Travel Taiwan: Getting Wifi

In this day and age, where Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and other forms of social media exist, everyone will always think about how they can update statuses, or post pictures on their Instagram accounts, or even get in touch with their loved ones, specially when they are in a different country.

If you're travelling to a different country, most often than not, your current mobile plans or telecommunications company will bill you for all the gigabyte you use for uploading things that you are currently doing, or might be doing. And most often than not, those charges will be hard in the pocket. 

So what my sister and I normally do is rent out a pocket wifi here in the Philippines and bring it to our travel destination. But unfortunately for this Taipei trip, we forgot to get a pocket wifi, and thought that we can just use the wifi available at our hotel. Good thing though, cause there's a pocket wifi rental right at Taoyuan Taiwan International Airport. You'll see their red booth on the right most side of the arrival area, and you won't forget to miss it, cause it's right beside the escalator heading down to the bus bays. 

You can rent it out for NTD 188 per day or Php 311 (that's using the exchange rate at the time of our arrival there, which is NTD 1 = Php 1.65). So it's totally not bad for something you can use without having to worry about roaming data charges on your phones. It's 4G, has unlimited data and you can connect 5 devices with 1 unit of pocket wifi. This comes with a pouch for the pocket wifi and a charger connector. And truth be told, it never failed us on its data speed when we were there. 

They won't ask you for a deposit, but they will ask a credit card from you which they will only swipe if you loss the unit. My sister opted to use a prepaid credit card, for security reasons.

You'll have to return it though at the same booth where you got it. So since our flight going back to Manila was in the same airport, we didn't have any problem. The only down side is, the arrival area is far from the departure area of the airport, so it's kind of a long walk from where we were checking in.

If you prefer not to get it, it's okay too, since most shops and restaurants in Taipei have free wifi connection. But having it was very much helpful to us, because we used Google maps often. We had a hard time asking directions while we were in Taipei, since most of those we've spoken to, doesn't understand English. So having the pocket wifi, helped us with getting to where we wanted to go. 

Then again, it's all up to you whether you'd get a pocket wifi online, at your base country or at the airport. For us, this one's a good "buy," since it's convenient and it was cheaper than that was available in the Philippines, which rents for Php 500 per day, plus you need to get it from their location.