Wishes Floating Into Mountain Darkness
The Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival might be Taiwan’s most photographed night — thousands of glowing paper orbs rising simultaneously into the Pingxi Valley, each carrying handwritten wishes into the February sky. This isn’t just a tourist spectacle. It’s a ritual that turns strangers into temporary communities, all waiting for the countdown, all releasing hope at the same moment.
The 2026 festival happens twice: February 27 (Friday) at Pingxi Junior High School, and March 3 (Tuesday) at Shifen Square. Nine waves of releases run from 18:13 to 21:12, about 150 lanterns per wave. That’s 1,350 lanterns total per night, which sounds massive until you’re standing there and realize how quickly they disappear into the dark.
If you’re planning to attend, understand that this isn’t a casual drop-in event. Getting a lantern requires strategy — either pay NT$699 for a pre-registered experience tour, reserve online for NT$200 and pick up your ticket between 14:00-17:00 on event day, or queue for free tickets starting 10:30 (first-come-first-served, and people do line up early). The lanterns themselves cost NT$200 for single color, NT$250 for four-color, not the NT$150-200 you might see quoted in older articles.
The Railway That Built the Festival
Pingxi exists because of coal, and the festival exists because of the railway that once hauled it. The Pingxi Line — a single-track branch off the main northern rail — was built in 1921 for mining, not tourism. When the mines closed, the railway should have died with them. Instead, it became the reason people visit.
The train ride from Ruifang to Jingtong takes about 30 minutes, passing through Houtong (the cat village), Shifen (the waterfall stop), and Pingxi itself. On festival nights, these trains are packed. Standing room only, bags pressed against strangers, everyone trying to position themselves near the doors for a faster exit. It’s uncomfortable. It’s also the most practical way to get there unless you’ve arranged a tour bus.
Shuttle buses run from Muzha Zoo, Ruifang Station, and other points, but they drop you into the same crowd bottleneck everyone else faces. The advantage of the train is mobility — you can bail to a different village if one spot feels too chaotic.
Some people book accommodations through Trip.com or Booking.com in nearby Ruifang or even Taipei, planning to leave right after the festival. That’s optimistic. The return trains are a slow-moving disaster of humanity, and the mountain roads clog immediately. Expect at least 90 minutes just to extract yourself from the area. If you’re staying overnight locally, you’ve made the smarter choice, even if rooms book out months in advance.
Writing Wishes You Might Not Believe
The lantern ritual is simple: write wishes on all four sides, light the fuel cell, wait for the hot air to fill the paper chamber, release when it tugs upward. In practice, it’s messier. The brush pens don’t write cleanly on the waxy lantern paper. Your hands smell like kerosene. Someone in your group writes something earnest while someone else writes a joke, and both feel slightly embarrassed.
There’s a strange intimacy to it. You’re shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, all scribbling private hopes onto paper that will burn out and fall into the forest within 15 minutes. The lanterns don’t actually reach the sky — they rise a few hundred meters, the fuel burns out, they drift down. The environmental cleanup happens later, though I’m not sure how thoroughly. Nobody talks about that part during the release.
The countdowns are in Mandarin, then everyone lets go at once. The moment feels bigger than it should — a collective exhale, a thousand paper fires floating upward. Then it’s over, and you’re standing in the cold again, wondering if you should try to get food or just start the long exit process.
Crowds, Cold, and Phone Signal Reality
Late February in the Pingxi mountains can drop below 10°C, especially after sunset. Bring layers. The event happens outdoors, in narrow village streets or school grounds, with no shelter. If it rains — and it sometimes does — you’re wet, cold, and still committed because you’ve already traveled this far.
The crowds are genuinely difficult. Thousands of people in spaces designed for hundreds. Moving between release zones means navigating human gridlock. Bathrooms are limited. Food vendors exist but lines are long. Your phone signal will probably die after 19:00 when everyone tries to upload photos simultaneously. Don’t rely on Google Maps or ride-hailing apps during the event — arrange your transport beforehand.
If you’re considering a package tour through KKday, the main benefit is someone else handles the logistics — transport, lantern tickets, timing. You lose flexibility but gain certainty, which might be worth it if this is your only chance to attend.
The Waterfall Nobody Has Time For
Shifen Waterfall is a 15-minute walk from Shifen Station, and it’s legitimately pretty — a wide curtain of water in a horseshoe formation, nicknamed Taiwan’s Niagara (which is generous but not entirely wrong). On normal days, it’s a pleasant side trip. On festival days, you won’t have time.
The schedule is too compressed. If you arrive early enough to hike to the waterfall, you risk losing your spot in the lantern queue. If you go after the festival, you’re walking in the dark with a phone flashlight because the path isn’t well-lit. Most people skip it, or they visit Pingxi on a separate non-festival day when the villages are quieter and the trains aren’t standing-room-only.
That’s actually not bad advice — come back in March or April when the weather is warmer, the crowds are gone, and you can release a lantern at Shifen any afternoon for the same NT$200 without the mass-release drama. It’s less cinematic but more personal.
What You’re Actually Signing Up For
The Pingxi Sky Lantern Festival is beautiful and chaotic and uncomfortable and worth doing once. The photos look magical because the moment is magical — 150 lanterns rising in unison creates a visual you can’t replicate elsewhere. But the experience includes hours of waiting, cold, crowds, transport stress, and a nagging awareness that you’re participating in something environmentally questionable.
Go with realistic expectations. Book accommodations early. Bring warm clothes, snacks, a portable battery. Accept that the return journey will be miserable. Write something honest on your lantern, even if you feel silly doing it. And maybe don’t check too carefully whether your wish actually makes it to the sky — the moment of release is what matters, not the landing.
If you need a place to stay after the chaos, Booking.com listings in Ruifang or Keelung let you collapse somewhere warm before attempting the trip back to Taipei the next morning. That’s the move. Don’t be a hero trying to get home the same night unless you genuinely enjoy being pressed against strangers on a stationary train for an hour.