Photo: Chensiyuan, edit by DXR / Wikimedia Commons
Best Hotels in Taipei Taiwan: Taipei 101, Night Markets & Jiufen (2026)
Mandarin Oriental Taipei's suites in the Zhongshan District with mountain views, W Taipei's rooms in Xinyi District, and Grand Hyatt Taipei's suites beside Taipei World Trade Center — the best hotels in Taiwan's capital for 2026.
Taipei: Taipei 101, Night Markets, and Taiwan’s Island Capital
Taipei 101, with its bamboo-segmented silhouette, was the world’s tallest building when it opened in 2004 and still defines the city’s skyline at 509 meters. Food culture runs just as deep: Din Tai Fung’s xiaolongbao (soup dumplings) earned Michelin recognition and turned a Taipei chain into a global name, while bubble tea, invented in Taichung in 1988 and credited to the teahouse Chun Shui Tang, has become one of Taiwan’s best-known culinary exports. The National Palace Museum holds more than 700,000 pieces of Chinese art and antiquities, many brought to the island by the Kuomintang in 1949. Shilin remains the city’s largest and liveliest night market, while nearby Jiufen’s lantern-lit hillside streets are often cited as an inspiration behind Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away. Further afield, Taroko Gorge cuts through marble cliffs that rank among Taiwan’s most striking natural landscapes.
The Taipei Hotels
Mandarin Oriental Taipei — Zhongshan District Mountain View Luxury Suite
Price: €400–2,000/night | Location: 158 Dunhua North Road, Zhongshan District, Taipei 10548, Taiwan
Mandarin Oriental Taipei occupies a prestigious address on Dunhua North Road in the Zhongshan District. Bencotto, its Italian restaurant, and The Club, its lounge bar, round out a hotel built around understated, high-end comfort rather than spectacle.
W Taipei — Xinyi Spectacular District Luxury Suite
Price: €300–1,500/night | Location: 10 Zhongxiao East Road Section 5, Xinyi District, Taipei 110, Taiwan
W Taipei sits in the Xinyi District within easy reach of Taipei 101. Its WET Deck rooftop pool overlooks the city, and WOOBAR keeps the hotel’s nightclub-inflected design language going after dark.
FAQ
When is the best time to visit Taipei? October through December and March through May bring Taipei’s driest, most comfortable weather. The Lantern Festival, held each February in nearby Pingxi, releases thousands of sky lanterns and is one of Taiwan’s most photographed events. Typhoon season runs July through September and can disrupt travel plans, while October 10 — National Day — marks one of the country’s biggest annual holidays.
What makes Taiwan’s food culture so distinctive? Fifty years of Japanese colonial rule, from 1895 to 1945, left a lasting imprint on Taiwanese cuisine, and the arrival of mainland Chinese chefs with the Kuomintang in 1949 added regional Chinese cooking styles from across the mainland. Braised beef noodle soup emerged from that mix as something close to a national dish, while pineapple cake (fengli su), a shortcrust pastry filled with pineapple jam, has become the souvenir every visitor is expected to bring home.