What a visitor's money does in Taiwan: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
New Taiwan Dollar (TWD) · 1 USD = 32 TWD · 1 EUR = 36.5 TWD
Cash is still king at night markets and small restaurants, and an EasyCard covers the metro, the buses and every convenience store. Banks give a better rate than the airport, and 7-Eleven is on every corner for everything else.
Avoid: the airport exchange desks, which are worse than the banks
Use: 7-Eleven (any of them), FamilyMart, Bank of Taiwan
Every convenience store has a machine that takes foreign cards, and Taiwan has more convenience stores per head than anywhere on earth. An EasyCard then covers the metro, the buses and the shops.
A short ride in Taipei: NT$120–250 across town — cheap
From the airport: Taoyuan to central Taipei NT$1,000–1,300, against NT$160 on the MRT
Close to the meter. Taipei taxis are cheap, clean and everywhere.
Beef noodle soup is the city dish and there is an annual competition for the best. Xiao long bao at Din Tai Fung, which started here. Night market food, which is the real reason to be hungry: oyster omelette, pepper buns, stinky tofu, and bubble tea, which Taiwan invented.
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
