▶ Watch the guide The best things to do in Hong Kong are riding the Peak Tram to Victoria Peak, crossing the harbour on the Star Ferry, walking the Dragon’s Back ridge and eating dim sum in a proper tea house. Give the city four to five days, come between October and December for dry, mild weather, and buy an Octopus card before you do anything else.
Hong Kong is two cities stacked on the same 1,100 square kilometres. One is the skyline everyone photographs from the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront. The other starts twenty minutes past the last MTR stop, in country parks that cover about 40 percent of the territory.
The funicular has climbed the same 1,350 metres of track since 30 May 1888, when it became the first cable funicular in Asia. Sit on the right going up. At the top, Sky Terrace 428 is the ticketed viewpoint, but the free Lugard Road circle walk gives you the same skyline without the queue or the fee.
Green-and-white boats have worked this crossing since 1888, and it remains the cheapest good idea in the city: HK$3.40 on the upper deck for ten minutes of skyline at water level. Sailings between Tsim Sha Tsui and Central run every six to twelve minutes from 06:30 to 23:30.
The bronze Buddha sits at the top of 268 steps on the Ngong Ping plateau, with Po Lin Monastery below it. Getting there is half the point: the Ngong Ping 360 cable car runs 5.7 kilometres from Tung Chung over the bay, the airport runway and the Lantau ridgeline, open 10:00 to 18:00. Go on a clear day or not at all.
Asia’s museum of twentieth and twenty-first century visual culture, in a Herzog & de Meuron building whose harbour-facing facade doubles as a screen after dark. The Sigg Collection of Chinese contemporary art is the reason to come. Standard admission is HK$190. Closed Mondays, open late to 22:00 on Fridays.
Holdings from Beijing’s Palace Museum, shown in a building shaped like a ritual bronze vessel at the tip of the West Kowloon promenade. General admission is HK$70 and covers the permanent galleries; special exhibitions are ticketed separately. Closed Tuesdays, open to 20:00 on Fridays and Saturdays.
The former Central Police Station, Central Magistracy and Victoria Prison: sixteen restored heritage buildings turned into one arts complex. General entry is free and the site stays open to 23:00, which makes it the right stop between Hollywood Road antiques and the SoHo bars uphill.
The busiest working temple in the territory, and the one where you will see kau chim fortune sticks actually being shaken rather than performed for visitors. Taoist, Buddhist and Confucian halls share the same complex. Free, open 07:30 to 16:30, and directly above its own MTR station.
Section 8 of the Hong Kong Trail, a ridge walk with the South China Sea on one side and Shek O on the other. Roughly 8.5 kilometres from the To Tei Wan bus stop to Big Wave Bay, two to three hours at a steady pace, and it finishes at a beach with a bus back to Shau Kei Wan.
The stalls sell what street markets everywhere sell. What surrounds them is the reason to come: claypot rice from the dai pai dong, fortune tellers set up near the Tin Hau temple, and Cantonese opera singers working the northern end. Arrive after 20:00, when the full length of the street is open.
More than forty buildings on both sides of Victoria Harbour run a synchronised 14-minute light and sound show at 20:00 every night, staged free by the Tourism Commission. The best vantage costs nothing: the waterfront outside the Hong Kong Cultural Centre. Be at the railing by 19:40.
A one-star Cantonese kitchen on Kau U Fong, known for steamed flower crab with aged Shaoxing and chicken oil. Book well ahead.
The al fresco half of FORTY-FIVE at the top of Gloucester Tower, looking down the length of Central to the water. Open to 01:00.
Thirtieth floor of iSQUARE, straight down Nathan Road, with the whole Hong Kong Island skyline opposite.
A steakhouse with a 21st-floor outdoor terrace above THE ONE, and roughly 270 degrees of harbour to look at.
A staircase lined with hundreds of gilded arhat statues climbs the hillside above Sha Tin to a hall holding thousands more. Free, 09:00 to 17:00.
The largest temple compound in Kowloon, finished around 1878 and graded a historic building, sitting at the top of Temple Street.
A kilometre of Tung Choi Street given over to clothing, bags and phone cases. Haggling is expected, and the food stalls on the side streets are the better spend.
Upper Lascar Row, where the antique dealers and the reproduction-Mao-badge sellers work the same pavement. Downhill from Man Mo Temple.
Flower Market Road is orchids and cut stems for several blocks, at its loudest in the fortnight before Lunar New Year.
Songbirds in bamboo cages, brought out by their owners for the morning. Around the corner from the flower stalls.
Covered stalls on Kansu Street selling jade by the tray. Buy for the look rather than as an investment unless you know the stone.
Lanes of silk, linen and souvenirs on the south side of Hong Kong Island, and a seafront row of restaurants to justify the bus ride over.
The profile on the Kowloon skyline, and the short sharp climb behind it. The view back over the peninsula is the reward.
A flat 3.5-kilometre loop around Victoria Peak with the classic skyline view, free and open all day. The alternative to paying for Sky Terrace.
The family trail crosses from Yung Shue Wan to Sok Kwu Wan in about 90 minutes, ending at the seafood restaurants on the pier.
The quietest of the near islands: one main street, no cars, and a short climb up Finger Hill for the view back at Lantau.
Four beaches on the Sai Kung peninsula reached on foot or by sampan, and the best stretch of sand in Hong Kong for the effort involved.
Hexagonal volcanic rock columns rising straight out of the sea, the centrepiece of the Hong Kong UNESCO Global Geopark.
Dried seafood shops on Des Voeux Road West, galleries and coffee on the PoHo streets above, and Man Mo Temple in the middle of it.
Fabric, electronics and hardware by the street, cheap and excellent food between them, and the most unvarnished district on the peninsula.
A grid of former garages turned into small restaurants and coffee bars behind Causeway Bay, and the home of the Mid-Autumn fire dragon.
The western end of the island line: harbourfront sunsets from the praya, early dim sum, and a bar strip that stays local.
Temple Street, the Tin Hau compound, the jade market and the fruit market, all within a few blocks of each other.
Wet market and tenement streets on one side of the tracks, tower blocks and the convention centre on the other. The Blue House sits between them.
Flower markets, a night parade through Tsim Sha Tsui and harbour fireworks. Many small shops shut for several days.
The region's largest art fair, at the Convention Centre, with every gallery in the city timing its openings around it.
Three days of rugby sevens, now played at Kai Tak Stadium. Tickets go through a ballot months ahead.
Bun towers, a floating-children parade and a midnight scramble on the island, timed to Buddha’s Birthday.
Tuen Ng. Races at Stanley, Aberdeen and Sha Tin, and a public holiday to watch them on.
Lanterns citywide, and the Tai Hang fire dragon: 67 metres of burning incense sticks carried by about 300 people for three nights.
Four days of tasting booths on the Central Harbourfront, run by the Tourism Board.
The city’s biggest music and arts festival, staged on the Central Harbourfront.
On Chek Lap Kok off Lantau. The Airport Express reaches Hong Kong Station in about 24 minutes, with free shuttle buses onward to major hotels on both sides of the harbour.
Fast, clean and signposted in English throughout. Adult single fares run from about HK$4 to HK$26 by distance. Tap an Octopus card in and out and the fare comes off automatically.
The Star Ferry crosses to Tsim Sha Tsui for HK$3.40 on the upper deck. Sun Ferry runs from Central to Cheung Chau and Mui Wo, and for most outlying islands the boat is the only way in.
Double-deck trams run the length of Hong Kong Island on a flat fare, paid by Octopus as you step off at the front. Red urban taxis start at a HK$29 flagfall.
Har gow, siu mai and cheung fun, pushed round on trolleys in the old halls and ordered by pencil elsewhere.
Crisp skin, plum sauce, served over rice or by the quarter. Kam’s in Wan Chai holds a Michelin star for it.
Barbecued pork with a lacquered, slightly charred edge. Ask for the fattier cut if the shop offers a choice.
Thin springy egg noodles under prawn wontons in a clean dried-flounder broth. The bowl is small on purpose.
Flaky or shortcrust, best straight off the tray. Tai Cheong has baked them since 1954.
No pineapple in it. A sweet crackled top over a soft roll, ordered with a cold slab of butter inside.
Black tea strained through cloth and cut with evaporated milk. The default order in any cha chaan teng.
Rice cooked to a crust under cured sausage or chicken, sold from street kitchens through the cooler months.
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