Most people land in Taipei with one landmark on their list — Taipei 101 — and end up staying for the neighborhoods. This city rewards wandering: a night market three streets off the main road, a temple still thick with incense smoke on a Tuesday afternoon, a hillside teahouse with the whole skyline laid out below it. Below are the attractions and areas worth building a trip around, roughly in the order we'd tackle them.
Buy an EasyCard at any MRT station the moment you land. It works on the metro, buses, YouBike rental bikes, and even some convenience store purchases — you'll use it constantly. See our guide to getting around Taipei for details.
The essential Taipei attractions
Taipei 101
For 2004–2010 this was the tallest building on Earth, and it's still the single image most people associate with the city. The 89th-floor observatory gives you the full skyline, plus a look at the 660-tonne steel pendulum that keeps the tower stable in typhoons and earthquakes.
Full Taipei 101 guideLongshan Temple
Built in 1738, this is Taipei's most important temple and one of the few places in the city where you can watch centuries-old devotional practice happen in real time — locals shaking chien tung fortune sticks and tossing moon blocks to ask questions of the gods.
Full Longshan Temple guideXimending
Taipei's pedestrianized youth-culture district: street fashion, arcades, live music, cinemas and some of the best casual food in the city. It's loud, dense, and a completely different Taipei to the temples and parks.
Full Ximending guideChiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall
A vast white-and-blue monument set inside Liberty Square, flanked by the National Theater and Concert Hall. The changing-of-the-guard ceremony (on the hour) is worth timing your visit around, and the surrounding plaza is one of the most photogenic open spaces in the city.
Full memorial hall guideNational Palace Museum
One of the largest collections of Chinese imperial art and artifacts in the world, with pieces spanning roughly 8,000 years. You could spend a full day here; most visitors budget two to three hours and focus on the jadeite cabbage and a handful of the bronze and ceramics galleries.
Full museum guideBeitou Hot Springs
A short MRT ride to a completely different landscape: a steaming thermal valley, public and private hot spring baths, and a museum built into a former Japanese-era bathhouse. Easily done as a half-day trip.
Full Beitou guideMaokong Gondola
A cable car that climbs out of the city into tea-growing hills on Taipei's southern edge. Ride it up, wander between family-run tea houses, and come back down for one of the best-value views in Taipei.
Full Maokong guideDa'an Forest Park
Taipei's answer to Central Park: a properly peaceful green space with a lotus pond, a small amphitheater, and (at dusk) enormous crested mynas and egrets settling into the trees. A good reset between busier sightseeing days.
Full Da'an Park guideXinyi District & Elephant Mountain
Taipei's glossy financial and shopping core, built around the base of Taipei 101. Climb the (short but steep) Xiangshan — Elephant Mountain — trail nearby for the classic postcard shot of the tower rising over the city.
Full Xinyi District guideDihua Street, Dadaocheng
A preserved strip of 19th-century shophouses selling dried goods, herbs, fabric and tea, now interspersed with design shops and cafés. It's liveliest — and most crowded — in the weeks before Lunar New Year.
Full Dihua Street guideSongshan Cultural and Creative Park
A former tobacco factory turned exhibition and design space, with a rotating calendar of art installations, a small pond garden, and the Eslite bookstore flagship next door for a rainy afternoon.
Full Songshan guideTaipei's Night Markets
Shilin, Raohe and Ningxia are the big three — each with its own personality, from Shilin's sprawling scale to Raohe's tighter, food-first single street. Go hungry and share everything.
Full night markets guideTaipei Confucius Temple
A quiet, contemplative counterpoint to Longshan Temple in the Dalongdong area — no incense burning, restrained architecture, and a striking annual ceremony every September 28th.
Full Confucius Temple guideSun Yat-Sen Memorial Hall
A large monument and park between Xinyi and Da'an, with its own changing-of-the-guard ceremony and a quieter Taipei 101 photo spot than the famous Elephant Mountain viewpoint.
Full memorial hall guideTaipei Botanical Garden
A free, quiet garden near Taipei Main Station with a lotus pond and one of the city's few surviving Qing-dynasty buildings.
Full botanical garden guideHow much time do you need?
Two full days covers the essentials (Taipei 101, one temple, one night market, one neighborhood). Four to five days lets you add a hot spring afternoon, Maokong, and a day trip to Jiufen or Taroko Gorge without feeling rushed. See our sample itineraries for day-by-day plans.
Frequently asked questions
Is Taipei walkable?
Central Taipei is very walkable within neighborhoods, and the MRT connects the neighborhoods to each other quickly and cheaply. You'll still want the metro for anything more than about 2km.
Is 3 days enough for Taipei?
Yes, for the core sights. Three days comfortably covers Taipei 101, Longshan Temple, Ximending, a night market and one more neighborhood or a half-day trip to Beitou. See our 3-day itinerary for a full plan.
What are the best free things to do in Taipei?
Longshan Temple, Da'an Forest Park, the Elephant Mountain hike, wandering Dihua Street, Liberty Square, and most of the city's temples cost nothing to visit. Night markets are free to browse (you only pay for what you eat).
Is Taipei safe for tourists?
Taipei is consistently ranked among the safer major cities in Asia for visitors. Standard travel precautions apply, but violent crime against tourists is rare and the city is comfortable to explore on foot, including at night.