Taipei + Taiwan in 5 Days on a Budget
Five days is the sweet spot for treating Taipei as a base rather than the whole trip. You get three full days in the city and on the north coast, then two more riding the High Speed Rail south to Taichung and Sun Moon Lake before looping back for your flight. Only have three days for the city-plus-day-trip version, see our 3-day Taipei + Taiwan itinerary ; want Tainan added on too, use the 6-day version .
Book these before you go:
- Ximending or Zhongshan stays on Agoda for the first three nights
- Sun Moon Lake lakeside accommodation , book ahead if you’re traveling on a weekend since lakeside rooms are limited
- Guided Jiufen, Shifen, and Yehliu minibus tour if you’d rather skip managing the DIY transfers on Day 3
Money logistics up front: buy an EasyCard the moment you land at Taoyuan (TPE); it covers MRT, buses, YouBike, the Maokong Gondola, and most convenience stores, at roughly 20% off cash fares. The Airport MRT Express is NT$160 and 35-38 minutes to Taipei Main; the bus is NT$135-145 and slower. Base yourself in Ximending or Zhongshan for the first three nights, both walkable to the MRT and cheaper than Xinyi’s business-hotel rates.
Day 1: Old Taipei
Ease into the city at the Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, free to walk the grounds and worth timing for the changing of the guard, then head to Longshan Temple in Wanhua, the oldest working temple in the city and also free. The surrounding lanes are the closest thing Taipei has to a preserved old town.
Lunch on a bowl of beef noodle soup (niu rou mian) somewhere unglamorous in Wanhua or on Yongkang Street, NT$150-250 for a basic bowl versus NT$250-400 at the shops with a queue out the door. For dinner, go to Raohe or Ningxia night market rather than Shilin: smaller, more local, and a noticeably better ratio of good food to elbow-to-elbow crowds. Cash only at most stalls, so keep small bills on you.
Day 1 spend: roughly NT$1,000-1,400, mostly food and MRT fares.
Day 2: The skyline and the museum
The Taipei 101 observatory ticket (88F-91F) is NT$600; skip the NT$3,000 outdoor Skyline 460 add-on unless you specifically want an open-air platform, since the view itself doesn’t change much. Worth knowing before you go: 101 held the world’s-tallest title only from 2004 to 2010, before the Burj Khalifa passed it, so don’t expect current-record bragging rights. The ticket entrance also moved to the tower’s 1st floor as of July 2026.
For the same skyline for free, climb Elephant Mountain instead, a 20-40 minute stair climb that’s arguably the better photo, especially near sunset. Spend the afternoon in the National Palace Museum (NT$350), then wander Da’an in the evening for a quieter, cafe-heavy contrast to Ximending’s crowds.
Day 2 spend: roughly NT$950-1,100, museum, observatory, and MRT fares included.
Day 3: North coast day trip
This is a full day out of the city and it’s worth every hour: Jiufen, the lantern-lit hillside town, is roughly 1 to 1.5 hours away and it’s a day trip, not a Taipei neighborhood, whatever the postcards imply. A guided minibus tour bundling Jiufen, Shifen, and Yehliu Geopark runs about NT$1,200-1,800 per person and handles all the transfers for you. Doing it yourself, on the TRA train to Ruifang plus onward buses (or the direct 1062 bus from Taipei), costs a fraction of that in fares, roughly NT$150-250 round trip, tapped on the same EasyCard you’re already using in the city.
Go on a weekday if your schedule allows it. Jiufen’s stepped alleys turn into a standstill on weekends and holidays. Pair it with Shifen’s sky lantern release and old railway street, and add Yehliu’s wind-eroded rock formations only if you’ve got the stamina for a third stop and its own separate bus ride.
Day 3 spend: roughly NT$150-250 DIY, or NT$1,200-1,800 for the guided tour.
Day 4: HSR to Taichung, then Sun Moon Lake
Check out of your Taipei hotel and take the High Speed Rail to Taichung, about an hour, with a standard-car ticket running roughly NT$700-750 one way (business class is pricier, closer to NT$1,000-plus, and not worth it for a ride this short). From Taichung HSR Station, a bus to Sun Moon Lake takes about 1.5 hours and costs around NT$166 one way; buy the ticket at the station counter or an iBon machine in a 7-Eleven rather than assuming EasyCard tap-and-go works the whole route, since this leg is a separate ticketed bus.
Sun Moon Lake is Taiwan’s largest lake and a genuine change of pace after three days of city concrete: mountain air, a lakeside path, and a ropeway with mountain views for NT$300 round trip. Stay overnight lakeside. Rooms here run cheaper than you’d expect for the scenery, since most visitors do it as a day trip from Taichung rather than staying over.
Day 4 spend: roughly NT$1,000-1,200, HSR, bus, and the ropeway included.
Day 5: Lake morning, then back to Taipei
Spend the morning on the water, by rented bike along the shore path or on a short boat ride between the piers, before the day-trip crowds from Taichung arrive around midday. Bus back to Taichung HSR Station, then take the HSR north to Taipei (again roughly NT$700-750) in time for an evening flight out of Taoyuan or one last night in the city.
Day 5 spend: roughly NT$850-1,000, mostly the HSR ticket back.
| Day | Focus | Distance from Taipei | Rough spend |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Old Taipei temples, night market | in city | NT$1,000-1,400 |
| 2 | Taipei 101, Elephant Mountain, National Palace Museum | in city | NT$950-1,100 |
| 3 | Jiufen, Shifen, optional Yehliu | 1-1.5 hrs one way | NT$150-1,800 |
| 4 | HSR to Taichung, Sun Moon Lake | ~1 hr HSR + 1.5 hr bus | NT$1,000-1,200 |
| 5 | Sun Moon Lake morning, HSR back | ~1 hr HSR + 1.5 hr bus | NT$850-1,000 |
How much does this 5-day route cost in total?
Plan on roughly NT$4,000-5,600 across the five days if you do Jiufen DIY, food, tickets, HSR, and buses included, before your hotels. Take the guided north-coast minibus instead of the train-and-bus combo and that climbs closer to NT$5,000-6,500, still well under what a Taiwan trip with a rental car and full-service tours would run.
Do you need a rental car for this route?
No. Every leg here, MRT, EasyCard buses, the High Speed Rail, and the Taichung-Sun Moon Lake shuttle bus, runs on public transit or a train ticket. A car would only save time on the last mile around the lake itself, and a rented bike does that job for a fraction of the cost.
Quick tips:
- Cash still rules at night markets and small lakeside eateries even though EasyCard covers almost everything else.
- Eating or drinking inside MRT paid areas, including water, carries a fine of NT$1,500-7,500. Finish your bubble tea (a Taichung invention, not a Taipei one, despite what every night-market sign implies) before you tap in.
- Typhoon season runs June through October, with August-September the peak; if you’re traveling then, build a half-day of slack into the Sun Moon Lake leg in case a bus schedule or train gets disrupted. October-April is calmer and cooler, 19-28C, and the better window if your dates are flexible.
Want the deep in-city version of the first two days without the HSR leg south? Our 5-day Taipei itinerary covers the same city core plus two more in-city days instead of Sun Moon Lake.