Guides · Thu 29 Oct 2026
The Taiwan Open of Surfing at Jinzun: the east coast in November
Jinzun Harbor hosts the strongest international surf field ever assembled in Taiwan from 6 to 22 November: a domestic tournament first, then a WSL QS 6,000 International, one of only four at that level worldwide and the final stop of the season. How the fortnight works, and how to build an east coast trip around it.
The short answer: The Taiwan Open of Surfing runs at Jinzun Harbor in Donghe Township, Taitung County, from Friday 6 to Sunday 22 November 2026, in two phases: a domestic tournament from 6 to 8 November, then the World Surf League QS 6,000 International from Saturday 14 to Sunday 22 November. The international phase is one of only four QS 6,000 International events in the world this year, it is the tour's final stop of the season, and it carries NT$5 million in prize money, the most ever offered at an international surf event in Taiwan. Watching from the Jinzun shore is free.
Two tournaments in one window
The county runs the fortnight as a ladder. The domestic tournament opens it, from Friday 6 to Sunday 8 November, with men's and women's longboard and shortboard divisions and a youth division, and NT$650,000 in prize money, itself a record for a domestic surf event in Taiwan. Then comes a gap week while the international field arrives, and the WSL phase runs nine days, 14 to 22 November. Around the surfing, the county has added land events for the first time this year, including a skateboard competition and a Pacific fitness challenge, so the harbour banks carry a festival as well as a contest. Taitung has been building to this for a while: the county counts 2026 as its sixteenth year of international surfing at Jinzun, working up through QS 1,500 and 2,000 events before this season's jump.
What QS 6,000 means
The Qualifying Series is the ladder to the Championship Tour, and 6,000 is the top rung of it. Only four events worldwide hold the QS 6,000 International tier this year, in Spain, Portugal, Brazil and Taiwan, which pulls the field across continents rather than around one region. Because Jinzun is also the final stop of the 2026 season, the year's rankings settle here, and surfers arrive needing results rather than collecting them. The host nation receives wildcard entries, which put Taiwanese surfers into the main draw, the round of 64, against that field. For a spectator the practical translation is simple: this is the strongest international surf field ever assembled in Taiwan, surfing a break that the WSL's own tour staff single out as a favourite stop, and the heats that matter most cluster in the final weekend, 21 and 22 November.
The break and the season
Jinzun is a harbour break on the open Pacific coast, and November is its month because the northeast monsoon is the engine. The event's chief judge describes what the monsoon does to the swell: when it blows, the waves stand up thick and heavy, and when it drops, the surf changes character entirely, so the same contest can test two kinds of surfing in one window. That variability is the honest caveat of any surf trip: competition windows are long precisely because conditions decide which days run, and a day at Jinzun might be a lay day. Build the trip so a lay day is a good day, which on this coast is not hard.
Stringing the east coast together
The surf open is the anchor, and the east coast fills the days around it. The same opening weekend, Friday 6 to Sunday 8 November, Hualien runs its Pacific International Dragon Boat Festival up the coast, so the first weekend of the window can hold both. Between heats, the coast road north from Jinzun reaches Chenggong and the eight arched footbridge of Sanxiantai and the Taitung coast, best in the morning light with the mountains behind you. Inland, the East Rift Valley runs parallel to the coast all the way to Hualien, rice country under the coastal range, and the railway serves both: the line from Hualien to Taitung is the spine of the whole trip, with the coast road and local buses doing the last stretch to the harbour. A natural shape is a week: Hualien and the valley first, Taitung City as the base, Jinzun for the days the contest runs, and the finals weekend to close.
Getting there and staying
Trains down the east coast from Taipei to Taitung City take from under four hours on the fastest services, and the coast road north to Jinzun is a bus or taxi ride from the city. Stay in Taitung City for the widest choice of rooms and food, or in Donghe and Dulan for the surf towns' own slower version of the coast; the east coast guide covers the ground. Go for the second weekend if you can only pick one: the domestic finals land on 8 November, but the QS 6,000 rounds, the full international field and the season's verdict all land between 14 and 22 November, and the last two days are when the contest, and the coast's whole November, comes to its point.
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