Taipei 101, the National Palace Museum, and Longshan Temple will eat two full days on their own if you let them, so know the hours and prices going in and build the rest of your visit around them, not the other way around. Here’s exactly what each one costs, when to go, and what to skip. Slotting all of this into a full trip? Our 3 day Taipei itinerary already maps the order.

Taroko Gorge is still not the place it was before the April 2024 earthquake, and it’s worth saying plainly before you build a day around it: the Shakadang Trail and the Zhuilu Old Road, the two hikes everyone puts on their list, remain closed, and nobody’s promising them back soon. What is open, the Taroko Terrace Trail, the Tianxiang area, the Lushui Recreation Area’s first stretch, is still genuinely worth the trip.

A three-hour High Speed Rail ride from Taipei gets you all the way to Tainan, a city that was Taiwan’s capital for over two centuries before Taipei ever held the title. Six days is exactly enough runway to spend half the trip in and around the capital, then ride the HSR down the west coast to see why the south feels like an entirely different country. Rather stay put in the capital?

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?

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.

Liberty Square in front of Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall is bigger than it looks in photos, and that scale sets the tone for this whole trip: three days in Taipei and beyond really means two days in the city and one full day earning the trip out to the coast, and that split works better than trying to squeeze everything into a rushed 72 hours. Want the city without the coast day?

Two days is not enough time to do Taipei justice, and it’s definitely not enough to also get you up into the mountains and back. Do it anyway. This itinerary spends one full day on the city and burns the second entirely on a trip out to Jiufen and Shifen, because Taipei rewards a tight sprint and the coast rewards a slower one. Want the whole 48 hours in the city instead?

A full week in Taipei is the version where you stop sprinting between landmarks and actually get a feel for how the city breathes, temples in the morning, mountains at sunset, and a proper lazy day near the end that doesn’t involve a single queue. Prefer to trade the last two days for wider Taiwan instead? See the Taipei and Beyond 7 day itinerary . Need less time? Try 6 days or 5 days .

Six days lets you do the full city-core route, one mountain day trip, and a coastal one, and still leave a little breathing room. This is the itinerary to hand a friend who asked where to start. Only have 5 days? Drop the coastal day and use the 5 day plan . Have a full week? See the 7 day version . Book these before you go Jiufen and Shifen day tour Yehliu Geopark day trip , tour buses arrive by midday Taipei 101 observatory ticket A Ximending or Zhongshan base on Agoda The 6 day route at a glance Day Focus Base 1 Wanhua temples, Ximending, night market Ximending 2 Taipei 101, Xinyi, Elephant Mountain Ximending 3 National Palace Museum, Beitou Ximending 4 Da’an, Yongkang Street, Maokong tea Ximending 5 Jiufen and Shifen mountain day trip Ximending 6 Yehliu Geopark and Tamsui coastal day Ximending Day 1: Wanhua, Longshan Temple, Ximending Get an EasyCard as soon as you land and load it up, it covers the MRT, buses, YouBike and most convenience stores, and it’s the only card you’ll need all week.

Five days is the sweet spot: enough time for the full city-core route plus one proper mountain day trip, without the trip turning into a checklist sprint. Prefer to stay in the city the whole time? Try the 4 day version. Want more of the mountains and coast? Jump to 6 days or 7 days . Book these before you go Jiufen and Shifen day tour , the bus and train connections get tight if you plan them yourself Taipei 101 observatory ticket A Ximending or Da’an base on Agoda The 5 day route at a glance Day Focus Base 1 Wanhua temples, Ximending, night market Ximending 2 Taipei 101, Xinyi, Elephant Mountain Ximending 3 National Palace Museum, Beitou hot springs Ximending 4 Da’an, Yongkang Street, Maokong tea Da’an or Zhongshan 5 Jiufen and Shifen mountain day trip Da’an or Zhongshan Day 1: Wanhua, Longshan Temple, Ximending Grab an EasyCard the moment you land and load it generously, it taps onto the MRT, buses, YouBike, and most convenience stores, so it’s the only card you’ll think about for the rest of the week.

Give Taipei four days and it stops feeling like a checklist and starts feeling like a place you’re actually getting to know. This is the city-core route, temples, the tower, hot springs, and enough neighborhood wandering that you leave with actual favorites instead of just photos. Only got 3 days? Use the 3 day version instead, or stretch it further with the 5 day or 6 day plans. Book these before you go

Three days is tight for Taipei, but it’s enough to fall for the city hard if you stop trying to see everything and chase the good stuff instead: old-town temples and night markets on day one, the tower and the skyline on day two, palace treasures and hot springs on day three. Need more time or less? See the 4 day , 5 day and 7 day versions of this same plan.

Treat Taipei as your launchpad, not your whole trip. Everyone still introduces Taipei 101 as the tallest building in the world; it held that title for six years before the Burj Khalifa passed it in 2010. That correction is the right mindset for the rest of Taiwan too: the capital is a great home base, but the mountain towns, hot springs, and cities down the west coast are where this trip actually opens up.

Three to five days is the right amount of time to give Taipei on its own, no side trips, no HSR runs south, just the city. That’s enough to hit the tower, the temples, and enough night markets to ruin your appetite in the best way, and the MRT is good enough that you can do it all without a car or a guide. Taipei essentials at a glance Days needed 3-5 for the city itself Best months Oct-Nov and Mar-May (19-28C, drier) Daily budget NT$1,500-2,500 budget, NT$3,500-6,000+ mid-range Booking warning The Skyline 460 outdoor add-on at Taipei 101 is NT$3,000, not the NT$980 some sites still quote Getting from the airport into the city Almost everyone lands at Taoyuan (TPE), about 40km southwest of downtown.