1 destination · 28 things to do

Hong Kong

Hong Kong is the most vertical city on earth wrapped around one of its most beautiful harbours, and the rare great city where a skyscraper skyline, a jungle-green mountain and a fishing village on stilts all fit into a single day. The Peak Tram has hauled visitors up the side of Victoria Peak since 1888 for the view every postcard copies; the Star Ferry still crosses the harbour for a few dollars, as it has for well over a century; the Tsim Sha Tsui waterfront lines up the whole Hong Kong Island skyline across the water; and a cable car glides over Lantau's mountains to the giant bronze Buddha at Ngong Ping. This guide books the city properly — the Peak at the right hour and the queue-beating ways up, cable car days that dodge maintenance closures, Disneyland on the right date under tiered pricing, Ocean Park's pandas and cable car, timed galleries at the Hong Kong Palace Museum and the closing days at M+ — and pairs it with the free Hong Kong locals love: incense coils in Man Mo Temple, fortune sticks at Wong Tai Sin, the evening crush of Temple Street, the Dragon's Back ridge above the South China Sea and a seafood lunch on car-free Cheung Chau. Then it matches you to the right hotel, from the Peninsula's lobby afternoon tea and the Rosewood's harbour-front glamour to the Mandarin Oriental in Central, a quiet sanctuary above Admiralty, a glass-bottomed rooftop pool in Wan Chai and the best-value harbour views in town, because in a city this dense the right address changes everything.