Taipei

It’s 9pm on Raohe Street and the air is thick with the smell of pepper buns blistering against the walls of a clay oven. A vendor pulls one out with bare fingers, too fast to burn, and hands it over still hissing. Above the lantern light, Taipei 101 glows like a green spine against the dark. This is the moment you understand Taipei — a city that lives at street level, after dark, in the steam and the crowd and the glow.

🏮 The Story Taipei wears every chapter of its past at once. Indigenous Taiwanese roots run beneath Japanese colonial shophouses, which lean against mirrored glass towers, which sit a block from Taoist temples hazed in incense that never quite clears. The city became Taiwan’s capital in 1949, when the Nationalist government retreated here as the Chinese Civil War turned — bringing with them the greatest single collection of Chinese imperial art in existence. That collision of histories is the texture of the place. Nothing here quite matches, and that’s exactly why it works.

🌋 Nature & Outdoors Ride the metro twenty minutes north and the city stops dead, replaced by the steaming sulphur valleys of Yangmingshan. This is a living volcano park on the Pacific Ring of Fire — vents hiss from the hillsides, the ground runs warm underfoot, and hot springs bubble up through the rock. On a clear morning the trails open onto views that fall all the way to the sea. For the city’s signature outlook, climb Elephant Mountain at dusk: twenty breathless minutes of stone steps that deliver you, lungs burning, to the postcard view of Taipei 101 rising gold above a sea of rooftops as the lights blink on.

🗺️ Top 10 Things to Do in Taipei

1. Eat your way through Raohe night market — Start with the pepper buns, then work through oyster omelette, stinky tofu and bubble tea where it was born. A guided night market food tour is the fastest way to eat like a local without the guesswork.
2. Stand inside the National Palace Museum — Roughly 700,000 Chinese imperial artefacts spanning around 5,000 years of history. Skip the queues with a reserved-entry museum tour.
3. Climb Elephant Mountain at sunset — The most iconic skyline view in the city. Free to climb, or join a guided sunset hike that times it perfectly.
4. Soak in a Beitou hot spring — Volcanic mineral baths tucked into a green valley at the city’s northern edge. Book a private hot spring experience for the full ritual.
5. Ride to the top of Taipei 101 — The tallest building on Earth from 2004 to 2010, served by what was once the world’s fastest elevator. Grab a skip-the-line observatory ticket.
6. Day-trip to Jiufen & Shifen — A mountainside tea-house village often said to have inspired the look of Spirited Away, plus sky lanterns over an old railway town. A full-day Jiufen tour handles the tricky logistics.
7. Wander the lanes of Dadaocheng — Tea merchants, herb shops and Qing-era facades along Dihua Street, the oldest trading quarter in the city. Best on foot, oolong in hand.
8. Temple-hop from Longshan to Bao’an — Longshan Temple, founded in 1738, still draws a constant tide of worshippers beneath carved dragons and drifting incense. A guided old-town walking tour joins the dots.
9. Cycle the riverside trails — Hundreds of kilometres of dedicated bike paths follow the Tamsui and Keelung rivers. Grab a YouBike share cycle and ride out to the waterfront at Dadaocheng Wharf for sunset.
10. Take the gondola to Maokong — A glass-floored cable car climbs over forested hills to a plateau of working tea houses. Sip high-mountain oolong where the leaves are actually grown, with the city shimmering far below.

🥟 Where to Eat Taipei eats with a seriousness bordering on devotion. Din Tai Fung began here as a humble dumpling shop before conquering the world — order the xiao long bao, folded into eighteen precise pleats, each a thin-skinned parcel of scalding broth. Eat them the local way: vinegar, ginger, one bite, no mercy. Beyond the dumplings, chase down beef noodle soup simmered half a day, oyster vermicelli, and in summer, a mountain of shaved ice buried under fresh mango. The night markets are where the city’s soul is loudest — but the obsession runs all the way up to Taipei’s growing roster of Michelin stars.

📅 When to Go Come between October and December — the typhoons have blown through, the humidity finally breaks, and the city settles into clear 20°C days that feel like a reward. Spring (March–May) brings cherry blossoms to the Yangmingshan slopes, a quieter answer to Japan’s. Summer (June–September) is for the brave: gloriously hot, prone to dramatic storms, though Taipei’s covered markets, metro and cool museums make it the most weatherproof city in Asia. One small truth — Taipei sees far more annual rain than London. It just arrives all at once, then clears as if nothing happened.

ℹ️ Good to Know

• Getting around: The MRT metro is fast, spotless and cheap. Grab an EasyCard at any station and tap onto trains, buses and even convenience-store snacks.
• Currency: New Taiwan Dollar (NT$). Cards work widely, but night markets are cash only.
• Language: Mandarin is official; English signage is common on transit and in tourist areas.
• Local tip: Convenience stores (7-Eleven, FamilyMart) are a way of life here — pay bills, ship luggage, grab a surprisingly good tea egg at 3am.

🧳 Plan Your Trip Ready to follow the lantern light through one of Asia’s great cities? Here’s where to begin:

• 🏨 Find hotels in Taipei → [Booking.com]
• 🥟 Book a Taipei night market food tour → [Viator]
• 🌋 Explore Yangmingshan & Beitou experiences → [GetYourGuide]

❓ Taipei FAQ

How many days do you need in Taipei? Three to four days covers the essentials — night markets, the National Palace Museum, Elephant Mountain and a hot spring — with a day left for a Jiufen or Yangmingshan day trip.

Is Taipei expensive? No. Taipei is one of Asia’s best-value major cities. Night market meals cost a few dollars, the metro is cheap, and even mid-range hotels are reasonable by global standards.

What is Taipei famous for? Its night markets, the Taipei 101 skyscraper, the largest collection of Chinese imperial art, volcanic hot springs, and a food scene running from street stalls to Michelin stars.

When is the best time to visit Taipei? October to December — dry, mild and comfortable. Spring is good too; summer is hot and stormy but manageable thanks to the city’s covered, air-conditioned infrastructure.