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Dive into Hong Kong’s diverse and exciting neighbourhoods with Trip.com and you’ll be guided into experiences in places you never knew existed, and where you’ll gain a new understanding of local Hong Kong life, up-close and in detail. 

Each is a destination in its own right. Like tiny cities within a sprawling metropolis, each has its own culture and personality, shaped over time by fascinating people, foods, communities and stories, as well as rich and varied histories.

Use Trip.com’s handy guide below to show you how to explore all these neighbourhoods like a local, with deals to match and you’ll discover the Hong Kong that is missed by most guidebooks.

With hotels on offer from under $100 per night and return flights from around $680 with Qantas and Virgin, Hong Kong never looked so enticing.

Sign up online too, as Trip.com’s loyalty members can benefit from deals available only to them, in Hong Kong, during this campaign launched this week, designed to encourage travellers to explore beyond the same old tourist haunts.

TripPLUS members who have accumulated loyalty points called “Trip Coins” whenever they have booked flights and hotels or written a review on Trip.com platforms, can use them to gain exclusive discounts on future purchases.

Central

Take a quick glance at Central’s glittering skyscrapers and it would be easy to dismiss Hong Kong’s financial hub as boring. But beneath the canopy of this concrete jungle lies some of the city’s most exciting (and exclusive) bars, restaurants and modern-art galleries. Perched on the north shore of Hong Kong Island, the district’s transport links are as good as you’d expect from a place named ‘Central’ – this is where you’ll find the Victoria Peak Tram, the Mid-Levels Escalator and the Star Ferry.

Sheung Wan

If suits own Central, then hipsters control Sheung Wan. Sitting in the shadow of Central’s high-rises just west of Hong Kong’s towering business district, Sheung Wan was a typical residential neighbourhood until it began to modernise rapidly in recent years, welcoming a wave of trendy coffee shops, bohemian vintage stores and cutting-edge eateries to its streets. Here, you can shop for antiques on Hollywood Road; visit Man Ho Temple, one of the oldest in Hong Kong; and take photos of the street art in PoHo, the area around Po Hing Fong and Tai Ping Shan Street.

SoHo

SoHo is another spot favoured by Hong Kong’s arty crowd. Sandwiched between Central and Mid-Levels and sitting next door to the craziness that is Lan Kwai Fong, SoHo is short for South of Hollywood Road and covers the area between Staunton and Elgin Streets. All along the Mid-levels Escalator route are where cool new bars, restaurants, boutiques, comedy clubs, galleries, design stores and cafés seem to spring up every day.

Lan Kwai Fong

Welcome to Hong Kong’s party central. Home to more than 100 bars, Lan Kwai Fong has a venue for everyone. Young professionals, expats, backpackers, cashed-up locals, yuppies and anyone else thirsty for a drink or three converge on this part of town on the weekend, flooding legendary nightspots like Club Qing, Levels and Cé La Vi.

Mid-Levels

This district might be mainly residential, but the Mid-Levels boasts some of Hong Kong’s best views from the slopes of Victoria Peak. Hop on one of the 20 escalators or three ‘travelators’ snaking between the glitzy apartment blocks to escape the Central smog and enjoy some fresh air in one of the mountainside parks, then climb even higher to the summit of Victoria Peak for peerless vistas over Hong Kong. On the way back down, make sure to stop off in one of the many boutiques, bars and bistros that line the escalator route.

Wan Chai

Wan Chai used to be infamous for its red-light district, but the sleaze and smut has made way for stylish hotels and cultural centres. Occupying the waterfront east of Central, Wan Chai has traded raunchy sailors and boozy bars for the avant-garde Hong Kong Arts Center, the world-class Academy for Performing Arts, and the iconic Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Center. Just east of Wan Chai sits Causeway Bay – an area teeming with department stores – and to the south is Happy Valley, home to one of the most famous horse-racing tracks on the planet.

Tsim Sha Tsui

Jump on the Star Ferry across Victoria Harbour to reach one of Hong Kong’s liveliest neighbourhoods on the southern tip of the Kowloon Peninsula. Tsim Sha Tsui is one stop that every visitor should add to their Hong Kong itinerary. Take in Nathan Road’s neon-lit Golden Mile, the Avenue of Stars – China’s answer to the Hollywood Walk of Fame – and gargantuan shopping malls such as K11 and Harbour City. This neighbourhood has a veritable smorgasbord of upmarket dining options: visitors can choose from Michelin-star fine dining, traditional Cantonese cuisine and international fare from pretty much everywhere around the world.

Mong Kok

Mong Kok is all about one thing: markets, and lots of them. The air here is filled with the smells of food wafting from the stalls on Sai Yeung Choi, Dundas, Fa Yuen and Soy Streets – perfect for satisfying your hunger after a long day exploring the Ladies’ Market or the district’s specialist markets dedicated to birds, flowers and even goldfish. Hipsters should venture further north to Sham Shui Po, an up-and-coming food and shopping hub.

With the TripPLUS rewards program, members can earn 25 Trip Coins for every US$100* they spend on flight bookings, 80 Trip Coins for every US$100 spent on hotel bookings, and up to 120 Trip Coins for every hotel review they post. Members can either make instant savings on Trip.com hotel products by selecting the number of Trip Coins to use when booking, or exchange Trip Coins for access to promo codes. By enabling instant saving through Trip Coins, Trip.com will offer further attractive products in the highly competitive online travel market.

TripPLUS works in tandem with Trip.com’s tier membership system, which includes Silver, Gold and Platinum membership. Members of all three tiers are entitled to exclusive hotel deals, while Gold and Platinum Tier Members will respectively receive 10% and 30% more Trip Coins on any flight or hotel booking. Higher levels of membership are reached through the separate accumulation of “Tier Points” on Trip.com platforms, earned through making flight and hotel bookings.