at Jinshan Old Street after 4 PM on Monday, most of the shops we wanted to visit were already closed, despite the hours listed on Google Maps. We only bought some souvenirs at Shu Tong Yao (藷童瑤) and got a sweet potato cheesecake for our daughter. For dinner we found Shiwuxiang (食伍巷) with clean interior, and the set meals suited our daughter well. She loves fish, so we shared the sea bass and cod sets; portions were generous and my husband helped finish them. We parked at the Jinshan parking garage, within walking distance of the old street, with restrooms and a small covered toy stand where our daughter played for a bit despite the rain.

Day 3

The game room wasn’t open yet after breakfast, so we went back to pack first. Then my husband took our daughter for one last round in the game room while I nursed in the room, and afterwards we swapped – I brought our son along and played one final Taiko no Tatsujin with our daughter (the Doraemon song has a simple rhythm that suited her well). On the way to Keelung, the navigation first sent us down an industrial road where we took a wrong turn and got lost once; the highway turned out to be the easier route, and downtown Keelung sits right at the start of National Highway 1. We parked at E-Square (微風東岸), which has a few hundred underground spots, arriving soon after the highway ended.

Lunch at Bambino in Keelung

It was past 11:30 AM when we arrived in Keelung, we first walked from the E-Square parking garage to Bambino, an Italian restaurant on the first floor of the Yangming Oceanic Culture and Art Museum. The walk passed the harbor and was stroller-friendly the whole way, with a cool and pleasant March breeze. During our visit, a museum ticket could be redeemed for NT$30 off a restaurant purchase of over NT$300. Since the restaurant collected the tickets when applying the discount, we bought ours before lunch and kept them for our museum visit. After visiting the museum, we handed the tickets to the restaurant for the discount. I really liked the restaurant’s atmosphere: murals of Keelung streetscapes and high ceilings. The accessible restroom is very friendly for small kids, with a small toilet and a changing table, all kept clean. Our daughter had the tomato pasta kids’ meal, while my husband and I both ordered the paella with the set; dessert was a surprise cake of the day (honey chiffon for us), and the portions were just right. It was fairly busy at lunchtime on a Tuesday, probably from being close to the train station.

Yangming Oceanic Culture and Art Museum

We happened to run into a kindergarten field trip that day, thus we didn’t stay too long to avoid the crowd. The exhibitions didn’t feel large, though there are paid experiences (in a small space) and classrooms. The highlight for us was the ship-piloting simulator – kids can dress up in a captain’s uniform and choose to sail into or out of Keelung Harbor. It was a bit challenging for our daughter, but she enjoyed playing with everything on the console, including a telephone with recorded voices. The story of how shipping containers came about was also quite interesting, as they play a significant role in today’s globalized world. The museum has a nursing room too, though we didn’t use it.

A run at E-Square (微風東岸)

Before picking up the car for the drive home, we took the elevator to E-Square’s rooftop to get some exercise. There aren’t many shops in the mall. For small kids, the most interesting are probably the NET kids’ clothing on the first floor and Tom’s World on the third. The first-floor restroom wasn’t in the best shape, even my husband hesitated to use it and the ones on other floors were better. The rooftop overlooks Keelung Harbor and the streets around it, and the floor is a running track. Our daughter and I ran two laps together, and I walked another two pushing our son in the stroller, while other joggers kept going lap after lap.

Wrap

Having lived in the concrete jungle for so long, we love returning to nature from time to time for the mountains, the sea, and different scenery and people. Yehliu leans more touristy, while Keelung felt like it had more of a local, human warmth as we came across some friendly people there. In Keelung, the ocean is visible right from downtown. It’s easy to reach from Taipei by train or bus, so we’d like to return for a day trip. Traveling with a baby had its challenges, with a lot to bring and arranging schedule around nursing times, but the loose itinerary made it manageable. There are still many north coast attractions that aren’t quite baby-friendly yet, and we look forward to exploring them together as our son grows older.

Last but not least, here is the full itinerary and lists of places that we visited and considered for our Yehliu trip: