Hong Kong
The UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises travelers to exercise caution when visiting Hong Kong due to a series of protests around the country.
Hong Kong welcomes with an iconic skyline, a legendary kitchen, and lush, protected nature where rare birds and colorful traditions thrive.
Neighborhoods & Islands
Hong Kong's enchanting neighborhoods and islands offer a sensory feast. You may find yourself swaying along on a historic double-decker tram, cheering with the crowd at the city-center horse races, or simply gazing out at the glorious harbor. What most visitors don't immediately realize is that over 70% of Hong Kong is mountains and sprawling country parks, some also home to geological and historical gems. Escape the city limits on one of the world’s smoothest transport systems and spend your day wandering in a Song dynasty village, hiking on a deserted island or kayaking among volcanic sea arches.
Cuisine
One of the world's top culinary capitals, the city that worships the God of Cookery has many a demon in the kitchen, whether the deliciousness in the pot is Cantonese, Sichuanese, Japanese or French. So deep is the city's love of food and so broad its culinary repertoire that whatever your gastronomic desires, Hong Kong will find a way to sate them. The answer could be a bowl of wonton noodles, freshly steamed dim sum, a warm pineapple bun wedged with butter, a pair of the sweetest prawns, your first-ever stinky tofu, or the creations of the latest celebrity chef.
Shopping
From off-the-rack Chinese gowns to bespoke speciality knives (and vice versa), the sheer variety of products in Hong Kong’s shops is dizzying. Every budget, need and whim is catered for in "can do" spirit by a similarly impressive assortment of venues: glitzy malls where the moneyed shop, chic side-street boutiques and vintage dens where fashionistas find their gems, nerdy gadget bazaars, and a mix of markets where you can haggle to your heart’s content. The city has no sales tax so prices are generally attractive to visitors.
Culture
Underneath the glass and steel of Hong Kong’s commercial persona is a dynamic cultural landscape where its Chinese roots, colonial connections and the contributions of its home-grown talent become intertwined. Here you’re just as likely to find yourself dissecting art in the dizzying number of contemporary galleries as joining in dawn taichi or reading the couplets of a local poet to the drumbeat of a dragon boat. Culture could also mean indie music by the harbor or Chinese opera in a bamboo theater, not to mention the thousands of shows staged year-round at the city's many museums and concert halls.
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Planning Toolkit
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Top attractions
These are our favorite local haunts, touristy spots, and hidden gems throughout Hong Kong.
See
High Island Reservoir East Dam
Handsome architecture, the South China Sea, and 140-million-year-old volcanic rocks make this one of Hong Kong's most breathtaking places. High Island Reservoir East Dam is the most easily accessible part of Hong Kong Global Geopark and the only place where you can touch the hexagonal rock columns. The scenery is surreal and made even more so by the presence of thousands of dolosse (huge reinforced concrete blocks shaped like jacks) placed along the coast to break sea waves. High Island was Hong Kong's second reservoir built by sealing off the coast with dams (Plover Cove was the first). This was done to provide fresh water to the territory after mainland China shut down supply during the 1967 riots. High Island was designed by Binnie & Partners of London and constructed by an Italian company, Vianini Lavori. At the southern end of East Dam, you'll see a giant light blue dolos block, a memorial to those who died on the project. Nearby is a concrete slab that commemorates, in Chinese and English, the inauguration of the reservoir in 1978. The construction of the reservoir had one unintentional effect – it made a part of what 30 years later became Hong Kong Global Geopark accessible on foot. Off the coast of the southern end of the dam is Po Pin Chau (literally, Broken-Sided Island), a massive sea stack with rock columns all over its face like a giant pipe organ. East Dam of High Island Reservoir is in Stage 1 of the MacLehose Trail, which means you can hike here. Alternatively, you can join a Geopark tour that makes a stop at East Dam. See website for the list and to enrol. At the time of research, a dedicated green minibus (route 9A) has just been launched to take passengers between Sai Kung's Pak Tam Chung and East Dam. During the trial period the route (HK$11.30) operated on Sundays and public holidays, between 3pm and 6pm. You could also take bus 94 from Sai Kung Bus Terminus to Pak Tam Chung, then walk 9km along Tai Mong Tsai Rd and Sai Kung Man Kee Rd, following MacLehose Trail Stage 1, to East Dam. A taxi to East Dam from Sai Kung Town takes about 30 minutes and costs HK$160. But you may need to call a taxi service for the return trip. Try 852 8103 1189. Be prepared to offer an extra HK$50 or more when placing your request in order to land a ride.
See
Hong Kong Museum of History
Prepare to be whisked through millennia of Hong Kong history at this extraordinary museum, starting with prehistory (don't linger, the best is yet to come) and ending with the territory’s return to China in 1997. Highlights of the 'Hong Kong Story' include a recreation of an entire arcaded street in Central from 1881, a full-sized fishing junk, lots of informative video theatre exhibits (including an even-handed stab at the Opium Wars) – and so much more. Beyond getting better acquainted with the territory's archaeology, ethnography, and natural and local history, this museum is also interesting to see how Hong Kong attempts to define and present its own story to the world.
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Po Lin Monastery & Big Buddha
Po Lin is a huge Buddhist monastery and temple complex that was built in 1924. Today it seems more of a tourist honeypot than a religious retreat, attracting hundreds of thousands of visitors a year and still being expanded. Most of the buildings you'll see on arrival are new, with the older, simpler ones tucked away behind them. The big draw is the enormous seated bronze Buddha, a must-see on any Hong Kong trip. Commonly known as the ‘Big Buddha’, the Tian Tan Buddha is a representation of Lord Gautama some 23m high (or 26.4m with the lotus), or just under 34m if you include the podium. It was unveiled in 1993, and today it still holds the honour of being the tallest seated bronze Buddha statue in the world.
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Lai Chi Wo
Part of Hong Kong Global Geopark, 400-year-old Lai Chi Wo is Hong Kong's best-preserved Hakka walled village and has an intact woodland. With 200 houses, ancestral halls, temples, and a breezy square fringed by old banyans, it is a sight to behold. There are 90-minute guided tours every Sunday and public holiday (usually at 11am and 1.30pm), as well as bespoke tours available on weekdays; all must be booked two weeks in advance by email. Lai Chi Wo is one of Hong Kong's most biologically diverse freshwater wetlands. If you follow the stream leading out of the village, you'll see looking-glass mangroves with buttress roots in a lace-like pattern. Also here is the white-flower Derris, a climbing vine with long, supple branches like elongated arms that form a natural swing. It is a poisonous plant and its root when crushed can be used as a fish stunner and insecticide. There are butterflies and dragonflies aplenty here, hovering over scuttling mangrove crabs. Lai Chi Wo was once the most affluent Hakka walled village in the northeastern New Territories. A 5- to 7-hectare crescent-shaped wood embraces the village from behind – ideal for feng shui as the backing of a forest is believed to bring luck. Thickly grown trees are also a natural protective barrier. The village has become a model for rural resurrection in Hong Kong. Though almost completely abandoned in the 1960s, it is quite lively now, thanks to the efforts of villagers and conservationists. The growing of rice and vegetables has resumed, pig and cow sheds have been restored, and shuttered village houses now function as education and research facilities, and eventually, holiday homes. A ferry departs for Lai Chi Wo on Sunday and public holidays at 9am from the Ma Liu Shui Pier near the Chinese University and returns at 3.30pm. It's HK$80 return and takes 90 minutes. Most Hong Kong Global Geopark Sedimentary Rock tours make a stop at Lai Chi Wo, or just hike there from Wu Kau Tang or Luk Keng, and lunch at Foo's Cafe. You can also hike to Lai Chi Wo. Green minibus 20C, operating between Tai Po Market MTR station and Tai Mei Tuk, goes beyond Tai Mei Tuk to Wu Kau Tang once every one to two hours between 5.45am to 7.45pm daily, with the last minibus returning from Wu Kau Tang at around 8.15pm. From Wu Kau Tang, it's 4.6km to Lai Chi Wo. On Sundays and public holidays, bus route 275R goes from Tai Po Market MTR station to Bride’s Pool, which is only 750m from Wu Kau Tang. Green minibus 56K leaves Fanling MTR station for Luk Keng at 30-minute intervals on weekdays, and 10-minute intervals on Saturdays, Sundays and public holidays. From Luk Keng, it's 9.6km to Lai Chi Wo.
See
Temple Street Night Market
When night falls and neon buzzes, Hong Kong's liveliest market rattles into life. Covering multiple city blocks from Man Ming Lane in the north to Nanking St in the south, Temple St is cleaved in two by the Tin Hau Temple complex. In the 1920s, vendors gathered there to serve temple-goers; a century on, the crowds descend nightly for cheap clothes and watches, street food, trinkets and teaware. Marked prices are mere suggestions – this is a place to bargain. Tourist trap? Absolutely, but don't let that stop you. Yau Ma Tei remains Hong Kong's most thrillingly ungentrified district, where, if you veer away from the bare-bulb stalls, you might encounter Canton singing houses, fortune-tellers, herbalists, dai pai dong street eats and prostitutes lurking in the shadows. For street food, head to Woo Sung Street running parallel to the east of Temple St, or to the stretch of Temple St north of the temple. Pull up a chair at an open-air kitchen for wok-fried seafood, noodles, roast meat and plenty of ice-cold beer. The market is at its bustling best from 7pm to 10pm; after that, if you want more, head to the hyper-local wholesale fruit market, a hive of nocturnal activity. To reach the market, take exit C2 from the Jordan MTR station and walk along Bowring St, or exit C from the Yau Ma Tei MTR station and follow Man Ming Lane.
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Chi Lin Nunnery
One of Hong Kong's most arresting and tranquil escapes, this Buddhist complex, originally dating from the 1930s, was rebuilt completely of wood (and not a single nail) in the style of the Tang dynasty in 1998. Amid lotus ponds, immaculate bonsai tea plants and bougainvillea, silent nuns deliver offerings of fruit and rice to Buddha and arhats (Buddhist disciples freed from the cycle of birth and death), or chant behind intricately carved screens. The architecture (interlocking sections of wood joined without a single nail) is intended to demonstrate the harmony of humans with nature. It’s pretty convincing – until you see the high-rises looming behind the complex. You enter the complex through the Sam Mun, a series of ‘three gates’ representing the Buddhist precepts of compassion, wisdom and ‘skilful means’. The first courtyard, which contains the delightful Lotus Pond Garden, gives way to the Hall of Celestial Kings, with a large statue of the seated Buddha surrounded by the deities of the four cardinal points. Behind that is the main hall, containing a statue of the Sakyamuni Buddha flanked by two standing disciples and two seated Bodhisattvas. To reach the nunnery, take exit C2 of Diamond Hill MTR station, turning right at the top of the escalator (don't enter the mall). It's a five-minute walk east along Fung Tak Rd.
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Blue House Cluster
A rare heritage protection success story, the 1920s Blue House is one of Hong Kong's last surviving wooden tenement buildings. The graceful, four-storey structure, featuring cast-iron balconies reminiscent of New Orleans, and its adjoining neighbours the Yellow House and Orange House, were taken over by a local community trust (thank heavens – it almost became a spa in the 2000s), painstakingly restored and are now partially open to the public. Several apartments still house descendants of the original residents. Two eateries, a thrift store, community library and an organic veg shop in the cluster are being run as social enterprises, with all profits returning to the Blue House. Free guided tours in English (11am Saturdays) take you into a residential unit preserved as it was in the mid-20th century – you'll be astonished at how many families shared the same room. The House of Stories, a museum and exhibition space on the ground floor (10am to 6pm, closed Wednesday), is a rich source of info on yesteryear Hong Kong. The Blue House was built atop a temple to the god of Chinese medicine, which was preserved within the new tenement. You can see the temple facade at the corner of King Sing St and Stone Nullah Lane.
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Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple
A devout ensemble of halls, shrines, pavilions and altars, this busy temple is a destination for all walks of Hong Kong society, from pensioners and business people to parents and young professionals. Some come to pray, others to divine the future with chim – numbered bamboo ‘fortune sticks’ that are shaken out of a box on to the ground (they’re available free from the right of the main temple). Take the noted numbers to an attendant fortune-teller to be read. The fortune-tellers occupy dozens of tiny booths in an arcade to the southeast of the main complex. Some speak English (to varying levels of fluency). Expect a consultation to cost upwards of HK$100. You can also look up the numbers of your chim on the temple website under the tab 'fortune-telling stick enquiry', with good English translations. The temple complex, adjacent to the Wong Tai Sin housing estate, was built in 1973 and is dedicated to the god of that name, who began his life as a humble shepherd in Zhèjiāng province. When he was 15 an immortal taught Wong Tai Sin how to make a herbal potion that could cure all illnesses. He is thus worshipped both by the sick and those trying to avoid illness. He is also a favourite god of business people. The image of the god in the main temple was brought to Hong Kong from Guǎngdōng province in 1915 and was initially installed in a temple in Wan Chai, where it remained until being moved to its present site in 1921. Accessed via stairs beneath the temple is Tai Sui Yuenchen Hall, a subterranean, ultramodern chamber of worship that looks like something out of a Vegas casino (HK$100 entry) and couldn't be more of a departure from the traditional setting above. Set back behind the temple are the Good Wish Gardens, with decorative pavilions, bridges and carp pools. The busiest times at the temple are around Chinese New Year, Wong Tai Sin’s birthday (23rd day of the eighth lunar month – usually in September) and on weekends. Getting to the temple is easy. From the Wong Tai Sin MTR station, take exit B3 and turn right.
See
Tsim Sha Tsui East Promenade
One of the finest city skylines in the world has to be that of Hong Kong Island, and the promenade here is one of the best ways to get an uninterrupted view. It’s a lovely place to stroll around during the day, but it really comes into its own in the evening, during the nightly Symphony of Lights, a spectacular sound-and-light show involving dozens of buildings on the Hong Kong Island skyline. The Avenue of Stars, revamped with a new design in 2019, pays homage to the Hong Kong film industry and its stars, with more than 100 handprints and sculptures. The promenade starts just west of Victoria Dockside parallel to Salisbury Rd, an ambitious 279,00-sq-metre development of offices, retail, art galleries and the ultraluxe Rosewood Hotel. It then carries on eastwards almost all the way to the Hong Kong Coliseum and Hung Hom train station. It gets especially crowded during the Chinese New Year fireworks displays in late January/early February and in June during the Dragon Boat Festival.
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