Old Place Airplane Observation Deck: New Taipei Travel Guide

How this guide was made: Editor-reviewed, AI-assisted. Facts are pulled from live Google Places data; images are licensed or public domain. See our editorial policy.

You smell the deck before you see it: damp earth, crushed leaves, the mineral tang of a hillside forest that never quite dries out. The Jiantanshan trail climbs through it in switchbacks, cicadas droning overhead, until the trees suddenly break and the whole Taipei basin drops open in front of you.

That gap in the canopy is the Old Place Airplane Observation Deck, a simple platform of railings and worn concrete that has become one of the city’s most photographed unofficial viewpoints. Below, the runway lights of Songshan Airport line up like a landing strip drawn in a comic book. Beyond them, Taipei 101 stands lit against the ridgeline, and on a clear evening the whole skyline shimmers under a haze of orange streetlight.

Why people climb up here

Planes come in low, close enough that you can read the airline livery, then bank and vanish behind the hills. Photographers set up tripods a good hour before sunset for this exact moment. The rating here — a near-perfect 4.6 across thousands of reviews — isn’t hype; it’s earned by that ten-second window when a jet slides past the tower lights.

It’s not a secret. Expect other hikers, other tripods, other people waiting for the same shot.

Getting there

The deck sits above Jiantan MRT Station (Red Line), a five-minute walk from the Shilin Night Market area. From the station, follow signs for the Jiantanshan Hiking Trail (劍潭山步道) — the trailhead is tucked behind a small temple near Lane 165, Tongbei Street.

The climb itself takes 20–30 minutes on stone steps and packed dirt paths, gaining a few hundred feet through subtropical forest. It’s not technical, but it’s steep enough to leave you sweating in Taipei’s humidity, and the steps can be slick after rain.

What to expect at the top

The platform itself is modest — a few tiers of railing, room for maybe a few dozen people at once. There’s no ticket booth, no gift shop, no facilities. What you’re paying for in effort, you get back in view.

• Taipei 101 and the Xinyi skyline, dead ahead
• Songshan Airport’s runway, with planes landing every few minutes during peak hours
• The Keelung River curling below Jiantan
• Distant hills ringing the basin, especially vivid just after rain clears the haze

Bring a headlamp or phone flashlight if you’re descending after dark — the trail has some lighting but not much.

When to go

The deck is open 24 hours, so there’s no gate and no closing time to worry about. That also means it’s popular around the clock with a very different crowd depending on when you show up.

Weekends between 7am and 6pm are the busiest stretch by far, with hikers, families and photographers all converging on the same narrow platform. If you want elbow room, go on a weekday, or climb up after 7pm when the day-hiker traffic thins out and the sunset-and-night-flight crowd takes over.

Late afternoon into blue hour is the sweet spot: enough daylight to see the climb clearly, followed by the skyline lighting up as the sun drops.

How to visit like a local

Locals and regular visitors treat this less like a sightseeing stop and more like an evening ritual — a quick hike after work with a reward at the top. A few habits worth copying:

• Time it for planes, not just sunset. Songshan’s landing pattern is more active in early evening; check a flight-tracker app beforehand if you want maximum air traffic.
• Wear real shoes. Sandals struggle on the damp stone steps, especially descending in the dark.
• Pack out water and snacks. There are no vendors on the trail or at the deck.
• Don’t linger on the narrow viewing spots once you’ve got your shot — with no barriers keeping crowds moving, courtesy matters more than usual.
• Skip the weekend midday crush. With busiest hours running 7am to 6pm on weekends, a weekday visit or an after-dark climb gets you a far calmer platform and a better shot at the railing.

Combine the hike with dinner at Shilin Night Market afterward — it’s a ten-minute walk back down and across from the MRT station, and it makes the whole outing an easy half-day loop.