25 Best Things To Do In Taipei, Taiwan

There are so many things to do in Taipei I wish we had more than a week to explore. Taipei is a long swath of urban sprawl with countless high-rise buildings, apartments, and shops. However, it never felt like many cities we are familiar with in the West or other parts of Asia. Taipei is extremely livable with good public transportation, bike lanes, not too loud, manageable traffic, and many public spaces.

It only takes a few blocks to find a park or garden. Even our Airbnb in Taipei overlooked a small local park with a coffee shop to enjoy the beautiful weather outdoors in November.

I don’t think Taipei feels whitewashed, though, because they’re still alive with Taiwan’s unique culture. During rush hour, it’s an onslaught of motorbikes, easily the most popular form of transportation, to remind you that you’re still in Asia. It’s interesting, eclectic, and full of fantastic food finds and things to do!

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The Best Things to do in Taipei

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Raohe Night Market

This is the perfect night out for any traveler looking for an authentic (but still exciting) Taiwanese city experience, especially if street food is on your agenda. Located right by Ciyou Temple, Raohe Night Market is central and easily accessible.

The market has the most extensive variety of Taiwanese street foods – oyster omelets, deep-fried mushrooms, boba tea, you name it. We really loved the massive mushrooms and black pepper pork buns!

The Raohe Market is a busy place on any night, but that only adds to the experience; it’s the perfect outing for anyone wanting to sample some local delicacies.

• Location: Raohe Street, Songshan District
• Insider Tip: Don’t miss out on the black pepper pork bun.

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National Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall

This memorial hall was erected in memory of Chiang Kai-shek, the first president of the Republic of China, who died in 1975. The exterior colors represent the Republic’s flag, while the interiors are filled with vaulted ceilings and bronze busts. It’s not just a tourist attraction; democratic assemblies regularly occur here.

It has its own station for those arriving by rail, so it’s easy to access.

• Location: No. 21號, Zhongshan South Road, Zhongzheng District
• Insider Tip: Don’t miss changing the guard every hour on the hour. 

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Lungshan Temple

Arguably one of the country’s most famous temples, this should definitely be on your list of things to do in Taipei. Dating from the mid-1700s, it was built as a community center of sorts for Chinese immigrants. The stunning and detailed architecture is a sight to behold and definitely worth a visit.

The temple was bombed during the Second World War but quickly repaired following the attacks.

• Location: No. 211, Guangzhou Street, Wanhua District
• Insider Tip: There is no entrance fee, but donations are accepted to help maintain the grounds.

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Beitou Hot Springs Museum

Though the Victorian exterior is unassuming, the inside of this museum is rich with history and has a fascinating story to tell. It was built in the early 1900s by the Japanese during their rule of Taiwan and was inspired by a specific bathhouse in Japan.

There are two levels to the museum. One contains the main bathhouse (no longer in service), and the second features a mix of history lessons, a tatami room, and a balcony.

• Location: No. 2, Zhongshan Road, Beitou District
• Insider Tip: This is a great precursor to visiting the Thermal Valley for a soak.

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Maokong

Maokong is a hillside neighborhood in Wenshan District, strung along the ridges above the southern edge of the city. It is the best tea-growing pocket in northern Taiwan, and teahouses are scattered along the lanes up there, most of them with terraces where you can work through a pot of locally grown oolong and watch the city haze over at dusk.

The easiest way up is the Maokong Gondola from Taipei Zoo station, which costs NT$120 one way to the top and takes about 20 minutes over the forest. A few of the cars are Crystal Cabins with glass floors, and they are worth the separate, slower queue if heights do not bother you. The gondola is closed on Mondays for maintenance.

• Location: Maokong, Wenshan District, reached by gondola from Taipei Zoo MRT station
• Insider Tip: The gondola won’t run in poor weather.

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Keelung: Miaokou Night Market

Keelung sits on the coast just northeast of Taipei, roughly 40 minutes away by train. It was an Indigenous settlement long before it became a strategic port, and it has been occupied in turn by the Spanish, the Dutch, the Qing, the French and the Japanese, which is why the hills above the harbour are still dotted with old forts.

The Miaokou Night Market is its most popular attraction; it’s the best spot for traditional street food and national dishes served street-style. It’s especially known for seafood (being a port city), so don’t miss out on things like thick crab soup and oyster omelets. 

• Location: No. 20, Aisi Road, Ren’ai District, Keelung City
• Insider Tip: Trains from Taipei Main Station to Keelung are fast and frequent.

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Hsing Tian Kong

Hsing Tian Kong is a working temple in Zhongshan District and one of the busiest in the city. It is dedicated to Guan Yu, the deified general who doubles as the patron of merchants, which explains how many office workers file through on a weekday lunch break. The building only dates to 1967, so the draw is the ritual rather than the architecture: blue-robed volunteers work along the line of worshippers performing shoujing, a soul-calming rite. The temple also removed its incense burners and stopped taking paper offerings on air-quality grounds, so it smells nothing like the other temples on this list.

• Location: No. 109, Section 2, Minquan East Road, Zhongshan District
• Insider Tip: The pedestrian underpass beside the temple is lined with fortune tellers, and a few of them work in English.

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Xiangshan Trail

Also known as the Elephant Mountain Hike, Xiangshan Trail is a relatively low-exertion hike (if you really wanted to, you could probably do it in flip flops), with an incredibly rewarding view from the top. It takes only around 20 minutes to complete, and three viewpoints along the way are great for photo stops (especially the ones with boulders you can sit on).

This is ticket-free and pretty much something you can do whenever—they even do night hikes!

• Location: Alley 342, Lane 150, Section 5, Xinyi Road
• Insider Tip: There are turn-offs along the trail, but keep to the right to stay on Xiangsheng and appreciate the three viewpoints.

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Huashan 1914 Creative Park

Fun fact; though it’s now a park, this used to be a winery! It’s now the site of all kinds of creative gatherings – from theater productions and artwork installations to cultural events. Thanks to original buildings from its days as a winery, the entire place has a retro-chic vibe, with events taking place inside modernized converted warehouses and the like.

Bring your camera; the combo of crawling greenery and concrete architecture makes for great photos.

• Location: No. 1, Section 1, Bade Road, Zhongzheng District
• Insider Tip: If you have kids, check out the child-friendly activities like making your own music box.

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National Palace Museum

If you’re looking for a museum detailing Chinese history, look no further. The National Palace Museum is unchallenged in its collection of imperial Chinese historical artifacts; it contains over 700,000 individual pieces that span all of history, from the Neolithic Age to the present.

Many of the pieces are from the personal collections of the Chinese emperors during the Ming and Qing dynasties. The sheer volume makes this museum one of the best places for this period of history.

• Location: No. 221, Sec 2, Zhi Shan Rd, Shilin District
• Insider Tip: Admission is NT$350 and the museum is closed on Mondays. The Jadeite Cabbage rotates between here and the southern branch, so check it is actually on display before you build the visit around it.

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Shifen Waterfall

If you’re the kind of person who prefers the scenic route, don’t miss out on the Shifen Waterfall. Standing at around 40m tall, the pouring water creates a stunning rainbow as it empties into the lake below.

The region was originally developed for mining coal; remnants of this historical time in Taiwan’s history remain in the form of the old railway station and more traditional-style housing and economic communities.

• Location: 45 minutes east of Taipei’s city center
• Insider Tip: Visiting during the Lunar New Year (mid-February)? Don’t miss the Sky Lantern Festival in nearby Pingxi.

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Teapot Mountain and the Jinguashi Ridge

If Jiufen’s crowds wear you down, the antidote is one bus stop away. Teapot Mountain rises straight above the old Jinguashi mining settlement, and the way up is a mix of stone steps, open ridgeline and a short scramble to the boulder that gives the peak its name. From the top you get the whole northeast coast at once: the two-toned Yinyang Sea, the ruins of the Shuinandong smelter, and Keelung Mountain standing off across the valley.

Figure on about an hour up at a steady pace, and the ridge carries on toward Banping Mountain if you want to make a full day of it. Almost nobody on the Jiufen tour buses bothers with the climb, so there is a good chance you will have the summit to yourself.

• Location: Jinguashi, Ruifang District, New Taipei, on bus 1062 from Taipei or a few minutes further on from Jiufen
• Insider Tip: The last stretch is a rope-assisted scramble through a rock cave and it turns greasy in the rain. In wet weather stop at the saddle below the teapot, where the view is nearly as good.

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Soak in the Beitou Hot Springs

The museum further up this list covers the history of Beitou’s bathhouses; this is the entry where you actually get in the water. The district sits on sulphur seams at the foot of Yangmingshan, about half an hour from the centre on the MRT, and the whole valley smells faintly of struck matches. The public Millennium Hot Spring is the cheap and cheerful way to do it: a run of open-air stone pools stepping down the hillside, graded from pleasantly warm to genuinely punishing, for about NT$60.

Uphill from the pools is Thermal Valley, a steaming jade-green lake that feeds the whole system and sits hot enough to boil an egg, which is exactly what people used to do there before it was fenced off. If you would rather not share your soak with strangers, most of the hotels along the valley rent private rooms with their own tubs by the hour.

• Location: Xinbeitou, Beitou District, one stop up the branch line from Beitou MRT station
• Insider Tip: The public baths run in timed sessions with a cleaning break between each one, and a proper swimsuit is compulsory, so check the session times before you make the trip out.

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Taipei 101

Taipei 101 is still the building the city is measured by. It opened as the Taipei World Financial Centre in 2004 and held the title of world’s tallest building until the Burj Khalifa took it in 2010, with the spire topping out at 508 metres. The part that actually justifies the ticket is the engineering: a 660-tonne steel damper hangs between the upper floors to counter typhoon winds and earthquakes, it swings visibly on a blustery day, and you can walk right up to it.

Inside, you’ll find a shopping mall, restaurants, offices, and indoor and outdoor observatories—with some of the city’s best views.

• Location: No. 7, Section 5, Xinyi Road, Xinyi District
• Insider Tip: The lift to the 89th floor is one of the fastest in the world and takes under 40 seconds. Observatory tickets run around NT$600, which includes the open-air deck on 91 when the weather allows it to open.

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Enjoy a Bubble Tea

Did you know that Taiwan is where the bubble tea craze began? It won’t take long to figure that out either, as bubble tea stands are on almost every block in Taipei.

The traditional tea is an iced oolong tea with tapioca bubbles. Now they have every flavor imaginable, from watermelon to taro and green tea to brown sugar. Lucky for us, most places had a menu in English that we could point to even if the counter clerks could not speak English. Get a reusable bubble tea straw before you go!

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Qingtiangang Grassland

If you’ve been dying to get out of the city, this one’s for you. The Qingtiangang Grassland are a flat expanse of grass in the heart of the Datun Mountains, developed from solidified lava that became a flat terrace. The area is surrounded by towering mountains, and with its rolling meadows, refreshing misty air, and stunning greenery, it’s a perfect daytime escape from the busy Taipei streets.

• Location: No. 246號, Lane 101, Jingshan Road, Shilin District
• Insider Tip: Guided tours are available, but if you choose to go it alone, be warned that there are several different routes with varied endpoints.

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Shilin Night Market

Though Taipei has quite a few night markets, the Shilin Night Market is probably one of the largest and better known. While it has an incredible selection of street food (like most Asian night markets), it is unique because it’s also a hotspot for some of the city’s best nightlife. 

While you can sample similar delicacies as with other night markets (like fried buns and stinky tofu), this market also has a merchandise section where you can shop for souvenirs if you’re so inclined.

• Location: 111, No. 65, Section 5, Zhongshan North Road
• Insider Tip: There’s also a carnival aspect with game stalls.

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Bike the Tamsui Riverside Path

The intro to this guide mentions Taipei’s bike lanes, and this is where they pay off. The city has built a near-continuous riverside path network, and the best stretch of it runs from Dadaocheng Wharf out along the Tamsui River, past the wetlands and temple at Guandu, and on to the coast at Tamsui. It is flat the whole way, separated from traffic, and roughly 25 kilometres end to end, which is a couple of unhurried hours with stops.

Pick up a YouBike 2.0 at almost any MRT station, tap in with an EasyCard, and dock it again at the far end. Finish at Fisherman’s Wharf for sunset over the strait and the Lover’s Bridge, then put the bike back and take the MRT home rather than riding back in the dark.

• Location: Riverside path from Dadaocheng Wharf, Datong District, out to Tamsui
• Insider Tip: YouBike is cheapest in the first half hour and the rate climbs after that, so dock the bike whenever you stop for food and grab a fresh one when you set off again.

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Wulai Old Street

Still, wondering what to do in Taipei? Wulai Old Street has a slightly more orderly style than your average street market: the stalls are arranged in tidy rows giving an impression of neatness and order. You can still buy Taiwanese treats here, like sticky rice balls and millet wine (great for gifts), but the area is also known for catering to travelers with regular aboriginal song and dance performances.

• Location: No. 12號, Wulai Street, Wulai District
• Insider Tip: Check out the colorful WuLai bridge nearby, which leads to a little-known swimming hole used by locals.

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Yangmingshan National Park

This national park packs a bigger punch than your average outdoor venture. It’s a pretty quick bus ride from the city center (if you’re driving, you’ll have to pay for parking), and you’ll be treated to sights like natural hot springs, sulfur crystals, lush, rolling hillsides, and valleys as far as you can see. Catch your breath at the little ponds scattered throughout the region (and keep an eye out for dragonflies).

• Location: North of Taipei City
• Insider Tip: Soak your feet at the Lengshuikeng hot spring to relax before heading back to town.

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Daan Forest Park

This is sometimes called the Central Park of Taipei, and for good reason: it’s nearly 64 hectares and sits right smack in the middle of the city. You’ll find pavilions, ponds, an amphitheater, playgrounds, and sporting grounds like courts and a skating rink within this vast expanse. 

It has its own MRT station, which in itself is beautiful: the entrance/exit point is a stunning atrium that is a good spot to hang out.

• Location: No. 1號, Section 2, Xinsheng South Road, Da’an District
• Insider Tip: On the weekends, there is a flower market and a jade market (among other things).

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Dahu Park

Dahu Park is best known for its enormous lake, giving it a more serene feeling than other inner-city parks in Taipei. It’s one of the best places to visit in Taipei for some rest and relaxation. The lake also has an adjacent pavilion and a gorgeous bridge built in the traditional Chinese style, making for some excellent photographs. 

The park has a lot of amenities and activities for visitors, including fishing, swimming (in a heated pool), and picnicking. The park is easily accessed by the MRT Brown Line. 

• Location: No. 31號, Section 5, Chenggong Road, Neihu District
• Insider Tip: This is a beautiful sunset spot with a mountainous backdrop.

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Jinbaoli Old Street

This area was originally home to Taiwanese aboriginals but became overtaken by Chinese immigrants. Today, little remains of the original aboriginal culture, but to any traveler, it is fascinating nonetheless. It’s a bustling area packed with both tourists and locals, thanks to an array of the incredible food you will want to sample.

There are a lot of famous food stalls, including Hot Toffee Sweet Potato (caramelized sweet potato) and the duck restaurants. The area’s most highly-rated restaurant, Jinshan Duck Meat, is worth visiting (if you can get in).

• Location: Jinbaoli Street, Jinshan District
• Insider Tip: Guangan Temple is nearby once you’ve had your fill of food.

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The Red House

The octagonal Red House is an unusually Western-style building, so it will stand out compared to the traditional architecture surrounding it. Today, it serves primarily as a theater and exhibition center, hosting performances and art installations daily. 

• Location: No. 10, Chengdu Road, Wanhua District
• Insider Tip: Behind the building is the city’s largest LGBT area, which contains an array of outdoor bars. It’s a perfect option after you visit the gallery to grab a great drink in a unique and lively area.

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Day Trip to Jiufen

Jiufen is a small town and former mining community just outside of Taipei. The little mountain town was built by the Japanese in the early 1900s in a gold rush. It’s now become a large tourist attraction, and you’ll find lovely street markets and tea houses transporting you back in time. It’s even been said to be the inspiration for the ghost town in the beloved Japanese animated film Spirited Away.

A short wander around the streets, and it’s easy to see the similarities; however, the creator Hayao Miyazaki has since dispelled the rumors saying the film has a wide scope of places for inspiration. If you haven’t seen Spirited Away, it’s a classic, and you should definitely watch it before heading up to Jiufen.

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Travel Tips For Taipei

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What Does it Cost To Travel in Taiwan?

Taiwan is an affordable country to travel around with a healthy budget averaging from $40 – $50 a day for budget-conscious travelers. A mid-range budget that includes dining out, shopping, a quality hotel, and activities should come in around $100 a day per person. If you want to stay in nice hotels, drink, shop till you drop, and dine in higher-end restaurants, around $200 a day should be adequate.

Asides from a select few spots and experiences, Taiwan is a great value for travelers. It’s cheaper than nearby Japan but more expensive than Southeast Asia. Furthermore, Taiwan is a developed nation, so some of the inconveniences of developing nations are not found here.

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When is the Best Time to Travel to Taiwan?

Taiwan is a great year-round destination. See this detailed guide for the best time to travel to Taiwan for you.

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Accommodation in Taiwan

If you want to save money as much as possible, you’ll have to stay in some of the numerous hostels across Taiwan. This is a great option for backpackers as the average room rate is around $10 a night for shared accommodation and the hostels are generally good quality with immaculately clean rooms.

As an adult couple, we typically opt for private rooms and utilize smaller guesthouses and hotels. Prices for a private room in Taipei are moderate in expense, not as cheap as Southeast Asia, but much less than North America or Western Europe. Expect to pay around $40-100 a night for a private room based on quality and location. Cities like Taipei push the average up as you can expect to pay about double per night compared to other destinations in Taiwan.

You also can choose Airbnb if you like a bit more space as a group or couple. Rates for Airbnb is on par with private hotel rooms, so it’s up to you which you prefer. If you’re looking to save a bit more money, cook your own meals save with a private kitchen. However, food in Taiwan is generally affordable and delicious, so you’ll likely not cook much.

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Food Costs in Taiwan

Aside from restaurants in the major city centers, street food in Taipei is cheap. If you don’t mind eating the local food and enjoying the fantastic night market in the streets, it’s a fantastic destination for foodies. Street food here is safe and a cultural experience where you rub shoulders with locals as they try to squeeze into the table next to you.

Expect to pay around 1-2$ a small dish in the local markets, while restaurants cost anywhere from $10-30 a person. We had some amazing meals in Taipei’s restaurants, but it cost us much more than eating in the local markets.

If you’re looking to save, cook your own meals with an Airbnb and eat at the night markets. The good news is you can find amazing food from various cuisines like Chinese, Thai, and Japanese. There are also 7-11’s on every corner to get a snack or basic cooking essentials.

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Transportation in Taiwan

Taiwan has a wide range of transportation. You don’t need to rent a car with an extensive public transport network. We recommend sticking to public transport and taxis in the city centers. Our average taxi ride was under $10, and each ride on the MRT was around $0.50.

It’s also a great idea to pick up a bike to get around the cities as there are many bike paths and sidewalks in the cities. It’s even easy to find a bike as they have a public bike program.

You can use a mixture of long-distance buses and an extensive train network between cities and major towns. Costs are generally pretty affordable. A long-distance train between major cities should cost around $10 – 30, depending on the distance.