Free Layover Tours
Travel is one of my favorite forms of vacation. I like the idea of planning out a location to visit and making it a reality.
In one of my past trips, I had a goal of taking my brother to Japan. While looking for flights, I noticed there was a long layover at Taipei, Taiwan for over 10 hours.
While looking up potential sightseeing tours, this link came up: Free Half-Day Tour.
Seeing a free layover tour seems to be too good to be true, so I took a closer look to see what the catch is.
For the Taipei Half-Day tour, the following considerations need to be made:
- Transit or transfer passengers with 7- to 24-hour layovers before their next connecting flight, who have valid R.O.C. visas or come from countries eligible for visa-exempt entry.
- Valid Passports and completed immigration embarkation/disembarkation card
- Limited seats are available, and you need to register on-site (there are up to 18 seats available and you can only participate in 1 tour)
Luckily, when we arrived at the airport, I was able to get myself and my brother a seat at this bus tour. We did the morning tour (they have 1 morning and 1 afternoon tour, going to separate locations). For those wondering, they have a booth within the Taoyuan International Airport (it's the Tourist Service Center located within Terminal 1 or 2).
At the assigned time, a bus comes to pick up those admitted to the tour group, and they will stop at both Terminals prior to following the itinerary.
Here is a compiled version of images that I took from the half-day tour (Sanxia-Yingge Half-Day Tour).
Aside from Taipei, there are a lot of other Free Layover tours. If you are interested, there is a short compilation that someone made here: 7 Airports That Offer Free Layover Tours.
Has anyone else experienced the free layover tour? If so - which one did you try, and how was your experience?
Touring a town on layover sounds like a great idea.
But, I don't see why such tours must be offered by the airport, nor do I see why the tour must be free.
There is a huge number of companies that offer airport transportation.
You could probably get a fun tour from a taxi, lyft or uber driver.
There are often city buses and trains that serve airports as well. For example in Salt Lake the Trax Train runs from the airport to downtown. The train would be more reliable than a tour bus.
Hi @yintercept,
Thanks for the comment!
I believe the reason why these free layover tour are offered may be for the following reasons:
For example, the Tourism Bureau of Taiwan is the one who offers and sponsors the tourism provided from the airport. They hope to entice returning visitors who may not have thought that visiting their city or country could offer interesting sites (i.e. like myself, I didn't think that Taipei could be interesting but now think otherwise).
The catchword in your post was the word "free."
Free only happens when a group feels that they can make up the expense by selling people on something during the free experience.
I love the idea of a layover tour, but I would scratch out the word "free" and look at options by local small businesses.
There is a huge number of "airport shuttle" companies. I suspect that most of them would be happy to give a tour. I have never been in a limousine. I understand that these companies are willing to charge lower rates for off peak use like a midday layover tour.
By using the small business approach, one is more likely to encounter local small businesses and connect with the lay over city in a more authentic way.
Going the small biz route also means that one can find a layover tour at every airport.
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