Taipei: Jiufen, Shifen Waterfall & Sky Lantern Private Tour

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Free cancellationTravelers' pick

1/8

Duration6h

GroupPrivate

LanguagesEN

PickupAt your hotel

Jiufen's Red Lanterns & a Waterfall That Inspired Miyazaki

You get picked up from your Taipei hotel and driven to three northern Taiwan attractions: Jiufen Old Town with its red lanterns and film history, Shifen Waterfall, and Pingxi Old Street with its active rail line. You write a wish on a sky lantern and release it over the valley. The tour includes your driver-guide, an air-conditioned vehicle, parking fees, one lantern, bottled water, and return transport to your hotel—nothing else to arrange.

Step-by-step itinerary

Explore Jiufen, Shifen, and Pingxi

Meet driver-guide at hotel lobby
Visit Shifen Old Street
See Shifen Waterfall
View bay with yellow and blue sea
Stop at Remains of the 13 Levels
Visit Golden Waterfall (if accessible)
Explore Jiufen Village
Return to hotel or preferred Taipei spot

The Experience

You're standing in a narrow alley in Jiufen, red lanterns hanging so low you could almost touch them, and you realize this is the place. The one from Spirited Away. Your driver-guide picked you up from your hotel lobby that morning with a sign bearing your name, and now you're here without having to figure out the train schedule or which bus goes where. The village is packed—mostly Japanese tourists doing exactly what you're doing—but the chaos is part of it. Teahouses spill onto the street, vendors call out, the smell of grilled squid and sesame oil hangs in the air. It's the kind of place that looks exactly like it should, which is why so many films have used it as a backdrop.

Before Jiufen, you stopped at Shifen Old Street, where an actual train still runs through the middle of the town—you can stand on the tracks and watch it approach. The Pingxi rail line was built to haul coal a century ago, and now it hauls tourists and locals who live there. Your guide gave you time to wander, grab lunch from one of the food stalls, and take photos without rushing. Then came Shifen Waterfall itself, the biggest in Taiwan at 20 meters high and 40 meters across, dropping from the Keelung River. The spray reaches you even from a distance. You also passed the Golden Waterfall in Jinguashi—the water really does run gold-colored because of minerals in the riverbed—and saw the Remains of the 13 Levels, an old smelter that locals call the Potala Palace of Mountain Mines.

The lantern moment comes at the end. You write a wish on a paper sky lantern—one lantern per car—and light it. It rises over Pingxi, joining dozens of others already floating into the dark. You don't have to believe in wishes for this to feel like something. Your driver brings you back to your hotel as the evening settles in, and you're done. No transfers to figure out, no timing to coordinate between three different attractions. The whole thing took about five or six hours, and you saw the north Taiwan coast, two waterfalls, a mountain mining village, and the place that inspired an Oscar-winning film.

What’s included

Your day includes hotel pickup with a driver-guide holding a sign with your name, private air-conditioned vehicle for the entire tour, entry to Shifen Old Street and Jiufen Village, a stop at Shifen Waterfall, a view of the Golden Waterfall and the Remains of the 13 Levels mining site, one sky lantern per car to write a wish and release over Pingxi, bottled water throughout, all parking fees and tolls, and return transport to your Taipei hotel at the end of the afternoon.

Good to know

Easy physical levelInfant seats availablePublic transport nearby

Operated by YOLO TAIWAN INTERNATIONAL COMPANY LIMITED

Is this one for you?Book this if you want to see Jiufen, the Pingxi rail line, and Shifen Waterfall in one half-day without arranging your own transport or timing between three separate locations—the private vehicle and fixed itinerary mean you move through all three without waiting for schedules or figuring out which bus to take.