We are a family of four planning to embark on a year off (from San Jose, CA) to live in Taiwan. Because we have two kids, 11 and 7, we plan to have a small apartment in Taipei, where we can base ourselves, and travel around Asia. We choose Taiwan because it is my birthplace and I still have relatives there.
What is the cheapest way to get around Asia? Is it cheaper to buy some sort of Asia Pass from Star Alliance or One World or something similar or is it cheaper to get individual fare in and out of Taiwan.
If anyone has had experiences with Star Alliance/One World/SkyTeam's products for traveling around Asia, I'd appreciate your sharing your experiences.

Thank you very much in advance.

Ting

I'm pretty sure you'd do well by just buying regular tickets from Taiwan or using Eva Air (Taiwan's national carrier) to get around in Asia. Eva Air has a website here: http://www.evaair.com/html/b2c/english/. Otherwise, just searching on Kayak.com will produce some decent flight prices.

As far as whether or not a pass would be beneficial or not I guess it depends on whether you're only looking for cheap prices or if you want the security of being able to change your tickets and plans. You will almost certainly save money if you just buy single tickets and travel overland as much as possible.

Also, there are a number of budget airlines in SE Asia that are not searchable on kayak.com that might be worth a look, like http://www.airasia.com, http://www.jetstar.com/au/en/index.aspx, and several others.

Good luck!