Guide contents
Jasmine Garden · Overseas Family Guide
A Summer
Back in Taiwan
2027 Summer Camp Guide for Families Living Abroad
茉莉花園｜2027 海歸營 · 英文家長手冊
Welcome to A Summer Back in Taiwan
This is not a Mandarin class. Your child joins the same camp that children living in Taiwan are already signed up for.
Your child takes part alongside children living in Taiwan, whose families may have diverse backgrounds. They join the same group to build, explore and make decisions together. There is no separate overseas-only class.
The difference is who your child spends the week with. Your child joins a group that was already built for children living in Taiwan. The language, friendships and confidence grow through doing real things with those children — not through a separate overseas track.
So there is no separate overseas track, no separate price, and no separate schedule. What this guide does instead is explain the camps clearly enough, in English, that you can choose well from the other side of the world.
Instruction, daily routine, meeting points and pricing are identical to what a family in Taipei sees. Your child uses the same meet-up and dismissal arrangements as everyone else in their session — the details are in section 6.
AXC or NOLA?
Two camp systems, two different relationships with Mandarin. This is usually the first real decision.
English-led instruction
Teachers lead in English. The environment is bilingual; children naturally use both Mandarin and English.
English-led tasks can help a child with limited Mandarin participate. Teachers support understanding, including rules and safety; tell us about your child's language needs before choosing a session.
AXC uses university classrooms and spacious outdoor areas. Children run a small working society, with hands-on projects and a real sports lesson every day.
Mandarin-first, outdoors
Activities run in Mandarin. English support is available when a child needs it.
NOLA takes children into the real world — streets, trains, hills, a river town. Safety instructions are given in Mandarin, so a child needs basic listening comprehension to be safe and to enjoy it.
If your child follows everyday Mandarin conversation, NOLA is where the deepest immersion happens. If they follow almost none, start with AXC.
Day camp and overnight camp are not beginner and advanced. They are two different living arrangements. Some of our day sessions ask for more independence than some of our overnight ones.
A short way to decide
- Fluent English, some Mandarin words → AXC. English-led teaching lets them in immediately.
- Follows everyday Mandarin → either. Choose by what your child is interested in.
- Comfortable in spoken Mandarin → choose purely by interest.
- First time at a camp in Taiwan → an AXC day camp is an easier start; they come home each evening.
- Loves being outdoors and is independent → NOLA.
- Understands almost no Mandarin → AXC. NOLA runs in Mandarin, safety instructions included.
Summer 2027 at a Glance
Nine public sessions across five weeks, from 5 July to 6 August 2027.
| Session | Week | Dates | Current Grade* | Stay | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block Builders Academy — Build It!麥塊冒險學院：蓋出來！ | 1 | 5–9 Jul | 2–4 | Day camp | 13,800 |
| Brave Backpackers — Journey Through Time勇者背包客：時空探險 | 1 | 5–9 Jul | 3–6 | Day camp | 14,800 |
| Jasmine Shop Opens!茉莉商店開張了！ | 2 | 12–16 Jul | 4–7 | Day camp | 13,800 |
| Wild Living — Campus Edition野地生存家：校園版 | 2 | 12–16 Jul | 2–4 | 1 night away | 15,800 |
| Discovery — Field & StudioDiscovery 發現家 | 3 | 19–23 Jul | 4–7 | Day camp | 13,800 |
| Mission Investigators — The Invisible City: Water任務調查家：看不見的城市：水 | 3 | 19–23 Jul | 2–6 | 4 nights away | 19,800 |
| Brave Backpackers — Five Days by Rail勇者背包客：鐵道冒險 | 4 | 26–30 Jul | 3–7 | 1 night away | 16,800 |
| Microverse Research StationMicroverse 顯微研究站 | 5 | 2–6 Aug | 2–4 | Day camp | 13,800 |
| Wild Living — Backcountry Edition野地生存家：野外版 | 5 | 2–6 Aug | 4–7 | 4 nights away | 19,800 |
*Current Grade means the Taiwan-equivalent grade your child is currently attending when registering, not the grade they will enter after summer. Grade 7 is the first year of junior high school. If your school system differs, message us to confirm the equivalent current grade.
Every session runs Monday to Friday, five days. Meal inclusions vary by session; see section 7. Two sessions share Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 and Week 5; because those pairs run on the same dates, a child can attend only one of each pair.
Staying for more than one week
The five weeks are separate sessions, so children who are in Taiwan for a longer stretch often combine two or three across different weeks. From the second session onwards there is a NT$800 discount per session for the same child. The discount is not combinable with other offers.
What Will My Child Actually Do?
Both systems are built on the same idea: hand the real decisions to the children and let the week be genuinely theirs.
AXC — five days inside a small society
AXC is a small working society: children hold jobs and make decisions together. University classrooms and spacious outdoor areas give them room to build, explore and play. Every AXC session includes a daily sports lesson — for example soccer, horizontal bars, baseball, volleyball, badminton or parkour. Activities vary by session; children are not sitting in class all day.
What they build changes with the session:
- Block Builders Academy — logic and construction with physical blocks. No screens: the thinking that usually happens inside a game happens on the table, in the hands.
- Jasmine Shop Opens! — the children run a shop. On Friday it opens, and real customers come in. That promise is made to every family, and the week is built backwards from it.
- Discovery — children go out into a real university campus to find pieces of design that already work, bring them back to the studio, take them apart, build their own version, and hand it to someone else to actually use.
- Microverse Research Station — one microscope, one question. Plants, microbes, cells and DNA are not five topics; they are five instruments for answering the same question. Each child holds a post in the station — equipment, specimens, drawing.
NOLA — walk, investigate, live
NOLA is built on three verbs, and each one is a product line rather than a difficulty level.
- Walk — 勇者背包客 Brave Backpackers. Adults set the destination; the children decide how to get there. They read the map, choose the train, get it wrong, and fix it. Not alone, either: the point is arriving together. Journey Through Time threads five historical periods across the city and its edges, using the metro, buses and trains. Five Days by Rail is exactly that — all Taiwan Railways, no chartered coach, for the whole week.
- Live — 野地生存家 Wild Living. Learning to live in a place rather than visit it. Campus Edition practises on a university campus, then spends two days in Pinglin, a river town outside Taipei. Backcountry Edition is the full version: five days based in Pinglin.
- Investigate — 任務調查家 Mission Investigators. Built around reading a city's invisible systems. The Invisible City: Water is a public five-day, four-night session in Week 3.
Overnight arrangements vary. Campus Edition spends one night in Pinglin; Five Days by Rail spends one in Ruifang. Backcountry Edition uses a four-night base in Pinglin, while Water stays four nights in Taipei. Follow the packing list for your session.
Language & English Support
The two systems handle language differently, and the difference is deliberate.
| AXC | NOLA | |
|---|---|---|
| Teaching language | English | Mandarin |
| Language between children | Mandarin and English | Mostly Mandarin |
| Mandarin required | Lower | Higher |
| Setting | A small society across indoor and outdoor campus spaces | The real world |
| First year for a child raised abroad | Well suited | Depends on listening comprehension |
| What it is really for | Getting safely into a Taiwanese peer group | Going deep into a Mandarin-speaking environment |
Staffing
- AXC — foreign teachers lead tasks in English, supported by foreign teaching assistants and Chinese teachers.
- NOLA — every session has at least one staff member who can communicate in English.
Tell us what your child can follow and where they need help. AXC uses English-led teaching in a bilingual environment. NOLA runs in Mandarin; English support does not mean that the whole session is translated.
Meeting, Dismissal & Overnight
Pick-up, drop-off and accommodation follow the rules and arrangements of your chosen summer camp session. There is no separate overseas-family arrangement.
NTUE is National Taipei University of Education, in Da'an District, central Taipei — the base for all four AXC sessions and the starting point for three of the NOLA sessions. NTU is National Taiwan University, a short distance away; Discovery uses its campus as a field site, but children still start and finish the day at NTUE.
Pinglin is a river town in Pinglin District, New Taipei City. Ruifang is a railway town on the northeast coast line.
| Session | Where | Morning | Program | Dismissal | Nights away |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Block Builders Academy | NTUE, Da'an, Taipei | Check-in 8:00–9:00 AM | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | 5:00 PM | — |
| Jasmine Shop Opens! | NTUE, Da'an, Taipei | Check-in 8:00–9:00 AM | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | 5:00 PM | — |
| Discovery | NTUE studio · NTU campus as the field | Check-in 8:00–9:00 AM | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | 5:00 PM | — |
| Microverse Research Station | NTUE, Da'an, Taipei | Check-in 8:00–9:00 AM | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | 5:00 PM | — |
| Brave Backpackers — Journey Through Time | NTUE, Da'an, Taipei | Meet-up 8:00–9:00 AM | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | 5:00 PM | — |
| Wild Living — Campus Edition | NTUE · Pinglin on days 3–4 | Meet-up 8:00–9:00 AM | 9:00 AM – 5:00 PM | 5:00 PM | 1 night, day 3, Pinglin |
| Brave Backpackers — Five Days by Rail | Taipei Main Station | Meet-up 8:00–9:00 AM | 9:00 AM – 4:30 PM | 4:30 PM | 1 night, day 4, Ruifang |
| Mission Investigators — Water | NTUE, Da'an, Taipei | Day 1 meet-up 8:00–9:00 AM | Continuous stay | Day 5, 5:00 PM at NTUE | 4 nights in Taipei |
| Wild Living — Backcountry Edition | Pinglin, New Taipei | Meet-up 8:00–9:00 AM | Continuous stay | End-of-session dismissal | 4 nights, Pinglin |
Check-in (AXC) means you may drop your child off at any point in the window. Meet-up (NOLA) means the group departs together, so please arrive within the stated meet-up window.
Backcountry Edition is different from the other sessions. It is a continuous five-day, four-night program, so the daily program and dismissal times shown for the day camps do not apply — there is no daily drop-off and no daily pick-up. "End-of-session dismissal" describes when the session ends, not a confirmed clock time: arrival and final dismissal details are provided to enrolled families before the session.
How Registration Works
Registration for summer 2027 is open now.
The dates, grade bands and prices in section 3 are confirmed. Check availability and the current registration instructions before making payment. Submitting the registration form starts the booking process; your place is confirmed by our team after the required steps are completed.
Group size
AXC sessions are limited to 30 children.
NOLA sessions use 24 participants as the group-formation basis, with leader staffing adjusted to enrollment at approximately one leader for every 6–8 participants.
What it costs
The price is the same as it is for families in Taiwan. There is no overseas surcharge and no separate overseas discount — you are buying the same place in the same session. Prices are in the table in section 3, with meal and transport inclusions depending on the session. Water includes four nights, breakfast, two coach days, activity fees, materials and insurance; children pay for lunch, dinner and other public transport from their own budget.
The multi-session discount is the same for every family: from the second session onwards for the same child, NT$800 off each session, not combinable with other offers.
How to book
- Choose the session and week from section 3. If you are not sure between two, message us — tell us your child's age, how much Mandarin they follow, and what they like doing.
- Complete the English registration form on our website for your chosen Summer 2027 session.
- After submitting, notify us on WhatsApp +886 988 489 400. We will confirm your session and help arrange payment to our Taiwan bank account or local payment collection in the USA. Ask us for the payment details before paying, then obtain booking confirmation from our team.
WhatsApp is for questions and coordination across time zones. It does not replace the required registration, payment or confirmation steps.
Coming to Camp
What the first morning looks like, and what your child needs.
The first morning
Arrive within the morning window for your session — the table in section 6 gives the exact time and place. For AXC sessions, anywhere in the window is fine. For NOLA sessions the group departs together, so be inside the window.
Tell the team in advance who will bring and collect your child, and provide a reachable contact in Taiwan.
What to bring
- Day camps — comfortable clothes they can move in, a water bottle, and a hat. Check your session's meal arrangements. One camp shirt is included per session, under the same policy as Taiwan registration. If your child already has one and does not take a new shirt, select the no-shirt option for an NT$200 reduction.
- Overnight sessions — use the packing list for your session. Children need to manage their own belongings; railway travel and fixed-base stays have different luggage needs. Ask before choosing a bag.
If your child is late, ill or absent
Message us on WhatsApp as early as you can, and always before the morning window closes. A NOLA session that has already left is travelling, so a late arrival may not be able to join that day — telling us early is what gives us options.
Later pick-up on AXC day sessions
AXC sessions offer an extended care option, from 5:00 PM to 6:30 PM, with the latest pick-up at 6:30 PM. Fees follow Taiwan registration: NT$1,500 for a five-day session or NT$600 for a two-day session. Confirm availability and book this separate service with the team.
Extended care is an existing service for all AXC families, not something arranged specially for families arriving from abroad. It does not apply to the overnight sessions, which have their own arrangements.
Pick-up, drop-off and accommodation follow your chosen summer camp session. Check that session's meeting points, overnight arrangements and any available accommodation options. This guide does not add a separate overseas-family transport or accommodation service.
Frequently Asked Questions
AXC offers English-led teaching in a bilingual environment. Teachers support participation and understanding, but each child's needs are different. Tell us about their language experience before booking.
In a NOLA session it depends. Activities and safety instructions are given in Mandarin, so a child needs to follow everyday spoken Mandarin. If they do not yet, start with AXC this year.
For many first-time families, an AXC day camp is the easiest place to start: your child follows English-led instruction and comes home each evening. But day camp and overnight camp are not difficulty levels — some NOLA day sessions require considerable independence. Beyond that, choose by your child's language level and interests; a child who is interested is a child who copes.
Tell us their age, their Mandarin level and their interests, and we will give you a straight recommendation rather than a list.
The arrangement depends on the session. Campus Edition has one night in Pinglin; Five Days by Rail has one in Ruifang. Backcountry Edition uses a four-night base in Pinglin. Water stays four nights in Taipei, with handover at NTUE on the first and last day.
Accommodation follows the rules and arrangements of your chosen summer camp session. Check its overnight details and any available accommodation options before booking.
Follow the pick-up and drop-off arrangements for your chosen summer camp session. Use your session's meeting point in section 6: AXC starts at NTUE; Five Days by Rail meets at Taipei Main Station. NOLA meeting arrangements vary by session.
AXC check-in is 8:00–9:00 AM. NOLA groups meet to depart together; follow the stated meeting window and final session instructions.
Give the team a contact in Taiwan who can collect your child and be reached during the day — for example a grandparent, relative or family friend.
We will also message you directly, wherever you are. Plenty of our families are in a different time zone from their own child for part of the summer.
No, and there is no surcharge either. You pay exactly what a family in Taipei pays for the same session, because it is the same session.
The multi-session discount is NT$800 off each session from the second session onwards for the same child; offers cannot be combined.
Meal inclusions vary. Water includes breakfast, but lunch, dinner and other public-transport fares are paid separately. Materials and insurance are included. One camp shirt is included per session; declining a new shirt reduces the fee by NT$200. Extended care is charged separately under the same Taiwan registration policy (see section 8).
No. Two sessions share Week 1, Week 2, Week 3 and Week 5, and each pair runs on the same dates, so a child can attend only one of each pair. Across different weeks, combining sessions is common — see section 3.
WhatsApp works well across time zones and makes it easy to leave a text or voice message whenever it is convenient for you — in whichever language is easier. Families in Taiwan usually reach us on LINE; for families abroad, WhatsApp is our main contact channel.
Contact & Current Information
Ask us anything before you book. A short message with your child's age, Mandarin level and interests is enough for us to give you a real recommendation.
The fastest way to reach us from outside Taiwan. Send us a message in English or Mandarin, whichever is easier.
+886 988 489 400
Scanning the code opens a message that already says "Hi Jasmine Garden, I am asking about A Summer Back in Taiwan" — just add your question.
Website
Check the English page for updates and the current registration next step.
jgroup.com.tw/summer-back-in-taiwan/
Use the page to check updates and contact options. If registration instructions or session details are unclear, ask the team before making payment.
This guide is a snapshot. Sessions fill, and operational details are occasionally confirmed or revised after publication. (That is separate from Backcountry Edition's columns in section 6 — those are not pending data, they are fields that do not apply to a continuous-stay program.)
If this guide and the website differ, ask our team to confirm the current approved details. If anything here matters to a decision you are about to make, check the page or ask us on WhatsApp.
A Summer Back in Taiwan · 2027 Overseas Family Summer Camp Guide
Jasmine Garden 茉莉花園 · jgroup.com.tw · Version 2.4
Updated 9 October 2026