On foot in Hong Kong: the city that rewards walkers

Most people experience Hong Kong from the MTR — the subway system that is clean, fast, and air-conditioned to the point of being arctic. But Hong Kong on foot is a completely different city, and I think it's the better one.

The escalator

The Central-Mid-Levels escalator is the longest outdoor covered escalator system in the world. It runs uphill in the morning and downhill in the evening, carrying commuters between the residential Mid-Levels and the business district of Central. Walking alongside it — hopping on and off, ducking into side streets — is one of the best ways to experience the layered, vertical nature of Hong Kong's urban landscape.

The walkways

Hong Kong has an extraordinary network of elevated walkways that connect buildings, shopping centres, and transit stations. In Central, you can walk from the Star Ferry pier to the Peak Tram station without ever touching the ground. It's a city that has been designed, almost accidentally, for pedestrians who know where they're going.

The hills

This is what separates Hong Kong from other walkable cities. The terrain is aggressive. Streets turn into staircases. Pavements have a gradient that would qualify as a hiking trail elsewhere. But this verticality is also what makes walking here so rewarding — every climb opens up a new view, a new neighbourhood, a new perspective on the harbour below.

My favourite walk

Start at the Star Ferry terminal in Tsim Sha Tsui. Cross the harbour. Walk through Central, up through SoHo via the escalator, and keep going until you reach the Old Peak Road trail. It takes about two hours if you don't stop, but you will stop — for egg tarts, for the view from a rooftop bar, for the temple tucked between two high-rises that you almost walked past.

What Hong Kong gets right

Density. Hong Kong is proof that density, done well, is what makes a city walkable. Everything is close because everything is stacked. The ground floor is a shop. The first floor is a restaurant. The second floor is a dentist. The thirtieth floor is someone's home. You never need to walk far because the city packs more life per square metre than anywhere I've been.