How Long to Stay in Jiufen: Why One Day Isn’t Enough | Taiwan

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Most visitors only spend a few hours in Jiufen, but is that enough? Here’s how long to stay in Jiufen, Taiwan, plus my detailed itinerary and why I think staying overnight is worth it.

Is One Day Enough for Jiufen?

If you are pushed for time, yes in theory you could see everything in Jiufen in just a few hours. But honestly it deserves more time.

One of the most popular day tours on Klook* departing from Taipei, stops at:

• Yehliu Geopark
• Shifen
• Jiufen

This tour has been booked over 600,000 times!

It gives you around 2 hours in Jiufen which is enough to explore Jiufen Old Street, but not much else.

There are also some downsides to visiting as part of a tour. Most tour buses arrive in Jiufen at a similar time. This makes it extremely crowded, you are then rushed as you have to make sure you arrive back at the bus in time, and you may end up missing some of the charm that makes Jiufen special.

Why Staying Overnight in Jiufen Is Worth It

I stayed in Jiufen for a total of 3 nights, giving me 2 FULL DAYS to explore. I think there’s also a pressure when travelling to just go, go, go. I should know, I was like that for YEARS. But as I’ve got older I’ve appreciated having a base for a bit longer to slow down a bit.

The weather also had other plans for me, as I was in Jiufen just as late season Typhoon hit Taiwan. I changed the Taipei part of my itinerary so I could still see everything that I wanted to.

Quiet Mornings

Some positives to staying overnight is that you can experience Jiufen before the crowds come. The best time to visit Old Street is between 10am-11.30am.

I enjoyed wandering around even earlier than that, ESPECIALLY if you are wanting photos without people in them. However, many of the little shops and food outlets do not open until 10am.

This is something worth noting as if you are an early riser, you will struggle to find anywhere open for breakfast. I got food from FamilyMart and then went back to my accommodation where they had free tea and coffee. Alternatively, FamilyMart has an indoor seating area with mountain and sea views! Very unexpected from a convenience store!

Lantern-Lit Evenings

There are a couple of different tour options. The day tours tend to hit Jiufen around lunch/time early afternoon. But then you get a 2nd wave of visitors on the evening tours. These are the ones that what to specifically see Jiufen in the dark, once all the lanterns are switched on.

This brings more crowds between 5pm-7.30pm ish. Especially around the Amei Teahouse which is said to be inspiration for part of the Spirited Away film.

I really enjoyed walking around the Old Street in the evenings, once all the tour groups had gone. I managed to get lots of good photos during this time too. 8pm onwards is a good time to do this.

Jiufen 2-Day Itinerary

As I personally stayed for 3 nights, I arrived quite late on my first day. I dropped my bag at my accommodation and then went for a night time walk before bed, but this is all I did. On my last day, I ate breakfast, had another morning walk and then headed on to Beitou mid-morning.

Alternatively you could get the first bus from Taipei and hit the ground running on the first full day. If you don’t mind an early start, the first tourist bus arrives into Jiufen around 7.30am.

Day 1

Mount Keelung Trail

The Mount Keelung Trailhead is just a 5 minute walk for Jiufen Old Street. The trail is 900m long but the elevation of the peak is 588m, so as you can imagine, it’s quite a steep incline with steps the whole way.

It took me around 30 minutes to reach the top, but I was SWEATING. I would recommend starting as early as possible, especially if it’s a warm day. Alternatively there are benches and pavilions on the way up if you needed to stop for a rest.

At the top you get views of the coast and across Jiufen. There are signs to hold for photo ops too. It’s quite a popular trail which is nice as a solo traveller.

It took around 1 hour to go up to the top and come back down again.

Jiufen Old Street & Town

Tourist Information Centre

The town is kind of split into 2 levels, there can be a LOT of stairs.

One of my favourite souvenirs in Taiwan was collecting free stamps. Lots of attractions and MRT stations have unique designs. The tourist information centre in Jiufen has LOADS and it’s worth checking out.

The only problem is, is it’s right at the bottom of the town. And if you go down…it then means you do potentially have to walk all the way back up again.

Old Street

• 🫖Amei Teahouse
• 🎭Shengping Theatre
• 🛍️Shopping
• 🥛Street food

I would recommend walking along Old Street (starting at the entrance near 7eleven), to where Amei Teahouse is. This is a huge draw for tourists. Jiufen is often referred to as the ‘Spirited Away’ town thanks to the Studio Ghibli film, which shows a teahouse covered in lanterns.

There are several different teahouses in Jiufen and tea ceremonies are a popular thing to do. However as a solo traveller, most of the ceremonies are priced for 2 people, so are pretty expensive for an individual.

Go down the stairs alongside the teahouse to the bottom, if you wanted to visit the tourist information centre it’s down here to the left.

Alternatively, about half way down is the Shengping Theatre. It’s free to look inside and during my visit they were showing a documentary (with English subtitles) about the history of Jiufen, and how it changed from a mining town to a tourist destination.

There are lots of gift shops in Jiufen that sold SO many cute things. Personally, if you want souvenirs, I found Jiufen better than Taipei.

As a frequent traveller I try to restrict buying loads of things, but I couldn’t help myself and bought a couple of unique Taiwan themed wooden craft projects. I could have bought a lot more though!

Another thing to do in Jiufen is try the street food! There was an amazing almond smell while I was wandering the streets and I followed my nose to hunt it down! It was an almond milk drink that was really yummy! I also tried the peanut ice cream roll with cilantro.

If the weather was better I would have liked to have tried a lot more, but I ended up having to hide in my accommodation with Taiwanese snacks and pot noodles!

Day 2

DIY North Coast Tour

So rather than combining Jiufen with Shifen and Yehliu Geopark, I did my own DIY mini north coast tour. During my trip I was able to use the 177 Ruifang tourist bus. The first bus of the day departed from Ruifang, so I got on any local bus heading that way from Jiufen Old Street.

Shen’Ao Railbike

Rather than go to the Geopark, I really wanted to do the Shen’Ao Rail Bike! This is a 1.3km route along a disused rail track where you pedal a brightly coloured cart. I got off the bus at Badouzi station and then did the rail bike one way to Shen’Ao station.

You can do return trips but pedalling the heavy cart solo, I was exhausted from going just one way! It takes around 30 minutes and it goes through a tunnel with lights and music too! I found it a little bit confusing to get tickets off the official website (but it is good for information). Instead, I booked my ticket through KKDay.

Shen’Ao station is the better station out of the two and has toilets, pressed pennies and stamps!

My plan was to then walk down to Shen’Ao Fishing Port, but the weather had other plans so I had to turn round. I got back on the bus at the stop next to the Shen’Ao Rail Bike station.

Alternatively you can get to the rail bike via the mainline local train from Ruifang to Badouzi, as well as a couple of other bus routes.

Golden Waterfall

If the 177 tourist bus is running, it does stop for 5 minutes at the Golden Waterfall. It is right next to the main road and is worth jumping out for a photo (even in the rain!).

Teapot Mountain

177 then continues on to Qitang, so my original plan was to hike Teapot Mountain, but I didn’t think this was the smartest move at the start of a typhoon, so I had to give this a miss. I wasn’t planning on going all the way up to the ‘Teapot’, but I did want to check out some of the trails.

There is also a Gold Museum in Qitang.

The hop on hop off bus then looped back through Jiufen, so I got off near the entrance to Old Street.

Jiufen 1-Day Itinerary (If You’re Short on Time)

If you wanted to streamline the itinerary further and just have 1 full day, I would do it this way:

Morning

• Mount Keelung Hike
• Old Street until 12pm ish

Afternoon

• North coast local bus: Shen’Ao rail bike and Golden Waterfall. This means you can avoid the afternoon crowds in Jiufen.

Evening

• Night time walk and see all of the lanterns once the crowds have gone.

The last departure for Tourist Bus 965 back to Taipei is 9pm, so I would recommend staying the night rather than rushing. Especially if you did want to see Jiufen at its best with the lanterns on. Even if you arrived on the first bus in the morning, I still recommend staying AT LEAST 1 night.

Where to Stay in Jiufen

I stayed at Jiufen Nostalgic Inn*, which was actually the cheapest out of my 4 accommodations in Taiwan. I stayed in a basic room with a private bathroom. You can pay extra for a sea view too. The bed was so comfortable, I liked the free tea and coffee, and they even had free rain ponchos too! It was just a short walk from the entrance of Old Street, so you were right in the heart of it, but far enough away for it to be quiet.

How to Get to Jiufen From Taipei

I used the 965 Tourist bus to get from Taipei to Jiufen. It cost 90NTD and took around 50 minutes. I got on and off at Beimen MRT station, but I would recommend getting on at Ximen, which is the first stop, instead.

Because the bus goes on the highway, they would only let you on if you had a seat. Once all the seats filled, they wouldn’t let anyone else on (until Ruifang, where you COULD stand for the last part of the journey).

I got one of the first buses of the day, but not everyone waiting at Beimen got a seat, so some had to wait for the next one. Both Beimen station and Jiufen had a queuing system for bus 965.

The ‘Taiwan Bus’ app (orange icon), is good for tracking both 965 and 177.

Final Verdict: How Many Days Do You Need in Jiufen?

Just because you are staying in Jiufen, it doesn’t mean you have to spend all your time there! It’s a good base to exploring the north rather than travelling all the way from Taipei.

I had also visited Houtong Cat Village, the Yinyang Sea and a cafe that overlooked the Shuinandong ‘Remains of the 13 Levels’ Refinery Site, while I was in that area too! (I did have access to a car on that day though).

Compared to the north coast day tour, I wasn’t necessarily worried about visiting the Yehliu Geopark, the Shen’Ao Rail Bike appealed to me more.

I also debated about going to Shifen. But the train for ‘train street’ wasn’t running during my visit due to a landslide, and part of me didn’t feel right about releasing giant paper lanterns into the sky…what goes up, must come down…And I don’t feel like I missed out on seeing Shifen Waterfall, because I saw the Golden Waterfall instead.

For me, I thought 3 nights and 2 full days was a good amount of time to see everything at a relaxed pace!