The Magong Huxi Route— Part 1 of a three-part series on Penghu's car-free sightseeing buses — traces the eastern shoreline from a tidal land bridge that parts the sea each day, through a century-old village that has turned sustainability into its defining character, and into a 705-metre military tunnel that spent decades hidden underground before opening to the public in 2020.
Most people arrive in Penghu with a short list — the Cross-Sea Bridge, the basalt formations, a seafood dinner. The eastern shore offers something different: a tidal phenomenon that only exists for a window each day, a fishing community that has quietly become one of Taiwan's more cited examples of community-led tourism, and a stretch of casuarina forest and white sand that brings a full day's travel to a gentle close. The Taiwan Tourist Shuttle handles the logistics. A professional guide rides the entire loop, transfers between stops are managed, and the bus suits families, independent travellers and older visitors who prefer not to navigate unfamiliar island roads by scooter.
A Tidal Path That Appears Only at Low Water
The first stop is Beiliao Kuibishan, named for the mountain's profile — a giant sea turtle resting with its shell above the waterline. Once the tide retreats far enough, an S-shaped path of wave-polished gravel gradually rises from the sea, connecting the headland with the small offshore Red Islet. The crossing only exists within a window aligned with the tidal schedule; rangers on the ground time visitors' walks accordingly and lead them out across the intertidal zone.
Walking the path means walking into the middle of the Taiwan Strait. The sea lies on both sides. The wind comes directly off the water. Underfoot, the gravel has been smoothed and brightened by years of submersion. Crabs, shellfish and sea algae are visible at close range along the edges. Locals and regulars call it Penghu's Moses parting the sea, and the description is more apt in person than it sounds — the sense of the water having stepped aside, briefly and on schedule, is one of those natural phenomena that photographs well but lands differently when you are standing in the middle of it.
Nanliao: Coral-Stone Walls and Recycled Fishing Floats
Nanliao Community has earned the kind of international recognition that most Penghu villages have not. The core of it is visible immediately: vegetable gardens enclosed by coral limestone walls, old houses built from the same material, fish-smoking stoves still in place along the lanes, and a network of narrow alleys that winds through the settlement without a clear centre. The architecture is not preserved as a museum — it is simply how the village was built, and still stands.
The stone walls carry a double function that the settlement's early builders understood without naming it: they block the northeast monsoon that tears across Penghu between October and March, and they protect crops from the salt that the same wind carries. Every surface in Nanliao has been shaped by the specific conditions of living on this island, which makes the place more interesting to walk through than it looks from any single photograph.
The community's best-known attraction, the Float Ball Garden, turns that resourcefulness into colour. Retired fishing buoys — the spheres that once kept nets and lines at the correct depth — are collected after their working life ends, repainted by residents and arranged into a public installation that fills a courtyard with clustered colour. The project is straightforward in concept and genuinely striking in person, and it works as both a photo opportunity and an illustration of what the community has chosen to do with its relationship to the sea.
In recent years Nanliao has built out further, adding resident-led walking tours, local food experiences and craft workshops. Visitors who move slowly through the settlement leave knowing something about how a Penghu fishing village actually functions, rather than simply having photographed its walls.
Inside a 1980 Military Tunnel
The route's third stop, Longmen Military Bunker, shifts the register completely. The complex was constructed in 1980 as a coastal defence installation, designed to slow any amphibious landing on nearby Aimen Beach. Workers carved 705 metres of tunnel through the rock in a deliberately staggered and twisted layout — the geometry itself is a defensive feature. Inside, ten machine-gun emplacements, two 57-mm anti-tank gun positions, a radar-equipped command post, an ammunition depot and soldiers' living quarters remain in largely original condition.
Entering the tunnel under its yellow-tinted lights, the temperature drops. The rock walls are cool and damp. The passages are narrow, the military fittings are heavy, and the turns in the tunnel mean that you cannot see far ahead. The guided tour moves through this environment while explaining what Penghu's role was during the Cold War period — a forward defence position for Taiwan at a moment when the Taiwan Strait was one of the most closely watched bodies of water in the western Pacific. The site sat closed for decades before the military handed it to local authorities; it opened to visitors in 2020.
Guided tours run daily from 09:00 to 12:00 and 13:00 to 17:00, closed on Lunar New Year's Eve.
Lintou Park and Aimen Beach
The route's final stretch brings the day back to the surface and to the sea. Lintou Park is where Penghu's eastern coastline softens — a long casuarina forest runs alongside a clean sand beach with the strait open in front of it. The trees provide shade; the walking path through them slows the pace. After the tidal crossing, the coral limestone lanes and the tunnel, this is where the day earns its quieter ending: listening to the waves, walking slowly, letting the sea breeze do what it does.
The adjacent Aimen Beach draws a different crowd in summer — fine sand, clear blue water and the kind of swimming conditions that fill the shore on warm afternoons. The two together, forest and beach, make for a closing stop that does not ask much of you.
The route begins and ends in central Magong City. Tide times at Kuibishan are coordinated with the onboard guide service.
Plan Your Trip:
Route: Magong Huxi Route | Taiwan Tourist Shuttle (台灣好行)
Departure: Magong City centre
Operating days: Check penghufuneasy.com.tw for current schedule
Tickets:
- One-day pass: Check penghufuneasy.com.tw for current fare
- Two-day combo (Huxi + North Ring): NT$500 full / NT$250 half
- Two-day combo (Huxi + Pengnan): NT$400 full / NT$200 half
- Three-day pass (all three routes): NT$600 full / NT$300 half
- Half-price: seniors 65+, persons with disabilities plus one companion, Penghu residents, children
