I have OCD. I obsess and obsess and obsess over certain things until I think they’re (near) perfect. Which is why this Taipei travel guide, or at least the first version of it, has been eating me up for almost four years now.

When we first visited Taipei in 2014, it was a spur of the moment trip that lasted just three days. I wasn’t expecting much from that trip, but to my surprise, I wound up falling in love with Taipei and Taiwan. The problem was, three days didn’t give us enough time to do all the things we wanted to do. It didn’t give us enough time to see all the places we wanted to see, it didn’t give us enough time to eat all the food we wanted to eat, which is why I’ve been dying to come back to Taipei ever since. Those three days gave me enough material to come up with a decent travel guide, but to me, it was painfully incomplete. I had to do it again, and this time, I had to do it right.

I finally got my chance this March when we took a two-week trip to Taiwan, five days of which were dedicated to this city and finishing what we started four years ago. This travel guide is by no means perfect (yet), but it paints a much better picture of what this charismatic and surprisingly progressive city has to offer.