The Best Day Trips from Hong Kong 2026: 8 Tested Itineraries
Best day trips from Hong Kong: Macau's Portuguese heritage + Shenzhen (mainland China) shopping + Lantau Island Big Buddha + Lamma Island seafood + Cheung Chau beaches.
Top 8 Day Trips from Hong Kong
1Macau
Portuguese colonial heritage + Venetian + Ruins of St. Paul + egg tarts + casinos.
2Lantau Island + Big Buddha
Tian Tan Buddha (34m bronze) + Po Lin Monastery + Ngong Ping Cable Car + Tai O fishing village.
3Shenzhen (mainland China)
Cross to mainland China — Window of the World + Splendid China + tech district + cheap massages.
4Lamma Island
Quiet car-free island — Sok Kwu Wan seafood village + family-friendly hikes + Yung Shue Wan vibe.
5Cheung Chau Island
Dumbbell-shaped island + Bun Festival (May) + Cheung Po Tsai cave + beach + seafood.
6Sai Kung + Hong Kong Geopark
UNESCO Geopark hexagonal columns + Sai Kung seafood + Tai Long Wan beach hikes.
7Tai O Fishing Village
Stilt houses + pink dolphin spotting + dried seafood markets + old-world Hong Kong.
8Lei Yue Mun Seafood Village
Pick fresh seafood + walk it to cooking restaurant + waterfront sunset views.
Trade Shenzhen's queues for Hong Kong's strangest island
Shenzhen swallows a day in visa paperwork and immigration lines, and you end up at a shopping mall. The trip almost no tourist makes lands you on Tung Ping Chau, the remote eastern edge of the UNESCO Geopark, where layered sedimentary shale forms wave-cut platforms and the Lung Lok Shui rock ridge that exist nowhere else in Hong Kong. The catch is the ferry, which is the whole reason it stays empty. Boats run only on weekends and public holidays from Ma Liu Shui Pier near University MTR station.
Saturday sailings leave at 09:00 and 15:30, Sundays only at 09:00, with the return at 17:15 and a crossing of about 90 minutes each way. The round-trip ticket is roughly HKD 90. Demand outruns capacity, so a line forms well before nine and the boat can leave half of it behind, which means arriving by 08:15 is not optional. Bring your own water and lunch; the few weekend stalls sell out fast. If the timetable feels too tight, Peng Chau from Central Pier 6 is a frequent fallback at under HKD 20 each way, but Tung Ping Chau is the one worth the early alarm.
Hong Kong Day Trips FAQ
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Written by
John Morrison is the founder and lead travel writer at Packzup. Over the past decade he has explored destinations across Africa, the Americas, Asia, Europe, the Middle East, and Oceania — always self-funded, never on a press trip.