臺北市政府文化局

Mini Cultural Trips in Taipei: 100 Ways to Explore

A day out is about more than just a route. In Taipei, outings aren’t confined to preexisting frameworks but can simply mean breaking away from routine, or momentarily escaping the hustle and bustle to enjoy a change of pace. Outings are a lifestyle or way of living. 

Everyone treats travel differently. Some prefer to follow an itinerary, ticking off landmarks one by one, while others enjoy strolling aimlessly along the street or simply want to find a café or bookstore to unwind. Ask a hundred different people, and you’ll find a different hundred ways of day-tripping or exploring the streets and alleys. 

Excursions are a form of life that connects the various ways of imagining the many facets of Taipei. Every wanderer can use a different way to rediscover the perfectly everyday yet extraordinary Taipei.

Culture is the soul of a city, a heritage, an accumulation, a form of creation. What we call a “cultural trip” involves taking stock of and organizing the cultural history and features of every area in Taipei. Each point in a cultural trip carries the cultural memory of different phases of Taipei’s history. For this reason, the Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) takes a variety of approaches to the cultural trip: 

“Newly Open Spaces” takes you to spaces that were once difficult to explore.

“Time Mosaic” is about migration, identity, memory, and imaginings of the city.

“Where There is Light” allows you to pay your respects to some of Taiwan's activists and freedom fighters by visiting the places they frequented and seeing how an ideal can become reality.

 “Memory Basin” sees the dreams and losses of the city’s busy workers day and night.

“Architectural Diversity” represents innovation, internationalization, and the future, as the cityscape becomes increasingly fascinating.

The central theme of the cultural trips is “walk into” and the spiritual core is the idea of the “story walker”, someone who walks through the forgotten streets of Taipei and listens to their stories. In the lengthy timeline of Taipei’s stories, the cultural trip involves physically entering cultural spaces to experience and feel Taipei’s cultural style. Every person, moment, place, and thing is an exhibit, and every scene of daily life is an exhibition space. 

Through more thematic and narrative cultural perspectives, we rediscover the familiar alleyway scenes and retell Taipei’s extraordinary stories. Each cultural point has various nearby attractions—whether a shopping district, market, or night market—where you can sit and listen to stories, feel the historical atmosphere, or explore unique shops in the surrounding commercial areas before setting off again. 

Taipei’s cultural trips invite you to break away from fixed ideas of travel and daytripping, venture into the culture points scattered across Taipei, experience local life stories and worldviews, and become unique Taipei-style travelers.