Taipei
Taiwan
Night markets, hot springs and mountains inside the city limits
Photos by Lisanto 李奕良, Poh Soo Donald Soh, Timo Volz and Clement Souchet on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Taiwan
October to December, and March to April (summer is hot, wet and has typhoons)
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 360mm in Sep
Where it is
25.03°N, 121.57°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Eat dinner across three night markets in one evening
- Climb Elephant Mountain twenty minutes before sunset for the Taipei 101 view
- Soak in a public hot spring at Beitou
- Take the train to Jiufen and Shifen for the day
- See the National Palace Museum, which holds what left Beijing in 1949
Taipei travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Taiwan
Mid-rangeCash 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.
ATMs & cards
Every 7-Eleven and FamilyMart has a machine that takes foreign cards, and there are more of those in Taipei than anywhere on earth per head. Bank machines charge about NT$100.
Avoid these
- the airport exchange desks, which are worse than the banks
Use these instead
- 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.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Taiwan
Very safeOne of the safest places in the world, including alone at night, and lost wallets are routinely returned. Typhoons between July and October close everything for a day or two at a time and are announced well ahead. Earthquakes are frequent and buildings are built for them. Scooter traffic is the everyday hazard.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (4 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
- Taipei — all of it, including alone at night
Worth more attention
- Scooter traffic, which is the everyday hazard and comes from every direction
- Typhoons between July and October, which shut the island for a day or two and are announced well ahead
- Mountain trails around Taipei in heavy rain, where landslides close them
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Taiwan visa rules
No visa neededup to 90 days
Ninety days, and no application at all. A passport valid for six months and an onward ticket are what is checked.
Other passports
e-Visa requiredup to 30 daysUSD 50
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Before you fly: the arrival card
Online Arrival CardOptional
Any time before you land.
Have these in front of you before you start:
- passport
- flight number
- the full address of your first night
Optional, and it replaces the paper card you would otherwise fill in standing up.
Use the official link above. Sites that charge a "service fee" to submit one of these for you are not the government, and they want the same passport details the real form does.
Health & emergencies all of Taiwan
Excellent and cheapRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Hepatitis A
- Tetanus up to date
- Japanese encephalitis for a long rural stay
Getting treated
Excellent and inexpensive. Taiwan’s national health system is one of the best regarded anywhere, and visitors pay modest fees at hospital outpatient departments without an appointment. English is spoken at the major hospitals.
Dengue occurs in the south in summer. Typhoons between July and October, which are announced days ahead and shut the island for a day at a time. Earthquakes are frequent and buildings are engineered for them.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
OutstandingBeef 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.
Nightlife
Night markets are the night out, and a bar scene in Da’an that has quietly become one of Asia’s best.
- Shilin Night Market — the biggest, and the most visited
- Raohe Street Night Market — the better one, and shorter
- Da’an District — the cocktail bars, several on world lists
- Ximending — the young, loud, neon end of it
Closing: Markets around midnight, bars 02:00 or later.
A beer in a bar: NT$80–180
The MRT stops around midnight and eating or drinking on it is fined — finish the bubble tea before the gate.
Getting around
Easy and cheap- UberWorks here
- Uber TaxiWorks here
- LINE TaxiWorks here
- BoltNot here
- GrabNot here
Uber Taxi the yellow-cab fleet, inside the same app
- From the airport
- Taoyuan to central Taipei NT$1,000–1,300, against NT$160 on the MRT
- Against a taxi
- Close to the meter. Taipei taxis are cheap, clean and everywhere.
Time zone and your working day
Asia/Taipei — 12 hours ahead of you
0 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — — your time, — theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 21:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 21:00–05:00 on yours.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Taiwan
What these numbers mean
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 2.1× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Good. Maps, calls and streaming, and enough to tether a laptop for an afternoon. Mobile runs at 1.2× the global median of 109 Mbps.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Taiwan, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Mandarin (Taiwan)
- Hello你好 (Nǐ hǎo)nee how
- Thank you謝謝 (Xièxie)SYEH-syeh
- Yes / No對 / 不對 (Duì / Bù duì)dway / boo dway
- Excuse me不好意思 (Bù hǎoyìsi)boo how-yee-suh
5 more phrases
- How much is it?多少錢? (Duōshǎo qián?)dwor-shao chyen
- Delicious好吃 (Hǎochī)how-chur
- This one, please這個 (Zhège)jay-guh
- Cheers乾杯 (Gānbēi)gan-bay
- Goodbye再見 (Zàijiàn)dzai-jyen
Taiwan uses traditional characters rather than the simplified ones of the mainland, so the written language looks different even where the spoken one is the same. English is common among the young and in Taipei, less so elsewhere.
Religion
Folk religion, Buddhism and Taoism together
Most people practise a blend rather than one — a temple will hold Taoist deities, Buddhist figures and local folk gods in the same hall. Mazu, the sea goddess, has the largest following, and her pilgrimage in spring moves a million people.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Take a business card or a gift with both hands, and look at it before putting it away
- Queue, everywhere, including for the MRT doors, which have lines painted on the platform
- Take your rubbish with you — there are almost no public bins by design
- Say xièxie, and expect a level of helpfulness that is genuinely disarming
Don't
- Do not eat or drink on the MRT, which is fined and universally observed
- Do not stick chopsticks upright in rice, which resembles incense for the dead
- Do not raise cross-strait politics casually; opinions are strong and varied and it is not small talk
- Do not tip — it is not expected and can confuse
Where to stay in Taipei
No Holistay rentals in Taipei yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is Taipei on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Taoyuan TPE
40 minfrom the airport· 34 km as the crow flies
40 min on the airport MRT.
Also worth pricing: Songshan TSA — inside the city, and mostly domestic and regional.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
