Best Walking Tours in Taipei — Trip Planner

What's actually worth your time in Taipei

Go up Taipei 101 on a clear evening for the 660-tonne tuned mass damper as much as the view. Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall costs nothing and the hourly guard change is worth timing. Longshan Temple in Wanhua is a working temple, densest during evening chanting. Elephant Mountain's twenty-minute stair climb delivers the skyline photograph people otherwise buy a tower ticket for.

What first-timers get wrong in Taipei

Buy an EasyCard at any MRT station. It works on metro, buses, YouBike and convenience stores, and drops bus fares to NT$15 rather than requiring exact coins. Do not tip; it confuses people. Street bins barely exist because household rubbish goes to musical collection trucks residents queue beside. Platform queue lines are painted onto the MRT floor and people genuinely stand in them.

What to eat in Taipei

Ningxia Night Market is the compact one locals actually send you to, for taro balls, oyster omelette and sesame oil chicken. Raohe beside Songshan Station carries the queue for Fuzhou pepper buns slapped onto a tandoor wall. Beef noodle soup is the civic dish and Yongkang Street has the famous bowls. Din Tai Fung began on Xinyi Road and still trades there.

Taipei's museums, and which one to pick

The National Palace Museum in Shilin holds the imperial collection carried out of Beijing in 1948, with the jadeite cabbage and meat-shaped stone rotating in and out of display. Tickets are NT$350 and it closes Mondays apart from a published list of exceptions. Beitou Hot Spring Museum, a 1913 bathhouse, is free and also dark on Mondays, as is Taipei Fine Arts Museum.

Taipei after dark

Evenings in Taipei are night markets first and bars second. Xinyi's clubs around ATT 4 FUN run late at weekends, while Da'an's Anhe Road and the lanes off Fuxing hold the cocktail places. The MRT stops around midnight, so budget for a taxi or plan around the last train. Convenience stores sell beer at any hour and drinking it outside them is unremarkable.

When to go to Taipei

The month to avoid is July — around 34°C (93°F) with roughly 18 rain days. Prices and crowds track the weather here: January is the sweet spot, July the month most people skip.

Pack for peak season: Layers — t-shirts under a light jacket or sweater, A packable rain shell or compact umbrella earns its space, Comfortable walking shoes — every guide on this site assumes you'll use them.