Transport and the shape of the city in Hong Kong

Octopus

A single stored-value card covers the MTR, buses, minibuses, trams, ferries and a great deal of retail. You top it up with cash at stations and shops or automatically from a bank card, and it works by tapping on entry and exit on the MTR, but only on boarding a bus. Registering the card means a lost one can be blocked and the balance recovered; an unregistered card cannot.

• Buy and register at any MTR customer service centre.
• Automatic top-up from a bank account saves queueing but requires a local account.
• Contactless bank cards and phones are accepted on the MTR, but Octopus remains the default off it; it also lives in Apple Pay and Samsung Wallet.
• The government's fare subsidy refunds part of a month's spending above a threshold; collect it at subsidy kiosks with the same Octopus.

MTR, buses and ferries

The MTR is fast, frequent, air-conditioned and reaches most places you will want to go, with fares charged by distance. Franchised buses and green minibuses fill in the hills and the estates; red minibuses run fixed routes with fluid stops and are best left until you have your bearings. The Star Ferry and the outlying island ferries are genuine commuter services, not just tourist rides, and the trams on Hong Kong Island are slow, cheap and pleasant.

• MTR fares are distance-based; monthly passes exist for specific corridors rather than the whole network.
• Buses and minibuses take Octopus; red minibuses sometimes want exact cash.
• Cross-harbour journeys are quicker by MTR than by road at almost any hour.

Taxis and cars

Taxis are colour-coded by territory: red for the urban areas, green for the New Territories, blue for Lantau, and they will not take you outside their zone. Many drivers speak limited English, so having your destination written in Chinese helps. Owning a car makes very little sense in the urban districts — first registration tax is heavy, petrol is expensive, and a parking space in a central building can cost more per month than a room in a shared flat.

• Red urban taxis do not serve the New Territories interior or Lantau.
• Many taxis now take Octopus and QR payment, but carry cash as a fallback.
• Parking in central buildings is a significant monthly cost in its own right.

The airport and the hills

Hong Kong International is on Lantau, and the Airport Express reaches Hong Kong station in around twenty-four minutes, with in-town check-in at Hong Kong and Kowloon stations. For the mainland, high-speed trains leave West Kowloon for Shenzhen Futian in under a quarter of an hour and Guangzhou in about fifty minutes, with immigration for both sides inside the station. Beyond that, the thing the map does not show you is vertical: the Mid-Levels escalator exists because the gradient is genuinely severe, and it runs downhill in the morning and uphill for the rest of the day. Check which direction it is going before you rely on it for a commute.