A-Lang-Yi Historical Trail
A-Lang-Yi Historical Trail (Alangyi Historic Trail) is a day-hike-style coastline trek in eastern Taiwan, run as a north–south route between Xuhai Village and Nantian Village (with common practice being to hike one way and shuttle back). The route is short by Taiwan standards—about 6.6 km in this dataset, with other published length figures clustering around ~12 km for the full Alangyi historic-trail walking corridor.
This hike sits on a rugged Pacific shoreline with sections of pebble beach and rocky outcrops. In places you’re forced off the easy line: ocean-tide timing matters, and at least one rocky headland area requires a climb route (rope-assisted in the steepest zone) rather than a simple skirt-along-the-beach pass.
Most of your time goes into uneven walking—loose rocks, coastal scrambling where the shoreline drops off, and occasional inland track segments that link between beach sections. Expect the hardest effort to concentrate around steep coastal obstacles such as Cape Guanyin (觀音鼻), where the coastline itself blocks a low-tide “walk around.”
Access is tightly managed. You need a locally certified guide and a permit/entry reservation; independent hiking isn’t the standard option. Entry is controlled via a quota/lottery style system, and applications open in advance; permits are also cross-checked at checkpoints near the ends of the route.
Ocean tides are a major planning constraint. Some rocky segments are only passable when the ocean is low, while higher water can force delays or route changes to climbs higher on land and back down again after the headland bypass.
Historically, the corridor is treated as an old migration/travel route with recorded military and migration use over centuries, and today it’s managed as a protected nature reserve coastline. The trail also sits in an area described as hosting multiple protected species, making it a “leave no trace” type of hike where access rules are part of conservation enforcement.
More information: Alangyi Historic Trail:The Battle for Conservation, National Park Service of Taiwan, Taiwan’s last untouched coastline