Taipei first. Then the whole island.
Which Jiufen day gets you up the stairs before the coaches. What a night market crawl is actually worth paying for. Where the sky lanterns go up, and on which day they cost triple. Every bookable tour in Taiwan, reviewed.
Jiufen, Shifen and Yehliu, done in one day.
Every northeast coast day trip →
One road leaves Taipei, runs past the sea-carved rock at Yehliu, climbs to the lantern-lit stairs of Jiufen and ends on a railway line where people write wishes on paper and let them go. Almost every visitor does this loop. What changes is the order, how long you get at each stop, and whether you are on the stairs before or after the coaches.
Yehliu, Jiufen and Shifen in one sweep
Queen’s Head at opening time while the light is still low, noodles and taro balls on Jiufen Old Street, then a lantern let go over the Pingxi railway before the day runs out.
Jiufen after the coaches leave
You arrive as the day tours head home. The stairs empty, the red lanterns come on above the tea houses, and the drive back takes in a night market instead of rush hour.
Your own car, your own clock
Shifen Waterfall first because nobody else is there yet, then the old street, then Jiufen at whatever pace you set. It earns its price with four people or a family that will not queue.
The days Taipei is built around.
The lantern coast, the night markets, the oolong hills an hour from downtown, a kitchen where you fold your own dumplings, and volcanic steam twenty minutes up the red line.
What a day out in Taipei costs.
Every tour we cover, cheapest first. Taipei is one of the cheapest capitals in Asia to eat and move around in, and the ladder shows it.
Night market walks, museum entry, tea tastings and the cycling mornings along the riverside parks.
The northeast coast day trips, food tours with eight or ten tastings, cooking classes that start at the market.
Private drivers, Taroko Gorge on the east coast, and the multi-day loops that go all the way round.
The tours travellers to Taiwan actually book.
All Taiwan reviews →What fills first across the island, and what each one is worth a day of your trip for.
1
Shifen, Jiufen, and Yehliu Guided Day Trip
Explore Shifen, Jiufen, and Yehliu from Taipei with a guide, lantern release, waterfall, old streets, and coastal rock formations.
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
Taipei eats standing up, and it starts at six.
Shilin for the scale, Raohe for the pepper buns baked on the wall of a clay oven at the temple gate, Ningxia for stalls that have not changed hands in forty years. A guide is the difference between three snacks and fifteen, and knowing which queue is the one worth joining.
![[Private Tour] Shilin Night Market Walking Tour With a Private Tour Guide (2-hr)](https://y8.taiwantourreviews.com/wp-content/uploads/private-tour-shilin-night-market-walking-tour-with-a-private-tour-guide-2-hr-400x267.jpg)
[Private Tour] Shilin Night Market Walking Tour With a Private Tour Guide (2-hr)
Read our review →
Taipei Food Tour: Night Market & Convenience Store(Food Included)
Read our review →
Street Food & Hidden Eats Night Market Food Tour
Read our review →Taiwan drinks its tea twice: on the hill and through a straw.
Pinglin and Maokong grow oolong within an hour of downtown, and the gondola drops you at the tea houses. Then there is the other one: tapioca in iced milk tea, invented in Taichung in the 1980s, still built to order and still queued for.
All 14 tea and bubble tea experiences →
Three things Taiwan does that nowhere else does.
Temples and street food run the length of Asia. Tapioca in your tea, a hundred night markets that belong to their neighbourhoods, and a hot-spring mineral named after the town it came out of belong to this island.
The Tapioca Ball
A tea stand in Taichung dropped sweetened tapioca into iced milk tea in the 1980s and the drink went round the world under a name nobody agrees on. On the island it is still made slowly: pearls boiled and rested in syrup, tea shaken until it holds a head, the cup built to order with the sugar and ice named out loud. The workshops let you cook the pearls yourself, which is the part that takes the time.
- 1Thousand Island Lake and Pinglin Tea Plantation★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 519 reviews
- 2Thousand Island Lake and Pinglin Tea Plantation from Taipei★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 172 reviews
- 3Xiao Long Bao, Beef Noodles & Boba Tea Cooking Class in Taipei★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 159 reviews
The Night Market
Taiwan has more than a hundred night markets and the good ones are neighbourhood institutions rather than tourist strips. Raohe runs one straight street from the temple gate, so you eat in a line. Shilin hides its food hall downstairs under the covered market. Ningxia is short, old and famous for stalls that have been in the same hands for decades. All three are cash, and all three are busiest around eight.
- 1[Private Tour] Shilin Night Market Walking Tour With a Private Tour Guide (2-hr)★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 123 reviews
- 2Street Food & Hidden Eats Night Market Food Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 112 reviews
- 3Taipei Food Tour: Night Market & Convenience Store(Food Included)★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 100 reviews
Beitou’s Steam
Beitou sits in a volcanic crack at the north end of the Taipei metro, and the Thermal Valley boils in the open air hot enough that the whole basin steams. The rock that forms in the stream, hokutolite, is named after the town and occurs in only one other place on earth. Bathhouses run from public pools costing a few hundred NT to private rooms rented by the hour.
- 1Beitou and Yangmingshan National Park Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 307 reviews
- 2Beitou and Yangmingshan Day Tour from Taipei★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 92 reviews
- 3Private Yangmingshan Volcano Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 67 reviews
Book these before you land in Taipei.
Most of Taiwan can be arranged the night before from a hotel lobby. These cannot. They run on timed tickets, small kitchens and a lunar calendar that does not move for your flight.
- 01Taipei 101 Observatory Deck Entry TicketObservatory entry is timed, and the hour either side of sunset is the one that goes first.
- 02Half Day Private Tour to Jiufen, Shifen Waterfall & Pingxi Sky LanternThe Pingxi lantern festival falls on the fifteenth night of the lunar new year. Every seat on that single date is spoken for months ahead.
- 03Xiao Long Bao, Beef Noodles & Boba Tea Cooking Class in TaipeiKitchens seat eight to twelve. The sittings that run in English fill a week or more before the date.
- 04National Palace Museum E-TicketThe headline pieces rotate and travel. Check the jadeite cabbage is in the building before you plan a morning around it.
Taipei rains for months. The answers are all indoors.
The northeast monsoon parks over the city from October and the plum rains come back in May. None of it cancels a cooking class, a museum morning, a tea house above Maokong or an afternoon in a Beitou bathhouse, where the weather is rather the point.
By region — Taipei out to the coasts
Taipei166 tours
Keelung17 tours
Taichung & Sun Moon Lake6 tours
Hualien & Taroko4 tours
Kaohsiung8 tours
Alishan5 tours- The whole island →
By experience — what kind of Taiwan day?
How a first trip to Taiwan usually runs.
Night markets
Beitou
Sun Moon LakeThe newest Taiwan tour reviews.
Everything we cover →
Shore Excursion Private 8H Taipei Urban Adventure
Read our review →
Keelung Half-Day Food Tour: Explore Day & Night Markets
Read our review →
Iconic Food Tour: Local Street Food, Drinks & Sites
Read our review →
