• Date: Around 4–5 April (fixed in the solar calendar)

Tomb Sweeping Day is one of Taiwan’s national public holidays, dedicated to the veneration of ancestors. Families travel to cemeteries to clean the graves of their relatives, offer food and incense, and burn paper offerings (“ghost money”) and paper representations of goods that the deceased may need in the afterlife. It is a solemn observance but not a mournful one; the cemetery visits are often social occasions with extended family.

For travellers, Tomb Sweeping Day is worth noting because it creates significant travel pressure, as it falls during what is often pleasant spring weather. It is also an opportunity to observe Taiwanese family values in practice: the emphasis on filial piety and the continuity of the family across generations is central to Taiwanese culture and made visible on this day.