Is Taiwan Expensive? My Travel Budget Breakdown!

Disclosure: This posts may contain affiliate links. I may make a small commission on purchases made after clicking the link. I do my best to try and keep information up-to-date but please check direct with businesses for current opening times and prices. For more information visit the Privacy & Disclosure Policy. Thank you for your support!

Before I travel I always try to work out a rough budget on how much things will cost. It’s quite easy to work out the costs of tours and accommodation but food and drink and spending money can be a bit hard to predict! Here’s a look at my budget breakdown for my 14 day solo trip to Taiwan!

Taiwan Budget

At A Glance

	Total Cost (14 days)	Per Day
Accommodation	£538.34 13 nights solo occupancy	£41.41 (approx 1700NTD)
Food	3775NTD (approx £91.09)	314.58NTD (approx £7.59)
Transport	£34.35 (approx 1400NTD)	£2.40
Things To Do	£88.12	£6.29
Souvenirs & Misc	990NTD+£6.29 (approx £30.19)	£2.15
TOTAL	£782.09	£55.86

@englandandeverywhere

Replying to @cess🥨 How much I spent during 14 days in Taiwan as a solo traveller. I paid for a lot of things on card in advance so these payments were in GBP (accommodation, Klook etc). I actually spent less that expected in cash! The total was approximately 33,000NTD (£782.09 or £56 a day) #taiwantravel #taiwantrip #taiwan #tiktoktaiwan🇹🇼 #taipeitravel

♬ original sound – Kylie✈️Budget Conscious Travel

Accommodation

💰Total: £538.34

Accommodation is always a little higher for me as a solo traveller, as I prefer private rooms but I have no one to split the price with! I stayed in 4 different hotels while in Taiwan:

• TMS Lin Inn*, Taipei
• Nostalgic Inn*, Jiufen
• Spa Spring Resort*, Beitou
• Cho Stay Capsule Hotel*, Taoyuan International Airport

I started by basing myself in Taipei for 7 nights. I had the intension of using it as a central location to then visit other places outside of the city. Because my flight was arriving in the evening, I wanted to stay close to Taipei Main Station which is where the Airport Express arrives into.

I booked the cheapest room, but my only ‘complaint’ is that its location within the hotel wasn’t ideal. It overlooked onto the main road and it was very loud all night long, ear plugs were a MUST. There were only a handful of rooms on this side of the hotel, most would have been facing down the side street.

My cheapest accommodation was my Jiufen hotel. It had the MOST comfortable bed and I liked all the little added amenities, they even had free rain ponchos! Being the cheapest room, the window was frosted, so no view, but you could pay extra for rooms with a view/’normal’ windows.

The most expensive hotel was the Spa Spring Resort BUT, this was the only hotel that had breakfast included in the room rate and it was located in the expensive Beitou district.

The cheapest room was GIANT, the bed was HUGE, however it didn’t have a window. The trade off is that I had my own private hot spring bath in my room, along with hot springs on the roof. It was also right next door to the Thermal Valley. I LOVED Beitou, it was one of my favourite places I visited.

Food

💰Total: 3775NTD (approx £91.09)

I’m surprised just how little I spent on food. I have however divided this by 12 rather than by 14 days, and 2 breakfasts were included within my hotel room rate. So it works out around 314.58NTD (approx £7.59) per day.

My FAVOURITE go-to breakfast were scallion pancakes and a bottle of milk tea. I went to several different locations and depending on the filling, they were 50-70NTD (£1.17-£1.63). I bought the tea in either 7Eleven or FamilyMart for 28NTD (65p).

For dinner, I mostly ate at night markets (Raohe Street Night Market was my favourite). The Modern Toilet restaurant was a novelty but it did come with a price tag. For this reason the price averages out to less per day.

Often when I travel I don’t tend to eat a very big lunch, I’m happy with a snack from a convenience store, an ice cream or cake in a cafe etc.

I also didn’t need to buy any water. My hotels provided a couple of bottles included in my room rate. And I was very impressed with the amount of free filtered drinking water stations that were everywhere! All my hotels had them in the reception areas, and then during the day I would fill up at the MRT stations.

Some of the dispensers had hot water too. Cup noodles are a popular snack, so the hot water can be used to make these as well.

Here’s a look at some average prices of food I had:

Breakfast	Scallion Pancakes	50-70NTD
	Bottle of milk tea	28NTD
Snacks	Tea ice cream	90NTD
	Bubble tea	120NTD
	Hot sweet potato	25-35NTD
	Chilli hot spring egg	25NTD
	Bottle of Coke	35NTD
Restaurants	Chicken strips (Modern Toilet)	190NTD
	Footlong Subway	243NTD
	McDonalds Meal Deal	197NTD
	Noodles in Houtong Cat Village	30NTD
Night Markets	Pork Bun	65NTD
	Friend mushrooms	60NTD
	Taiwanese sausage	35NTD
	Pork Bao	35NTD

Transport

💰Total: £34.35 (approx 1400NTD)

I spent a little extra than expected on transport. Mainly because there was a typhoon in November during my visit and so I changed my itinerary. I ended up doing extra day trips to Jifuen and Beitou, so essentially paid for those journeys twice.

Being based in Taipei, I used the MRT and public buses A LOT. I pre-booked my Airport Express tokens* on Klook and picked them up at the airport when I arrived. These were £7.80 for the return journey between Taoyuan International Airport and Taipei Main Station.

The rest was what I spent using an EasyCard. This was SO convenient and I highly recommend it as you can just touch in and touch out (especially good for the buses as you don’t have to worry about asking for tickets). Again, I pre-booked the card on Klook* which came pre-loaded with 400NTD. I then topped it up a few times at the MRT stations.

• Individual MRT journeys are between 20-55NTD
• Buses start from 15NTD. A single journey from Taipei to Jiufen on the bus was 90NTD
• I also used it on the Tamsui ferry (40NTD).

I also bought a separate day pass for the 177 Capybara hop on hop off tourist bus for the north coast. This was discounted due to the shoulder-season and cost 49NTD.

Things To Do

💰Total: £88.12

For things to do, I went on 2 day tours that I found on Klook. One was a full day tour from Taipei to Taichung*, and the second was a half day small group tour to Pinglin with tea tasting*. The Pinglin tour along cost half of the total I spent in this category.

The rest was made up of other entrance fees, such as: the Maokong Gondola, (comibined ticket with Taipei Zoo*), Yun Hsien Resort cable car* in Wulai, and the Shen’Ao rail bike.

All of these pre-booked online in advance and paid on card.

There are lots of free things to do as well. A lot of the museums I went to were free, as well as all the hikes I did.

Souvenirs & Misc

💰Total: 990NTD + £6.29 (approx £30.19)

This one is pretty self explanatory! I collect pressed pennies so bought several of these, they cost between 30-50NTD each. I bought a couple of crafts items in Jiufen which came to 330NTD etc.

My FAVOURITE souvenir was my stamp journal. Technically once you have the notebook, they are free to collect. Every MRT station in Taipei has unique design, and you can find them at many attractions and tourist information centres too.

I pre-booked a specific hardback stamp book on Klook* for £6.29. It came with a QR code with a bunch of locations, and a sheet of stickers, however you could just use any notebook.

Final Words

My spend total for 14 days in Taiwan as a solo traveller came to:

£782.09 (approx £55.86 per day)

Outside of the accommodation cost, everything else came to around £14.45 per day, which I didn’t think was bad at all, especially for the amount of places that I went to! (Taipei, Maokong, Taichung, Beitou, Jiufen, Taoyuan, Tamsui, Wulai, Pinglin, Taoyuan Valley, Houtong Cat Village and Ruifang.)