Taipei takes two days. The island takes the rest.
Which north-coast day trip stops long enough at Jiufen. What a sky lantern at Shifen actually costs. Whether Taroko is worth the train to Hualien. Reviews of every tour you can book in Taiwan.
The north-coast circuit, the tower, the tastings, the gorge.
The four bookings a first Taiwan itinerary hangs off. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The one big day outShifen, Jiufen, and Yehliu Guided Day TripShifen, Jiufen and Yehliu in one loop out of Taipei. More travellers take this than any other day in the country, and it costs less than dinner.
02The first eveningTaipei 101 Observatory Deck Entry TicketUp the tower at dusk, when the basin is still light and the neon has just come on. Timed entry, so pick the slot before you land.
03The eatingThe Award-Winning Private Food Tour of Taipei: The 10 TastingsTen tastings across a Taipei neighbourhood on foot, with someone explaining what is in the bowl. Turn up hungry and skip lunch.
04The gorgePrivate Taroko Gorge Day Tour from Hualien with Local ExpertMarble walls and a river the colour of jade, a full day out of Hualien. The one argument for getting on the east-coast train.
Jiufen, Shifen, Yehliu: one day, three stops, forty minutes apart.
The three places every Taipei itinerary ends up visiting sit on the same road out of the city, which is why almost everyone books them together. Here is what each stop is, and what it costs to reach on its own.
Taipei first, then whichever direction the high-speed rail takes you.
A capital you can walk, the old mining coast above it, a cruise port an hour north, a harbour city in the south, the middle of the island and a lake in the mountains. Six starting points, and the best day out from each.
Taiwan eats late, and it eats standing up.
Shilin, Raohe, Ningxia: the night markets open when the offices empty and run past midnight. Add the teahouse lanes at Jiufen lighting up after the coaches leave, and the observatory deck at the hour the basin turns on.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Taiwan.
Every Taiwanese tour we have reviewed →The tours that keep selling, and what earns each of them the slot.
1
Shifen, Jiufen, and Yehliu Guided Day Trip
Spend nine hours with a Chinese, English, or Japanese-speaking guide visiting Shifen Waterfall, releasing a wish lantern, walking Jiufen Old Street, and seeing Yehliu’s Queen’s Head. Shared tours meet at Taipei Main Station, while private tours include hotel pickup and drop-off.
From · $31
Read our review →
2
Full-Day Private Custom Taipei City Tour
from $126
3
Yehliu, Jiufen, and Pingxi Day Tour
from $65
4
Jiufen Night View and Shifen Day Tour
from $31
5
Taipei 101 Observatory Deck Entry Ticket
from $19
6
Full-Day Private Northern Taiwan Tour from Taipei with Pickup
from $126
7
The Award-Winning Private Food Tour of Taipei: The 10 Tastings
from $90
8
Thousand Island Lake and Pinglin Tea Plantation
from $40
What a day out in Taiwan actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Taiwan is cheap in the way that matters: the best day on the north coast costs less than a set lunch in Tokyo.
Observatory tickets, night-market walks, cooking classes and the shared coaches up the coast.
The full-day standards: the Jiufen circuit with a private driver, Taroko out of Hualien, the tea country.
Private cars for the day, multi-day runs to the lake and Alishan, and the once-a-trip splurges.
Three things that only happen in Taiwan.
Old towns and hot springs exist all over Asia. A paper lantern let go over a working railway, a marble canyon cut by a jade river, and a volcano steaming at the end of a metro line do not.
Sky Lanterns at Shifen
The Pingxi branch line runs a single-carriage train through the middle of Shifen Old Street, and the shops on either side sell paper lanterns by colour, one wish per side. You write on it in ink, they light the fuel cell, and you let it go from the track between trains. The mass release everyone photographs is the Lantern Festival in February; the rest of the year it happens all day, every day, for a few hundred Taiwan dollars.
- 1Shifen, Jiufen, and Yehliu Guided Day Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 1,654 reviews
- 2Yehliu, Jiufen, and Pingxi Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 892 reviews
- 3Jiufen Night View and Shifen Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 870 reviews
Taroko Gorge
The Liwu river has cut two hundred metres down through marble, and the road follows it through tunnels hacked out by hand in the 1950s. The water runs jade green because of the rock flour in it. Earthquakes and typhoons close sections at short notice and the trails reopen on their own schedule, so what you actually see is decided the week you go, not the month you book.
- 1Private Taroko Gorge Day Tour from Hualien with Local Expert★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 457 reviews
- 2Private Taroko Gorge National Park Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 214 reviews
- 3Full-Day Private Taroko National Park Tour from Hualien City★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 72 reviews
Beitou and Yangmingshan
Taipei sits under a dormant volcano, and the metro goes most of the way up it. Beitou has been a bathing town since the Japanese built the first public house there in 1913, the water runs sulphur-green and acidic, and the valley behind it steams year round. Above it Yangmingshan is grassland, fumaroles and calla-lily fields, forty minutes from a city of two and a half million.
- 1Beitou and Yangmingshan National Park Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 307 reviews
- 2Beitou and Yangmingshan Day Tour from Taipei★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 92 reviews
- 3Private Yangmingshan Volcano Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 67 reviews
Beef noodles at noon, xiao long bao at six, boba on the walk home.
Eating is the reason a lot of people come back. Book the market walk while you are still hungry, the class that ends as lunch, and the tea day out at Pinglin that explains why the island grows the stuff on cliffs.
The basin makes more sense once you have seen the shape of it.
A city ringed by green hills with one very tall building in the middle. Go up the tower at dusk, ride the gondola over the tea slopes at Maokong, and give the Palace Museum a wet morning.
Every day out in Taipei →
Four Taiwanese bookings that will not wait.
Most of this island can be arranged over breakfast the same morning. These four run on train seats, dawn departures and class sizes that have nothing to do with when your flight lands.
- 01Private Taroko Gorge Day Tour from Hualien with Local ExpertThe day tours leave from Hualien, not Taipei, and the reserved seats on the east-coast express go days ahead. Sections of the gorge road also close after earthquakes and typhoons.
- 02Private 3-Day Tour to Sun Moon Lake and AlishanThe forest railway runs on a fixed timetable with numbered seats, and the sunrise run leaves in the dark. Everything about this one is decided before you get there.
- 03Nantou and Sun Moon Lake View Day TourThree hours from Taipei each way, so the day trips run one departure and it goes at dawn. Miss it and the next one is tomorrow.
- 04Xiao Long Bao, Beef Noodles & Boba Tea Cooking Class in TaipeiKitchens seat eight to twelve and the English-language sessions are the ones that fill. The good ones are gone a week out.
Taipei gets the plum rains, then the typhoons, then a winter of drizzle.
The basin catches weather off the East China Sea for a good part of the year: grey drizzle from December, the plum rains through May and June, typhoons any time from July to October. None of it needs to cost you a day. The city is built for eating and soaking indoors.
Taipei, the mining coast, the lake, the gorge: the week almost everybody does first.
Taipei
Sun Moon Lake
TarokoBy place — north coast, west corridor, east coast
The newest Taiwanese tour reviews.
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Alishan Day Tour from Chiayi (Incl. Park Entrance)
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Yilan 1-Day Private Tour to Kavalan Whisky & Cultural Gems
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Private Yangmingshan National Park Hiking Day Tour from Taipei
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