Taipei holds the tickets. Jiufen, Taroko and Alishan hold the day.
Which north-coast day trip actually stops at the waterfall. What the 101 deck costs once you skip the queue. Whether Taroko is worth the flight to Hualien. Every tour on the island, priced and reviewed.
The north coast, Taipei 101, a food street and the tea hills.
Four bookings carry a first week in Taiwan. What each costs, how long it takes, and what you are actually getting.
01The day everyone takesJiufen Night View and Shifen Day TourJiufen after the coaches leave, when the lanterns come on, and the waterfall at Shifen on the way. One minibus, the whole north coast.
02The eating dayFood Tours w/ Top 10 Taiwan Food (Breakfast/Dinner)Ten plates across two districts with somebody who knows which stall to join. Turn up without lunch.
03The cheap iconTaipei 101 Observatory Deck Entry TicketThe lift climbs eighty-nine floors in under forty seconds. Book a slot and the queue downstairs stops mattering.
04The quiet oneThousand Island Lake and Pinglin Tea PlantationTea terraces above a reservoir an hour south of the city, and a pot poured properly at the end of it.
Taipei sits a morning from a mountain, a lake and a marble gorge.
Almost everything worth a full day leaves before eight, from Taipei Main Station, a hotel door, or the first train down the east coast. Three kinds of day out, what each costs to board, and how far it really goes.
Taipei: the tower before noon, the market lanes after dark.
Everything in Taipei →
A morning is enough for the observatory and the museum on the hill. The rest of the city runs on temples, tea houses and three streets of food that do not open until the light goes.
Standard deck, or straight past the line
The lift is the fast part. The queue for it is not, which is the whole argument for the priority ticket on a clear afternoon when half the city has the same idea.
The National Palace Museum, done in two hours
The jade cabbage and the meat-shaped stone draw the crowds; the bronzes and the calligraphy are why people come back. Go on a wet day, and go late.
Shilin, Raohe or Ningxia, with someone who orders
Half the stalls sell one dish and have done for thirty years. A guide gets you to those and past the ones aimed at people holding a map.
The most-booked days out in Taiwan.
The full Taiwan list →The tours more travellers take than anything else on the island, and what each one gets right.
1
Shifen, Jiufen, and Yehliu Guided Day Trip
See Shifen Waterfall, release a sky lantern, wander Jiufen, and explore Yehliu Geopark on a well-run northeast Taiwan day trip.
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
Beef noodles, Raohe Street, and a kitchen that teaches you to fold.
Taiwan eats late and eats out. Book the market walk for an evening, the class for a morning that ends in lunch, and leave one night with nothing planned but Raohe Street.
Taiwan stays cheap right up until somebody drives you.
Every tour on the site, grouped by what it costs. The gap between the bands is mostly whether the day comes with a car and a driver of your own.
Observatory tickets, museum entries, night-market walks and the tip-based old-town tours.
The full-day standards: the north-coast circuit, Sun Moon Lake, Yangmingshan and the long food tours.
A car and a driver for the day, private runs to Taroko, and the multi-day loops round the island.
Three days that only work in Taiwan.
Hot springs, tea hills and old mining towns turn up all over Asia. A sulphur valley at the end of a metro line, a narrow-gauge railway into cloud forest, and a lantern-lit stairway above the Pacific do not.
Beitou
A three-stop branch line leaves the red line at Beitou and ends in a valley that smells of sulphur. The water in Thermal Valley comes out too hot to touch and cools on its way down to the public baths, which cost less than a coffee and sit five minutes from the station. The Japanese built the first bathhouse here in 1896; it is a museum now, all dark wood and tatami, and free to walk through.
- 1Beitou and Yangmingshan National Park Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 307 reviews
- 2Beitou and Yangmingshan Day Tour from Taipei★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 92 reviews
- 3Taiwan TST : Private Tour Taipei, Yangmingshan, Beitou, Tamsui★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 32 reviews
Alishan and the tea slopes
The forest railway was cut for loggers and climbs on a two-foot six-inch gauge through three climate zones, from palms to cypress. What grows on the slopes it passes is the reason most people come: oolong from above a thousand metres, picked twice a year, with a thickness to it that the lowland tea never gets. Mornings are for the sea of cloud, afternoons for the tea houses — and when the mountain is a day too far, the same leaf grows on the ridges above Pinglin, an hour south of Taipei.
- 1Thousand Island Lake and Pinglin Tea Plantation★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 519 reviews
- 2Private 3-Day Tour to Sun Moon Lake and Alishan★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 34 reviews
- 3Alishan Join In Day Tour from Taichung (Incl. Park Entrance)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 12 reviews
Jiufen
Nine families, the story goes, and every delivery split nine ways. Gold turned the village into a hillside of tea houses and narrow stairways above the Pacific, and when the seams ran out the lanterns stayed. Come at four, walk Shuqi Road before the coaches, and eat the taro balls hot with the shaved ice going soft underneath.
- 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
The northeast monsoon parks over Taipei from November. Book indoors.
The city handles grey weather better than most places. There is more imperial Chinese art on one hill here than anywhere on earth, the market lanes are roofed, the kitchens keep a bench for you, and the hot spring water runs all winter a twenty-minute metro ride from the office towers.
From Taipei down to Kaohsiung
By kind of day — night markets, temples, Yangmingshan or Beitou steam
Taipei, the north coast, the lake, the gorge: the run most first trips make.
New Taiwan reviews.
More recent reviews →
Iconic Food Tour: Local Street Food, Drinks & Sites
Read our review →
Keelung Shore Excursion: Private 6H Natural Wonder & Seafood Tour
Read our review →
National Palace Museum Northern Branch Taiwan Admission
Read our review →
12hrs – Chiayi Meteor Garden Classic Tour From Taipei
Read our review →