5 Days: Taipei and Beyond

Five days changes the shape of a Taiwan trip. Instead of just Taipei plus a coastal day trip, you have enough runway to ride the High Speed Rail south and treat the capital as what it really is: a launchpad for the rest of the island. This itinerary spends the first three days in and around Taipei, then hands you off to Taichung and Sun Moon Lake for the finish. Want to stay in the capital the whole time instead? Try the 5 day Taipei itinerary . Ready to go further still? See 6 days , which adds Tainan.

Book these before you go

The 5 day route at a glance

Day Focus Transit time
1 Longshan Temple, Ximending, night market 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 HSR to Taichung, Miyahara, Fengjia Market HSR, about 1 hour
5 Sun Moon Lake, HSR back to Taipei bus 1.5-2 hours, HSR 1 hour

Day 1: Old Taipei, First Impressions

Morning. Land, get an EasyCard at the airport MRT counter immediately, and take the Airport MRT Express into the city, about 35 to 38 minutes to Taipei Main Station for a flat 160 NT. Check in and head straight to Longshan Temple in Wanhua; the incense and the fortune-stick rituals there are the real thing, not a show for visitors.

Afternoon. Walk the Bopiliao Historic Block next to the temple, then drift into Ximending for street food and people-watching.

Evening. Dinner at a proper beef noodle soup shop, 150 to 400 NT depending on the shop’s reputation, then Raohe or Ningxia night market rather than Shilin. Both are smaller, more local, and a lot easier to actually eat your way through without fighting a crowd for every stall.

Day 2: Icons and Incense

Morning. Taipei 101’s observatory opens at 9am, roughly 600 NT for the standard 88th-floor ticket. Worth saying out loud: it hasn’t been the world’s tallest building since 2010, when the Burj Khalifa took the title after Taipei 101 held it for six years. Look for the 660-tonne tuned mass damper through the glass anyway; it’s one of the better pieces of visible engineering you’ll see on this trip.

Afternoon. The National Palace Museum deserves the rest of your afternoon. Jadeite cabbage, meat-shaped stone, and one of the largest troves of Chinese imperial art anywhere; this is not a fifteen-minute stop.

Evening. Dinner at Din Tai Fung, and yes, the queue is real. It’s also a homegrown Taiwanese chain, not an international import, started as a Taipei cooking-oil shop in 1958 before dumplings entered the menu in 1972. The original Xinyi Road branch is still running.

Day 3: North Coast Day Trip

Give this day fully to Jiufen, Shifen, and Yehliu. Train to Ruifang, then bus up into Jiufen for the morning, ideally arriving before 9am since the lantern-lit alleys become a slow shuffle by midday on weekends. Move on to Shifen for the old railway street and sky lanterns, then Yehliu Geopark for the wind-carved rock formations, the Queen’s Head among them. A guided combo tour covers all three in around nine hours if you’d rather not manage three separate bus connections yourself.

Evening. Back in Taipei, keep it simple: Nanjichang Night Market is a genuine local market with almost no tourist traffic, a good, low-key close to a long day outdoors.

Day 4: HSR South to Taichung

Morning. Take the High Speed Rail from Taipei to Taichung, about an hour, and store your bags at the station if your hotel check-in isn’t until later. Spend the day exploring Taichung itself: the old Japanese-era Miyahara building turned ice cream parlor is worth the stop for the architecture alone, not just the dessert.

Do I need to book Sun Moon Lake or Taichung ahead?

Book the Taichung hotel and, if you want a cable car time slot at Sun Moon Lake, reserve that a day or two out during peak season. HSR tickets sell out fastest around Taiwanese holidays and long weekends, so lock those in as soon as your dates are firm rather than at the station.

Afternoon and evening. Fengjia Night Market is Taichung’s answer to Shilin, similarly large, similarly good for grazing your way through the evening. Stay overnight in Taichung; it sets up an easier run to Sun Moon Lake the next morning than trying to do it all as a day trip from Taipei.

Day 5: Sun Moon Lake and Back North

Morning. An early bus from Taichung HSR station gets you to Sun Moon Lake in about 1.5 to 2 hours. Ride the cable car up to Wenwu Temple for the lake view, or rent a bike for the lakeside path if you’d rather move at your own pace.

Afternoon. Head back to Taichung by early afternoon and catch the HSR north to Taipei, about an hour, in time for a last dinner or your departure the next morning. This is a genuinely full last day, no way around it, but the HSR’s speed is exactly what makes squeezing a mountain lake into a five-day Taipei trip possible at all.

Things to Know

Taiwan is a safe, easy country to move through, and tipping isn’t expected anywhere on this itinerary. The currency is the New Taiwan Dollar. Typhoon season runs June through October and can disrupt trains and buses on short notice, so build a little flex into any leg south of Taipei if you’re traveling in that window.

Transportation

EasyCard covers the Taipei MRT, buses, and YouBike, but not the High Speed Rail; buy HSR tickets separately, online or at the station, and book ahead during holidays when seats sell out.

Tips

Reserve your Sun Moon Lake bus and any Fengjia Night Market plans loosely; both get busy on weekends and it’s worth checking timetables the night before rather than assuming. And don’t skip trying bubble tea just because Taipei didn’t invent it; that credit actually belongs to Taichung, which you’ll be walking through on Day 4.

Official references: Travel Taipei , Taiwan High Speed Rail , Taipei Metro , National Palace Museum .