Taipei Taiwan Travel Guide

Top things to do in Taipei

We started at the Taipei 101 Observatory, where NT$600 (about $19) buys a 37-second elevator ride up 89 floors and a look at the giant wind damper ball. Clear-day sunset slots sell out, so book online for a small discount. The National Palace Museum is the other essential ticket at NT$350 (about $11), holding the world's greatest Chinese imperial collection; hunt down the Jadeite Cabbage and the Meat-Shaped Stone, its two celebrity exhibits.

The free sights are just as good. Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall costs nothing, and the changing of the guard happens on the hour beneath the white-and-blue main hall. Longshan Temple, Taipei's oldest and busiest temple dating to 1738, is magical in the evening with incense, chanting, and lanterns. For the classic skyline photo, hike Elephant Mountain, a free 20-minute stair climb; go an hour before sunset, bring water, and stay for the city lights.

For a slower half day, we rode the Maokong Gondola for NT$120 one way (about $4) up to the tea plantations above the zoo. The glass-floor 'Eyes' cabin costs the same, so queue for it, then spend the afternoon in a hillside teahouse overlooking the basin. Remarkably, our entire Taipei sightseeing budget came to roughly $30-40 total, covering the tower, the museum, and the gondola, because everything else on this list is free.

Night markets and where to eat

Taipei's night markets are the city's real dining rooms. Shilin is the biggest and most famous, while Raohe, next to the glowing Ciyou Temple, is our favorite for atmosphere. Start at the Raohe entrance with a black pepper bun straight from the clay oven for around NT$60, then work through stinky tofu, oyster omelets, and giant fried chicken cutlets at NT$50-100 per item. A full night-market dinner rarely passed NT$300 (about $10) for the two of us each.

Beyond the markets, beef noodle soup is Taipei's signature dish, and a rich bowl at a neighborhood shop runs NT$150-250. Din Tai Fung's original Xinyi branch serves its famous xiao long bao soup dumplings for about NT$250 per basket, and the queue moves faster than it looks. For breakfast, do what locals do: a flaky shaobing with egg and a warm soy milk at a traditional breakfast shop costs under NT$80, and it became our daily ritual.

Day trips: Beitou hot springs and Jiufen

Beitou is the easiest day trip we have ever taken: ride the metro to Xinbeitou for pocket change and you are in a steaming hot-spring valley inside the city limits. The public bath charges around NT$60, private hotel tubs start near NT$800-1,500 per hour, and the Thermal Valley's milky-green sulfur lake is free to view. Pair it with the free Beitou Hot Spring Museum, a lovely 1913 Japanese-era bathhouse.

Jiufen, the lantern-strung hillside town that inspired countless movie scenes, takes about 90 minutes by bus 965 from Ximen for roughly NT$100 each way. Go on a weekday morning before the tour buses, eat taro-ball dessert soup at a teahouse overlooking the sea for around NT$50-70, and walk the narrow Shuqi Road steps. Many travelers combine it with the Shifen waterfall and sky-lantern release along the Pingxi rail line for a full day out of the city.

Getting around Taipei and where to stay

The Taipei Metro is clean, cheap, and covers nearly everything; single rides cost NT$20-65, and an EasyCard (NT$100 deposit) gets a 20 percent fare discount plus works on buses, YouBikes, and convenience stores. From Taoyuan Airport, the Airport MRT reaches Taipei Main Station in about 40 minutes for NT$150. We never needed a taxi, though they are metered and honest when we did use one, starting around NT$85.

For a first visit, base yourself near Taipei Main Station for transit connections or in Xinyi near Taipei 101 for the modern district. Ximending is the fun, youthful choice with street food at your door. Budget hostels run $15-25 per night, solid mid-range hotels $60-110, and international five-stars $200 and up. Wherever you sleep, staying within a five-minute walk of a metro station matters more than the neighborhood itself.

Best time to visit Taipei and practical tips

We would aim for March to May or October to November, when temperatures sit in the comfortable low 20s Celsius and skies are clearer for the observatory and Elephant Mountain. Summer (June to September) is hot, humid, and carries typhoon risk, though hotel prices dip. Winter is mild but often drizzly; pack a light rain jacket in any season because Taipei showers arrive without warning.

A few practical notes from our trip: convenience stores are genuinely useful here, selling metro top-ups, hot meals, and even bill payment. Cash still rules at night markets, so carry NT$1,000 or so in small bills; ATMs at 7-Eleven accept foreign cards. Free city Wi-Fi exists, but a tourist SIM or eSIM with unlimited data costs about NT$300-500 for five days at the airport and is worth every dollar for maps and translation.

How much does a Taipei trip cost?

Taipei might be the best sightseeing value in East Asia, and our numbers back that up. Budget travelers can live well on $40-60 per day: a hostel bed at $15-25, night-market meals at $3-5 each, metro rides under $1, and mostly free attractions. Mid-range couples should plan $100-160 per person per day with a comfortable hotel, restaurant dinners, and a day trip or two included.

Our actual attraction spending for four days was about $35 per person: NT$600 for Taipei 101, NT$350 for the National Palace Museum, NT$240 for the gondola round trip, and small hot-spring fees in Beitou. Food averaged $12-18 per day eating extremely well. Add the NT$300 round-trip airport MRT and a $10-15 daily buffer for bubble tea and snacks, and a five-day trip lands around $250-400 per person before flights and hotel.