Taipei
You can be here in September for about €645, 4 days, direct.
Why now
Shoulder season in September: 33°C days, 16 rainy days.
Autumn, once the typhoons have passed, is the clear stretch; the plum rains of late spring and the summer storms mean weeks of wet, and the damp grey winter is when the hot springs earn their keep. Lunar New Year closes many family restaurants for a week, and the lantern festival that follows fills the branch-line trains to Pingxi.
Best months here: January, March, November. Daytime highs, sea temperature and rainy days from three years of Open-Meteo reanalysis; a rainy day is one with at least 1 mm of rain, which is the WMO threshold and not the same as "it drizzled".
The place
Taipei is a basin city of tiled low-rise blocks, scooters and temple smoke, ringed by green hills and run with a civic politeness that makes it an easy place to arrive in. It is built for eating rather than sightseeing: beef noodle soup at lunch, soup dumplings, a night market after dark, and a hot spring at the end of the red line when it rains. It suits people who prefer lanes to landmarks and are patient with humidity.
What you can do
- 01Eat through Raohe Night Market from the Ciyou Temple end: pepper buns from the oven by the gate, then oyster omelette.
- 02See the National Palace Museum's Song ceramics and the jadeite cabbage, a bus ride uphill from Shilin MRT; go on a weekday.
- 03Soak in Beitou's hot springs at the public bath or a private tub, half an hour north on the red line.
- 04Climb Elephant Mountain's steps at dusk for Taipei 101 lighting up, then walk down to the Xinyi bars.
- 05Visit Longshan Temple in Wanhua during the early-evening chanting, then the herb shops and old lanes of Bopiliao.
Where to stay · neighbourhoods
Stay in Zhongshan or around Yongkang Street in Da'an for a first visit, both on the red line; Ximending is convenient but loud, and Xinyi's hotels are far from the old streets in mood if not in minutes.
Unusual things
- ◦Treasure Hill, a hillside squatter settlement above the river turned artist residencies, reached on foot from Gongguan MRT.
- ◦Dalongdong Bao'an Temple, an award-winning restoration with ceramic roof figures and painted beams, and the Confucius Temple across the road.
- ◦Sisi South Village, a preserved military dependants' village of low tin-roofed houses in the shadow of Taipei 101.
Day trips
Flight options
Routes come from OpenFlights (historical) and a 2026 route reference compiled from public timetables. Durations are the published schedule where we have it, otherwise a block-time model fitted on measured nonstop flights. Verify schedules with the airline before booking.
Entry requirements · IT passport
Source: passport-index-data, March 2026 (coarse indicator), covering 258 of our 268 destinations for each of 199 passports. Always confirm with the destination's official site.
Airports
Distances are centre to airport derived · nonstop counts are our route reference for 2026, not every flight that exists.
Local transport
- Airport to city
- Airport MRT, 40 min, ~€4.50
- Car needed?
- No — walkable or good public transport
- Getting around
- The MRT covers nearly everything, and an EasyCard also works on buses, YouBike shared bicycles and in convenience stores; the Airport MRT express runs from Taoyuan to Taipei Main Station in about 40 minutes. Taxis are metered and honest, and Uber works.
- Clock
- 1 hour behind Tokyo (Asia/Taipei) derived
- Daylight
- 12.3 hours of daylight in September · sunrise 05:39, sunset 17:59 derived
- Currency
- TWD
Good to know
Typhoon season, from midsummer into early autumn, can shut the city and its transport for a day at a time; earthquakes are frequent and usually minor.
Alternatives at a similar price
Whole trip per person for 4 days from Tokyo in September, then the flight time; estimates, like the total above.
Beijing
Seoul
Bali
Shanghai
Osaka
Okinawa