City Review: Taipei, Taiwan

I can’t tell you what exactly it was that made me want to visit Taipei. Maybe it was the fact that my friend Jasmine’s family is originally from Taiwan. Maybe it was because I read somewhere that Taipei was a great city for digital nomads. Or maybe it was just because I didn’t really know anyone else who had ever visited, so I wanted to go off the beaten path a little bit. But either way, after spending two weeks in Japan, Matt and I took a quick flight from Osaka to Taipei, where we spent a week.

If you’re planning your own trip to Taipei, here’s everything you need to know for your visit.

About Taipei and Taiwan

Taipei is the capital of Taiwan, though Taiwan is also known as the Republic of China. Its history, which is intertwined with the People’s Republic of China (PRC, or just China, as we all typically know it), is a little bit confusing but I’ll do my best to explain it concisely (and accurately)!

Basically, the Republic of China (ROC) became the first modern government in China in 1912 after the fall of the Qing dynasty. Meanwhile, Taiwan was under Japanese rule from the late 19th century until 1945 when Japan lost WWII. At that point, control of Taiwan shifted to the Republic of China.

In 1949, there was a Chinese civil war between the “nationalists” and the “communists.” The communists won and formed a new government, the People’s Republic of China (China in its present-day form). The nationalists retreated to the island of Taiwan and took the original Republic of China government/constitution with them. So that’s why there are basically two different governments, but it’s still recognized as only “one China” and the PRC claims that the ROC is part of their territory.

And Taiwan isn’t recognized as a country by the UN, either. In fact, it’s one of two “unrecognized states” — the other one being Kosovo. So when people say there are 195 countries in the world (193 UN and two “observer” states, Palestine and Holy See), Taiwan and Kosovo don’t count.

(I like “counting” my countries, and it felt weird to count my visit to Taiwan as being a visit to China, so I decided to henceforth adopt the 197 countries guideline.) 🙂

As you might know, there are two prominent Chinese languages spoken: Mandarin and Cantonese. Taiwan speaks Mandarin. And there are two types of written Chinese: Traditional and Simplified. Taiwan uses Traditional Chinese, while mainland China uses Simplified. China uses the Chinese yuan as their currency, and Taiwan uses New Taiwan Dollars ($NTD).

And again, we come back to: Taipei is the capital of Taiwan. About 2.5 million people live there, which is about 10% of the country’s population. While it’s not a super popular tourist destination, most people we interacted with in restaurants and hotels were able to speak a bit of English — even if we had to rely on Google Translate sometimes. And the biggest thing I’m telling everyone about our trip to Taipei is that the people there were sooooo nice. The number of times people came up to us to offer help or just make conversation was almost too many times to count!

How Many Days Do You Need in Taipei?

Taipei is a big city, though it’s pretty easy to get around with the metro. I’d say you’d want at least three days in the city itself, but four would be best if you’re planning on taking any day trips, like to Jiufen or Houtong Cat Village. (More on those later.)

We had a full week there, but we were also traveling for almost six weeks straight and were also still working throughout the entire trip. So we weren’t going full-steam-ahead every single day we were there. I think we probably did everything in a week that full-time travelers could do in three or four days.

Things To Do in Taipei

So, speaking of things to do…

The first thing I have to mention is Taipei 101. For some reason, we seem to like conquering a city’s highest tower soon after arriving (maybe it helps us orient ourselves a bit). So we went to Taipei 101 on our first day. Not only is it Taiwan’s tallest building, but it was previously the tallest building in the WORLD! from 2004 to 2010. Now it’s *only* the 11th-tallest building in the world, with the world’s third-fastest elevator. We spent a couple of hours up there taking in the views — there are soooo many gorgeous mountains around Taipei! — and Matt was geeking out over the tuned mass damper.

For another great view of Taipei — but one that includes Taipei 101 as part of the skyline — you’ll have to work for it. No superfast elevator to take you there. Hiking Elephant Mountain is consistently mentioned as one of the best things to do in Taipei, and I definitely agree, even though I’m not a big hiker. Especially when it’s 92 degrees with a dew point of 77. When I tell you that I’ve never been sweatier in my entire life, I really mean it.

I didn’t count but I read reviews from other travelers and apparently there are nearly 1,000 steps to the main viewpoint! But it was totally worth it when we got to the top. Even though I was completely drenched. Here’s a great guide to the Elephant Mountain Hike that I used while we were there!

Before reaching the Elephant Mountain trailhead, we passed through Xiangshan Park. We saw an extremely unsettling bird there called the Malayan Night Heron. But Taipei really has a ton of amazing parks! And we saw so many birds. (In case you didn’t know, I turned 31 and suddenly got into birding. I hear that’s not uncommon.) It really felt like anywhere you walked, you were only a block or two from green space in the middle of the city. Medellín, Colombia, is the only other city I can remember feeling like this. We also went to the Taipei Botanical Garden, which was free, and really pretty! And full of birds. My favorite was the Taiwan Barbet.

Besides Taipei’s nature, you have to explore the temples. In Taiwan, typically the temples are Confucian, Buddhist, or Taoist. But they were some of the most beautiful and intricate temples I’d ever seen — especially the ones that were covered in rainbow dragons! At some of them, we even participated in activities like incense offerings (Xia-Hai City God) or receiving a blessing from women “temple deacons” to help cleanse our spirits (Hsing-tian Temple).

The ones we visited were:

• Lungshan Temple
• Xia-Hai City God Temple
• Shende Temple
• Hsing-tian (Xingtian) Temple

But I also had some other ones saved on my maps that look really cool:

• Jingfu Temple
• Linji Huguo Temple
• Wenchang Temple
• Donghe Temple

Another thing that seems like it’s a temple (but it’s not) that you’ll probably want to see is Liberty Square, which includes Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, the National Concert Hall, and the National Theatre. Personally, I thought the most impressive part was the Gate of Great Centrality and Perfect Uprightness. To be honest, I didn’t learn a lot about the meaning of these places but they are very cool to see.

And then there are the night markets. I’m celiac so I really couldn’t enjoy them, but I did like walking through and looking at everything! One of the biggest ones is Raohe Night Market, and we also went to Linjiang Night Market. These two, plus all the others, have tons of stalls full of delicious-looking food, plus arcade games like claw machines and what looked like a version of pinball that I’ve never seen before. (It consisted of frantically feeding as many of the little silver balls into the machine as you can, as fast as you can.)

Okay! So I know that’s a lot to do in Taipei, but now I’m going to drop three more “unique” things to do in Taipei on you. These are like bonuses that I’m pretty sure not every tourist does. But we did!

First, we went to a Taiwanese baseball game. I wrote a full blog post about it, but it was a lot of fun and so different from baseball games in the U.S.! While there wasn’t a huge crowd, the fans that were there really brought the energy, as did the “Rakuten Girls” — the Rakuten Monkeys cheerleaders.

Next, we attended a Chinese calligraphy class! I’ve realized that I love doing some sort of cultural art class when I travel, because not only do I get to learn something while being artistic, but I also get a cool and unique souvenir out of it. We booked our calligraphy class with Teresa from Calligraphy Zen, and it ended up being a private class! She taught us so much about Chinese writing and the history of Chinese calligraphy, and then helped us write some scrolls that have a traditional Chinese marriage blessing on them 🙂

And our last unique activity was probably the most unique of them all… we went shrimp fishing. Apparently indoor shrimp fishing is a popular activity for locals, and we decided to give it a try ourselves. It was certainly unlike anything we’ve done before. 🤣 Basically, you go in and there’s a big indoor pond stocked with shrimp, and they give you a fishing rod and some bait, and then you catch some shrimp. Whatever you catch, you can take home with you — but in our case, the “boss” grilled them up for us and we had them for dinner! I’ll also go into more detail on this in a future blog post.

Finally, if you’ve built in a day for day-tripping, I recommend going to Jiufen and the Houtong Cat Village. I wanted to go both places, and luckily they’re fairly close to each other so it’s easy to knock them out in one day. Jiufen is a cool mountaintop town with views of the northern coast of Taiwan, and the narrow downtown streets are full of cafes, restaurants, and shops with red lanterns strung overhead. There’s also a famous tea house which makes for great photos!

And the Houtong Cat Village is kind of what it sounds like… an old mining village whose most famous residents are a bunch of stray cats. I love cats, so I was pretty much in heaven. (Be sure to pick up some cat treats in 7-Eleven in Taipei and bring them with you!)

How Expensive Is Taipei?

As I mentioned while trying to explain the difference between Taiwan and China, Taiwan has their own currency — New Taiwan Dollars ($NTD). The conversion from NTD to USD was about $300 NTD to $10 USD.

Being from the U.S. and living in Europe, we found Taipei to be pretty affordable on our Western budget. For example, at a chain coffee shop like Louisa Coffee, you could get a large latte for about $95 NTD (about $3 USD). Pretty good when you compare the price to an $8 latte at a coffee shop in the U.S. 😵‍💫

We didn’t get to eat a lot of meals out (more on that below) but usually we spent about $20-$30 USD per person for lunch or dinner. Tax included and no tip necessary.

And one thing that we started utilizing more once we realized the price: Ubers! Getting from Houtong Cat Village to Jiufen would have taken an hour on public transportation, but with Uber it only cost $240 NTD, or less than $8 USD, and only took 12 minutes so it was a no-brainer. Just be sure to leave a good tip for the driver. 🙂

Where To Eat in Taipei

I’ve always included a “where to eat” section in my city reviews, but those are going to look a bit different now that I’ve been diagnosed with celiac disease. I’ll keep it pretty short:

Hai Di Lao: This is a popular hotpot restaurant chain (that I was actually able to eat at, very carefully and probably a lot less flavorful-ly than you probably can if you don’t have dietary restrictions). I recommend making a reservation because we tried to go one night and the wait was nearly three hours! Though they are open until like 3-4 a.m. every day, and they have free ice cream and even a nail salon offering free manicures while you wait.

Din Tai Fung: Continuing the trend of three-word chain restaurants. This was highly recommended by the Internet, but unfortunately we couldn’t eat there because there weren’t any safe options for me.

Addiction Aquatic Development: This could have gone in the “things to do” section, because it’s also a fish market! But there are several seafood restaurants you can eat at here, as well as an upscale grocery store with really fresh, tasty sashimi you can buy and eat at a standing table outside.

Indus Chai: This one’s for my gluten-free baddies. It’s one of the only 100% GF restaurants in Taipei, and the food is delicious! Plus the owner, Rajat, has celiac disease and will be happy to answer any of your questions about being gluten-free in Taiwan.

Where We Stayed

Most of the time when we travel, we stay in hotels that we book using a combination of points and money, thanks to  CapitalOne VentureX credit cards.

This time, we stayed at Nagahiro Hotel, just north of Linsen Park. The hotel wasn’t super nice or anything, but it had the biggest room out of any hotel we stayed at on this trip, and there was free laundry! So I was pretty happy with it.

The only downside was that it wasn’t super close to any metro line — it was about a 15-minute walk to the nearest station, which felt a bit far. I think next time, we’d plan to stay somewhere a bit more central or better connected.

How To Get To Taipei From the Airport

There are two main ways to get from the airport to downtown Taipei: the bus and the metro.

1819 Bus: We took the bus both times between Taipei and the airport, and while it was great on the way into the city, we got stuck in some pretty bad traffic on our way back out to the airport. Anyway, you’re looking for bus #1819. My favorite travel app, Citymapper, helped me figure that out. It leaves about every 15-20 minutes during the day, and about every 30-40 minutes in the evening/night. It should take you about an hour to get into the city (if there’s no traffic) and costs $125 NTD, or about $4 USD, each way.

Metro Line A (Purple): There are technically two airport metro lines, but make sure you take the Purple Line A instead of the blue — the purple is the express train to Taipei, while the blue is the commuter line with a ton of stops. The express train will get you to Taipei Main Station in just 35 minutes, and it costs $160 NTD, or about $5.25 USD, each way. I’m not sure why we didn’t take the metro — probably just didn’t get us as close to our hotel (as I mentioned our hotel was too far from the metro!).

Is Taipei Worth Visiting?

100%, Taipei is worth visiting! As I mentioned, the people were some of the nicest I’ve encountered anywhere in the world — everyone was so helpful and excited to share their culture with us. The food looked great, so I’m sure you’ll be able to enjoy it, and there was sooooo much to do in the Taipei area alone!

On my next visit, I’d definitely like to take advantage of all the nature around Taiwan and either do more day trips, or maybe rent a car and travel around the island for longer, but if you stick to Taipei there’s still plenty to keep you busy!

Maybe just don’t go in August/September if you don’t want to melt. 😉

Plan Your Taipei Trip

Best Taipei Hotels: Taipei Taiwan Hotels

Things To Do in Taipei: Taipei Hidden Eats, Market & Street Food Tour with 8+ Tastings // Chinese Calligraphy Class: Calligraphy Zen // Northeast Coast Instagram Tour in New Taipei // Jiufen, Shifen and Houtong Cat Village Private Tour

 

Are you thinking about visiting Taipei? What else do you want to know? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

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