4 Days: Taipei and Beyond
As of 2026, tapping a YouBike and pedaling off isn’t quite as simple as it used to be: mandatory bicycle injury insurance kicked in from January 1, added as a step in the app before you unlock a bike. It costs maybe 90 seconds and it’s a good sign of how seriously this city takes getting the small logistics right. Four days is enough time to actually enjoy that kind of city rhythm instead of sprinting through it, and enough to get out to the coast without shortchanging either side of the trip. Want the whole four days in the city itself? See the 4 day Taipei itinerary . Have a fifth day to spare? Go to 5 days and add the High Speed Rail south.
Book these before you go
- Jiufen, Shifen and Yehliu combo tour
- Taipei 101 observatory ticket
- A Zhongshan or Ximending base on Agoda
The 4 day route at a glance
| Day | Focus | Transit time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Wanhua, Bopiliao, Ximending | in-city, MRT only |
| 2 | Taipei 101, National Palace Museum | in-city, MRT only |
| 3 | Jiufen, Shifen, Yehliu Geopark | 1-1.5 hours each way |
| 4 | Tamsui, Beitou, Elephant Mountain | in-city, MRT only |
Day 1: Taipei on Foot
Morning. Start in Wanhua, at Longshan Temple, while the incense smoke is still heavy from the morning worshippers. Walk into the Bopiliao Historic Block next door for the oldest surviving streetscape in the city.
Afternoon. Cross town to Ximending for lunch and an afternoon of wandering; it’s Taipei’s youth and street-food district, dense with cinemas and secondhand shops, and it rewards having no fixed plan.
Evening. Shilin Night Market is the famous one, and famous means crowded. Go if you want to see it for yourself, but know that Raohe or Ningxia will get you better food with less elbow-throwing for the same night-market experience.
Day 2: Landmarks and Layers
Morning. Taipei 101’s observatory opens at 9am; get the standard 88th-floor ticket for around 600 NT. Worth knowing before you go: this hasn’t been the world’s tallest building since 2010, when the Burj Khalifa overtook it after a six-year run, but the 660-tonne damper visible through the glass still makes it one of the more interesting engineering stops on this list.
Afternoon. The National Palace Museum needs a real afternoon, not a rushed hour. It holds one of the largest collections of Chinese imperial art in the world, jadeite cabbage and meat-shaped stone included, and skimming it does the place a disservice.
Evening. Dinner in Zhongshan, then a walk through the district’s design shops and quieter streets if you’ve still got energy after the museum.
Day 3: The North Coast, Properly
Commit the whole day to this. Take the train to Ruifang and a bus up to Jiufen for the morning, arriving before 9am if you can manage it, because the lantern-lit alleys fill up fast and crowded Jiufen is a much worse version of itself. From there, head to Shifen for the old railway street and sky lanterns, then on to Yehliu Geopark for the wind-sculpted rock formations, the Queen’s Head chief among them.
Is doing Jiufen, Shifen and Yehliu in one day too ambitious?
It’s ambitious but doable if you start early and treat it as one committed loop rather than three separate trips. A guided combo tour running around nine hours handles the connections for you if you’d rather look out the window than check a bus timetable. Eat lunch in Jiufen; the tea houses and street stalls there are part of the point.
Evening. Back in the city, dinner at Din Tai Fung earns its reputation rather than living off it. It’s a Taiwanese chain, not an import, founded as a Taipei cooking-oil shop in 1958 before dumplings entered the picture in 1972. Expect a queue and expect 500 to 800 NT a person.
Day 4: Water and Steam
Morning. Take the MRT straight to Tamsui at the end of the red line. The old street and riverfront are easy, unhurried, and good for a slow coffee with a view of the Taiwan Strait.
Afternoon. Backtrack to Beitou for the hot springs. It’s directly on the MRT via the Xinbeitou branch, no bus transfer needed, and it’s genuinely underrated next to the Jiufen crowds: free public foot baths if you’re on a budget, paid spa hotels if you want the full soak, and Thermal Valley for the steaming source itself.
Evening. Close the trip with Elephant Mountain at sunset, a 20 to 40 minute climb that puts the entire Taipei 101 skyline below you for free, no ticket required. It’s a better view than the paid outdoor add-on up on the tower itself, which now runs NT$3,000, and it costs nothing but the climb.
Where to Stay
Zhongshan or Ximending both work well as a base, putting you within easy MRT reach of everything above without needing to change hotels mid-trip.
Transportation
The metro covers nearly everything on this itinerary. Rent a YouBike for short hops within a neighborhood, just remember the new insurance step in the app before your first ride of the trip.
Tips
Avoid the middle of the day at the biggest attractions if you can shift your schedule earlier or later; the crowds at Taipei 101 and Jiufen both thin out noticeably outside the noon to 2pm window. And don’t skip the bubble tea just because it’s everywhere; it was actually invented down in Taichung, not Taipei, but nobody local is checking your passport for it.
Official references: Travel Taipei , National Palace Museum , Taipei Metro .