Taipei With Kids: Night Markets, the Tower and a Lantern in Shifen

Taipei is the city I send families to when they want Asia without the hard edges. The metro is spotless, the people help before you ask, the food is cheap and safe, and the night markets are a playground with dinner in it.

Shilin night market is the first evening. Rows of stalls with fried chicken bigger than a face, oyster omelets, grilled squid, bubble tea and a basement of games where the kids shoot balloons and fish for prawns. Raohe is the smaller, prettier one by a temple. Go at seven, eat from six stalls, and let everyone pick one.

Taipei 101 was the tallest building in the world for a while and the elevator to the observation deck is still one of the fastest. The view of the city and the mountains at dusk, the giant damper ball inside that keeps the tower steady in typhoons, which the kids will find more interesting than the view.

The museum and the day out

The National Palace Museum holds the treasures the emperors took out of Beijing. The jade cabbage and the meat shaped stone are the two things every child needs to see, and an hour is enough. Then the Shilin market is next door.

The day trip is Jiufen and Shifen. Jiufen is a hill town of tea houses and lanterns on stairs, an hour by bus, and it is the town from the animated film. Shifen is a village on a railway where you write wishes on a paper lantern the size of a child and release it over the tracks. The kids will write the wishes. Nobody forgets it.

Four nights. Beitou hot springs by metro for an afternoon soak, the Maokong gondola over the tea hills, and the Elephant Mountain walk for the tower photo. Then the high speed rail south.

Planning Taiwan with kids? Start with the full Taiwan family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.