A Weekend of Hong Kong Detours
Two days is enough for exactly two legs of Hong Kong’s gateway family: Macau, over the bridge on the cheap bus instead of the pricier ferry, and one outlying island for contrast. This trip skips the city itself entirely, no Peak Tram, no Star Ferry, on purpose. Add a third day with our long weekend plan if a second island interests you more than a rest day.
Book these before you go:
- Your Central or Tsim Sha Tsui hotel : rooms fill fast in the October-December window
- A Macau day trip on GetYourGuide : worth locking in for a weekend crossing
- A guided outlying-islands tour on Viator : a fixed-schedule alternative to chaining ferries yourself
| Day | Focus | Travel time from HK |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Macau: the HZMB Golden Bus, the old town, the Cotai Strip | 45 min bus each way, plus immigration |
| 2 | Cheung Chau: car-free lanes, the Mini Great Wall trail | 35-55 min ferry each way |
Day 1: Macau on the HK$65 bus, not the HK$194 ferry
Skip the TurboJet and Cotai Water Jet ferries, both HK$192-242 and about an hour, and take the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge shuttle instead, the Golden Bus, HK$65 in regular hours or HK$70 overnight, roughly 45 minutes plus immigration on each side, and the only way to actually cross the bridge rather than skip over it by sea. Macau is its own SAR, not a Hong Kong district: a separate currency (the pataca, though HKD spends fine there) and its own passport control, per macaotourism.gov.mo . Spend the day on the Ruins of St. Paul’s, Senado Square’s wave-tiled paving and a Portuguese egg tart from one of the old-town bakeries, then a short taxi south to the Cotai Strip’s casino towers if that’s part of the draw. Take the bus or ferry back to Hong Kong by evening; both terminals run until late.
Day 2: Cheung Chau’s car-free lanes and a coastal trail
From Central Pier 5, the ordinary ferry to Cheung Chau runs HK$16.70 weekday or HK$24.80 weekend, the faster boat HK$32.90 or HK$47.60, 35 to 55 minutes depending which you catch. No cars meet you at the other end, just bicycle rental, a genuine fishing-village layout, and the Mini Great Wall coastal trail leading to Cheung Po Tsai Cave. If your dates land near the island’s Bun Festival, a Taoist celebration with towers of buns and a midnight parade, expect a real crowd crush rather than a quiet walk, plan around it rather than into it. Head back to Central by early evening.
Is Macau or an outlying island the better first stop?
Macau if you only get one gateway day ever; the Portuguese old town and the bridge crossing itself are the more distinctive experience. But paired together like this, do Macau first while the novelty of the bridge bus is still fresh, then the island second as the slower, cheaper wind-down.
For Hong Kong Disneyland, Ocean Park and the Shenzhen border, all left off this compact trip, see our Hong Kong day-trip guide and its own 3-day plan . For the city itself, none of it covered here on purpose, read our Hong Kong guide or its 2-day itinerary . One concrete tip: buy the Golden Bus ticket for the actual travel day, not a week ahead, since sailing slots release on a rolling basis.