One Week in Hong Kong: An Offbeat Itinerary
Seven days is our 6-day itinerary plus a genuine free day, no new sight forced in just to fill the calendar. This is the full offbeat spine: a free escalator, a HK$3 ferry, a ridge hike ending at a beach, a glass-floor cable car, a fortune-stick temple, a working fishing harbour, and a former jail that’s now free galleries. A full week is also long enough to bolt on Macau as a genuine day trip, covered separately in our Hong Kong day-trip guide .
Book these before you go:
- Your Central or Tsim Sha Tsui hotel : rooms fill fast in the October-December window
- Ngong Ping 360 Crystal Cabin : the glass-floor cabin sells out on weekends before the standard one does
- A small-group Dragon’s Back hike : worth booking if you’d rather not navigate the bus 9 stop alone
- An Aberdeen sampan tour : a fixed-price version of the dockside haggle, useful if bargaining isn’t your thing
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Arrival, the Mid-Levels escalator, Man Mo Temple, Tai Kwun, the Star Ferry, Temple Street |
| 2 | The ding-ding tram’s top deck, Dragon’s Back hike, Big Wave Bay |
| 3 | Ngong Ping 360’s Crystal Cabin, the Big Buddha, Po Lin Monastery |
| 4 | Wong Tai Sin Temple, Ladies’ Market, Hong Kong Park |
| 5 | Stanley Market, Repulse Bay, Hollywood Road antiques, PMQ |
| 6 | Aberdeen’s fishing harbour, a sampan ride, Ap Lei Chau |
| 7 | Free buffer day, a cha chaan teng crawl, last souvenirs |
Day 1: Central, a temple, a former jail and a HK$3 ferry
Land at Hong Kong International Airport and take the Airport Express into town, about 24 minutes to Central, HK$120 with an Octopus card , and if you tap the same card on the return leg within the same calendar day the “Same Day Return” benefit kicks in. Buy the Octopus at the airport, the tourist “Sold” version runs about HK$39 empty, since it taps onto the MTR, buses, trams, the Star Ferry and most convenience stores for the rest of the trip. Settle into Central or Tsim Sha Tsui, then ride the Central-Mid-Levels escalator uphill like a self-guided SoHo tour: free, about 800 metres and 135 metres of elevation gain over 16 escalators and 3 travolators, running uphill from 10:20am to midnight. Get off partway up for Man Mo Temple on Hollywood Road, free entry, known for its huge hanging incense coils, then continue to Tai Kwun , the restored former Central Police Station and Victoria Prison compound, also free, open roughly 10am to 11pm. Cross the harbour on the ordinary Star Ferry rather than a paid sightseeing cruise, a little over HK$3 for essentially the same skyline view tour boats charge HK$230-280 for, and finish the evening at Temple Street Night Market in Yau Ma Tei, roughly 6pm to midnight, for dai pai dong food rather than the souvenirs.
Day 2: A tram ride, a ridge and a swim
Ride Hong Kong Tramways end to end along the north shore, Kennedy Town to Shau Kei Wan, upstairs, front row, flat fare about HK$3.3. At Shau Kei Wan MTR station, take Exit A3 and catch bus 9 toward Shek O, alighting at the “To Tei Wan” stop about 20 minutes and 11 stops later. From there, Dragon’s Back is an 8km, moderately rated trail: nearly 300 steps at the start, a ridge topping out around 275 metres with the skyline behind you and the sea ahead, then a descent toward Big Wave Bay beach for a swim. Start by mid-morning if it’s summer; the southern half has almost no shade.
Day 3: The glass floor over Lantau
Take the MTR to Tung Chung, then the Ngong Ping 360 cable car onto Lantau Island, 5.7km, about 25 minutes each way. Pay the extra for the Crystal Cabin, its glass floor over the valley below, HK$365 round trip against HK$295 for the Standard Cabin, its first price rise in two years. Check current cabin availability on np360.com.hk before you go, especially on weekends. At the top, the Tian Tan Buddha, a 34-metre bronze figure finished in 1993, costs nothing to view or climb the 268 steps toward, and Po Lin Monastery next door serves a vegetarian lunch worth the detour. Budget the whole day; this isn’t a quick add-on between other stops.
Day 4: Fortune sticks, a market and a quiet park
Head to Wong Tai Sin Temple in Kowloon for kau cim, the fortune-stick divination ritual visitors are welcome to try themselves, free entry, roughly 7am to 5pm. From there, Mong Kok’s Ladies’ Market is a five-stop MTR ride for an afternoon of haggling that’s more theatre than shopping. Finish at Hong Kong Park in Admiralty, a walk-through aviary and the Flagstaff House Museum of Tea Ware inside a 19th-century colonial building, free, and a genuinely quiet break from the towers a few minutes away.
Day 5: The south side and Hollywood Road
Spend the day on the south side of Hong Kong Island, a different pace from everywhere else on this list. Stanley Market, roughly 10am to 6pm, is a real haggling market rather than the fixed prices common in Central, with seafront restaurants worth the bus ride alone. Repulse Bay, close by, is a proper public swimming beach rather than a scenic overlook. On the way back, get off in Sheung Wan for Hollywood Road’s antique shops and PMQ, the old Police Married Quarters turned design studios and small galleries.
Day 6: A working harbour, not a museum piece
Take a bus or the tram toward Aberdeen, on the south side of Hong Kong Island, once a floating fishing village and still home to a working harbour of sampans and junks. A short sampan ride around the typhoon shelter costs a small negotiated fare, or book a fixed-price version in advance, and is the closest thing in the city to Hong Kong before the skyscrapers. Cross to Ap Lei Chau on foot over the footbridge for a quieter, more local stretch of waterfront, then head back into town for an early dinner before an easy night in.
Day 7: A day with nothing scheduled
Keep the last full day open. Go back to whichever of the six days above you liked best rather than cramming in something new, or spend the morning on a cha chaan teng crawl, milk tea and a pineapple bun with butter, egg tarts, wherever smells right. Pick up last souvenirs at PMQ or Cat Street rather than the tourist strips, and if Macau or the outlying islands are calling, save them for a dedicated trip: our Hong Kong day-trip guide covers exactly that ground.
Is a full week too much for one city?
Not for this version of it. A week gives every one of the eight offbeat picks its own unhurried slot, plus a genuine day with nothing booked, which is rarer in a seven-day itinerary than it should be. If Macau’s Portuguese old town and casino strip also matter to you, that’s the one thing worth adding, and it deserves its own day rather than a rushed half-day bolted onto this trip.
For Macau, the outlying islands and Hong Kong Disneyland, all deliberately left off this trip, see our Hong Kong day-trip guide and its matching 7-day itinerary . For the full list of picks behind this plan, read 8 unusual things to do in Hong Kong , or the shorter version in our Hong Kong overview . One concrete tip: don’t book anything for day seven until you’ve lived days one through six; the actual favorite is rarely the one you’d have guessed from a screen.