Taipei in 6 Days on a Budget (With Daily Costs)
Six days covers Taipei properly, temples, the skyline, hot springs, a riverside bike ride, and two more in-city days most guidebooks skip entirely, all on one EasyCard. Get your card the day you land. Want the north coast instead, our Taipei + Taiwan 6-day itinerary swaps the last two days for Jiufen and Sun Moon Lake; only have five, use the 5-day version .
Book these before you go:
- Ximending, Da’an, or Zhongshan stays on Agoda
- National Palace Museum tickets or a guided visit
- Maokong Gondola and tea-house tastings
Where to stay: Ximending for budget energy, Da’an for quiet streets near National Taiwan University, or Zhongshan for a central mid-range base close to Songshan Airport.
Day 1: temples and imperial art
Soy milk breakfast (NT$50-150), then Chiang Kai-shek Memorial Hall, free grounds, free Liberty Square, changing of the guard on a schedule worth checking first. National Palace Museum, NT$350, three to four hours minimum for the jadeite cabbage and the meat-shaped stone. Lunch at Din Tai Fung (NT$500-800, a real wait, a Taiwanese chain since 1958, not an import) or cheaper on Yongkang Street. Longshan Temple in the afternoon, free, oldest working temple in Taipei. Dinner at Raohe Night Market, better food-to-crowd ratio than Shilin, NT$150-250.
Day 2: the skyline, done cheaply
Elephant Mountain in the morning, free, steep, 20-40 minutes, for the classic 101 shot without a ticket. Ximending for lunch, NT$100-150. Taipei 101 in the afternoon, NT$600 standard, skip the NT$3,000 Skyline 460 unless the outdoor skywalk matters to you. Remember: tallest in the world 2004-2010 only. Dinner at Ningxia Night Market, NT$150-250.
Day 3: hot springs and tea plantations
Beitou by direct MRT, no transfers, free foot baths, paid spa optional. Maokong Gondola in the afternoon, NT$70-120 one-way by stops, NT$50 more for a crystal cabin, tea at a mountaintop tea house afterward. Dinner around Yongkang Street.
Day 4: Dadaocheng and Tamsui by bike
Morning in Dadaocheng’s old merchant quarter along the river, tea and dried-goods shops, a genuinely good-looking old street. Rent a YouBike (enroll in the free bicycle injury insurance through the app first, mandatory for every rider since January 1, 2026) and ride the flat riverside path to Tamsui. Snack on iron eggs and a-gei (NT$50-100 combined), watch the sunset over the harbor, then MRT straight back, no transfers.
Day 4 spend: roughly NT$100-200, the cheapest day of the trip.
Day 5: the design-district day most itineraries skip
Morning at Bopiliao Historic Block in Wanhua, a preserved run of Qing-dynasty and Japanese-era shophouses near Longshan Temple, free and far less crowded than the temple itself. Songshan Cultural and Creative Park next, a converted 1937 tobacco factory turned free exhibition space. Afternoon in Da’an Forest Park, then coffee on the surrounding streets. Dinner at Shilin Night Market on purpose this time, now you’ve spent four nights comparing Raohe and Ningxia against it.
Day 5 spend: roughly NT$150-300.
Day 6: temples and neighborhoods off the tourist map
Morning in Datong district: Taipei Confucius Temple, quiet and free, one of the best-preserved Confucian temples in the country, next to Dalongdong Baoan Temple, an ornately restored Qing-era temple that gets a fraction of Longshan’s crowds. Both sit near Dalongdong and Yuanshan MRT stations. Spend the afternoon wandering Zhongshan’s design lanes and boutique streets. For dinner, Shida Night Market near National Taiwan Normal University runs smaller and more student-priced than the week’s other markets, most items NT$50-150.
Day 6 spend: roughly NT$100-250.
| Day | Focus | Rough spend |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Temples, National Palace Museum, Raohe Night Market | NT$1,000-1,400 |
| 2 | Elephant Mountain, Ximending, Taipei 101, Ningxia Night Market | NT$850-1,000 |
| 3 | Beitou hot springs, Maokong Gondola, Yongkang Street | NT$300-600 |
| 4 | Dadaocheng, YouBike to Tamsui | NT$100-200 |
| 5 | Bopiliao, Songshan Cultural Park, Da’an Forest Park, Shilin | NT$150-300 |
| 6 | Confucius Temple, Dalongdong Baoan Temple, Zhongshan, Shida | NT$100-250 |
How much does 6 days in Taipei cost on a budget?
Total spend across the six days lands around NT$2,500-3,750 for food, tickets, and MRT fares, before your hotel. The back half of the week, days 4 through 6, costs less combined than day 1 alone, since it runs almost entirely on free historic blocks, parks, and temples.
Things to know: MRT runs about 6am-midnight, no eating or drinking (water included) past the fare gates, fines NT$1,500-7,500. Cash matters at every market on this itinerary regardless of how EasyCard-friendly everything else feels. Typhoon season runs June through October, peak August-September, mostly a factor for flights and any spa plans in Beitou rather than anything on this in-city route.
Skip Taroko Gorge if someone suggests bolting it onto this trip: it sits on the opposite coast near Hualien, a multi-day trip in its own right, not a day trip from Taipei, no matter what a tour brochure implies. If Jiufen and the north coast are what you actually want, our Taipei + Taiwan 6-day itinerary is built around that route instead.