5 Days in Hong Kong on a Budget — What We Did and What It Cost
Filmed on : May 2025
Filmed in : Hong Kong
Getting Around
Get an Octopus card at the airport. It covers metro, buses, trams, and ferries. You can only top it up with cash — figure that out before you run out mid-trip. You can even pay in some shops with it.
The historic tram (Ding Ding) costs €0.68/ride and crosses a large chunk of the island. Slow but useful and cheap.
What We Did, Day by Day
Arrival + Evening — Victoria Peak
Hiked up via the jungle trail (free, skip the cable car). Good views over the city. On the way back, ate at a sandwich place near the bottom — the first street food stall we tried had a €11 minimum charge per person, which we skipped.
Day 1 — Kowloon + North Point
Hong Kong Aviary, Kowloon Park — free. Birds land on you. Worth an hour.
Museum of Tea Ware, inside the same park — also free. Small, well done, bilingual.
M+ Museum, West Kowloon Cultural District — free. Large contemporary art museum with harbour views. We spent about an hour but could have stayed longer.
Monster Building (Montane Mansion), North Point — residential complex, famous as a photo spot. Free to walk into the courtyard. We took the tram there and back.
Day spend (excl. accommodation): ~€30 for two, including food and transport.
Day 2 — Mong Kok + Wong Tai Sin
Breakfast in Mong Kok — pineapple bun with cold butter and French toast at a local café. €8.78 for two.
Flower Market — free to walk through.
Wong Tai Sin Temple — Guinness World Record for number of fortune tellers in one place. You can try Kau Cim (fortune sticks) yourself, there's a free app to translate the result.
Symphony of Lights (harbour light show) — free but not impressive.
Day 3 — Gallery Day
Wandered between free cultural spaces in West Kowloon and Central.
Galerie du Monde, Hauser & Wirh, Tang Contemporary Art Hong Kong, JC Contemporary, 10 Chancery Lane Gallery...
Ended up in a free photography exhibition where they gave out free prints. Spent almost nothing except food.
Central–Mid-Levels Escalator — longest outdoor covered escalator in the world (since 1993). Good way to explore the Mid-Levels neighbourhood. Free to use
Day spend (excl. accommodation): ~€26 for two.
Day 4 — Big Wave Beach
Metro + bus + 1hr hike each way to get there. Clear water, surfers, BBQ tables (bring your own charcoal). Not crowded on a Sunday. Water is cold but people swim. Surfboard rentals available.
The hiking trail back is paved with stone steps — normal trainers are fine.
We brought beers and snacks from the supermarket. Total beach day spend on food and transport: ~€18 for two.
Day 5 — Lantau Island (Tian Tan Buddha + Tai O)
Lockers at Tung Chung Mall (connected to airport) — useful on your last day. Large lockers fill up fast, go early. We paid €5.71 for two small lockers for the afternoon.
Tian Tan Buddha — It's a major tourist site, not a hidden spot, but the statue is genuinely large and the views are good.
Tai O Fishing Village — stilt houses, dried fish market, much quieter than the rest of Hong Kong. Worth the trip. The ferry from Tung Chung only runs a few times a day and the schedule is hard to find online — check before you go or you'll be taking the bus like us.
Budget Overview (2 people)
Accommodation: €250
Restaurants: €88
Groceries: €68
Transportation: €33
Other: €31
Total: €470
Roughly €47/person/day all-in, or €22/person/day excluding accommodation.
We stayed at Mini Central HK — €49/night, small room, no window, but clean and well located. It's one of the cheaper options we felt comfortable leaving laptops in.
