Hong Kong Expensive
Dim sum for breakfast, roast goose for lunch, and cha chaan teng for everything else. The Michelin-starred street food is genuinely cheap. Go where the queue of locals is and point at what they ordered.
Budget travel in Hong Kong
What a visitor's money does in Hong Kong: every guide rated from very cheap to very expensive, cheapest first, then the things that cost travellers money without buying anything — the ATM, the taxi, the SIM.
Expensive average across 1 guide · 5 is very cheap
Money
Hong Kong Dollar (HKD) · 1 EUR = 9.0 HKD · 1 USD = 7.8 HKD (pegged)
Chungking Mansions in Tsim Sha Tsui has the best rates in the city and always has. Avoid the airport and hotel desks. The dollar is pegged to the US dollar, so the rate barely moves.
ATMs
Avoid: airport and hotel exchange desks
Use: HSBC, Hang Seng, Bank of China
Chungking Mansions has the best cash rates in the city. Get an Octopus card on arrival — it pays for transport and convenience stores and is the single most useful thing here.
Getting around
A short ride in Hong Kong: HK$40–90 across town — middling
From the airport: HKIA to Central HK$280–350, against HK$115 on the Airport Express
Uber runs a little over the red-taxi meter. The taxis are cheap and plentiful.
City by city, cheapest first
The cost rating is this site's own, for a visitor, from the guides' authors and the corrections readers send in. The general rules — the conversion prompt, shoulder season, the airport taxi — are in budget travel tips.
