My second swing through Hong Kong was less about ticking boxes and more about soaking up the city — a single-day loop that started at the top of the ICC tower, drifted across Victoria Harbour on the Star Ferry, and finished somewhere between a temple on Hollywood Road and a beer on a rain-slicked corner in Lan Kwai Fong. This is the route in photos, each one tagged with where it was taken, so if anything below looks like your kind of place, you’ll know exactly where to find it.
Hong Kong is a city that rewards motion. You can cover most of what matters on foot, on a ferry, or on the escalators that the city has cleverly plumbed into the hillside. What follows is a chronological walk-through of the neighborhoods that stuck with me, with coordinates for every stop — think of it as a map you can actually follow.
Places to visit in Hong Kong — the short list
- Sky100 — the 360° observation deck on the 100th floor of the ICC, the best way to make sense of the city’s geography in under an hour.
- Tsim Sha Tsui & the Star Ferry — the waterfront on Kowloon side, then a six-minute crossing on one of the cheapest and most photogenic ferries in the world.
- Man Mo Temple & Hollywood Road — incense coils, antique shops, and the murals of Sheung Wan; the most atmospheric walk in Central.
- Central Mid-Levels Escalator — the world’s longest outdoor covered escalator system, stitching Central to the hills above.
- SoHo — tucked into the slopes along the escalator; tiny bars, good pasta, and stairs everywhere.
- Lan Kwai Fong — HK’s nightlife nucleus; loud, crowded, and exactly what you want after a long day on your feet.
Sky100 — getting the lay of the land
I always start a city from above when I can, and Hong Kong rewards the habit. Sky100 sits on the 100th floor of the International Commerce Centre in West Kowloon — the tallest building in the city — and gives you an uninterrupted view across Victoria Harbour to the Central skyline, up the ridge to Victoria Peak, and out toward the typhoon shelters of Yau Ma Tei with their ruby-red fishing trawlers. The entry into the deck is a theatrical little corridor with projections walking you through a century of Hong Kong history, and then the floor opens up and the view does the talking. Go late afternoon if you can — you’ll catch the city in daylight, watch the lights switch on, and skip the worst of the midday haze.
Tsim Sha Tsui — street level on the Kowloon side
Back down at street level, Tsim Sha Tsui is Kowloon’s showpiece: the Peninsula Hotel, Salisbury Road, Canton Road lined with more luxury storefronts than you’d think a single district could absorb, and the ferry pier at the end of it all. The classic move is to walk the Avenue of Stars along the harbour, but if a rain squall rolls through (as one did), duck under the colonnades and make for the green-and-white Star Ferry terminal.
The Star Ferry — the best USD 0.40 you’ll spend
There are fancier ways to cross Victoria Harbour, but none of them come close to the Star Ferry. The boats have been running since 1888, they cost pennies, and on the Kowloon-to-Central route you get a six-minute panorama of the skyline that most people pay a premium for. Catch it at dusk — the IFC and the Bank of China Tower flick on, the Hong Kong Observation Wheel turns into a ring of light, and the whole city feels like a stage going live.
Hollywood Road & Man Mo Temple — old Hong Kong
Ten minutes uphill from the Central ferry piers, Hollywood Road is where the city keeps its memory. Man Mo Temple, built in the 1840s and dedicated to the gods of literature and war, is a working shrine choked with slow-burning incense coils the size of beach umbrellas; it’s free to enter and genuinely moving. From there, walk west through Sheung Wan — antique shops, calligraphy brushes, Chinese medicine halls — and look up. Graham Street’s Old Hong Kong mural by Alex Croft and the Marilyn-and-Bruce-Lee pop-art wall near Aberdeen Street have both become pilgrimage spots for the Instagram crowd, with good reason.
The Central Mid-Levels Escalator — the city’s spine
Hong Kong Island is basically a ridge with a city glued to it, and the Central Mid-Levels Escalator is the clever piece of urbanism that keeps the whole thing walkable. It’s 800 metres of covered escalators and moving walkways that climb from Central up to the residential Mid-Levels — the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. From 06:00 to 10:00 it runs downhill (commuters heading to work), then flips direction and runs uphill for the rest of the day. Hop on, hop off wherever a street looks interesting; half of SoHo exists because of this thing.
SoHo — the eating-and-drinking tangle
SoHo (literally South of Hollywood Road) is the warren of narrow lanes that spills off the escalator — Gough Street, Staunton Street, Elgin Street, Peel Street. It’s the part of town where Hong Kong stops being a postcard and starts being a neighbourhood: twenty-seat pasta places next to Thai canteens, craft-beer bars in old tong laus, laundromats spilling steam onto cobbles. Go hungry; you won’t find a bad meal in a two-block radius.
Lan Kwai Fong — where the night goes
A couple of blocks downhill from SoHo, Lan Kwai Fong is the loud, cheerful, slightly chaotic heart of Hong Kong’s nightlife. It’s really just two sloping streets — D’Aguilar Street and Lan Kwai Fong itself — but on any given evening the whole district turns into one open-air party. Expats and locals, suits and shorts, bankers and art-school kids, all of them out with plastic cups. It’s not hidden, it’s not cool, but it is a lot of fun, and the people-watching is unbeatable.
Leaving — one last look from the window
HKIA is a great airport, and the takeoff is the final view Hong Kong gives you: a sprawl of light threading down the ridges, then black water, then you’re gone. I left wanting to come back — which is, I think, exactly how this city intends you to feel.
Practical notes for Hong Kong
- Getting around. Buy an Octopus card at the airport — it works on the MTR, buses, trams, Star Ferry, and most convenience stores.
- Best time to visit. October to December is the sweet spot: dry, clear, mild. April (when these photos were taken) is humid and prone to sudden rain; pack a small umbrella.
- Where to stay. For first-timers, Central or Sheung Wan on Hong Kong Island put you walking distance from most of the list above; Tsim Sha Tsui on the Kowloon side wins on skyline views.
- Budget tip. Sky100 can be pricey at the door — book online for a discount, and go in the late afternoon so you see the view in both light and darkness on one ticket.
One day isn’t enough for Hong Kong — it never is — but it’s enough to understand why people come back. The coordinates under each photo are there so you can plan your own version of this loop; drop them into a map and start walking.
