Climbing serenely out of downtown, the Central–Mid-Levels Escalator is the best way to reach Tai Kwun, PMQ, the Dr Sun Yat-Sen Museum or those hip new bars in Soho. It’s also a ride worth taking for its own sake, slotting you in among Hong Kong's captivating cast while revealing an at-times intimate cross-section of Hong Kong life. Often touted as the world's longest escalator, it's actually a system of 18 escalators and three moving walkways, with bits of walking in-between and a road or two to cross. From bottom to top takes around 20 minutes, with a vertical climb of 135m.
Embark and watch the streets unveil – do so early evening, heading uphill from where it starts on Queen's Rd Central, and you'll see one of the world's most serene daily commutes. Note that between 6am and 10am the system switches direction and flows downhill to whisk commuters from apartment to office, before going the other way from about 10.15am to midnight.
