Hong Kong is 263 islands. Most visitors see one. The other 261 are the city's secret, known to locals who guard them jealously. Twenty minutes from Central Pier, the skyscrapers shrink to postcards, and you step off onto an island with no cars and no one in a hurry.
Cheung Chau
A dumbbell-shaped island where the main street is barely wide enough for two bicycles. The waterfront is lined with seafood restaurants. The local specialty is a giant fish ball the size of a tennis ball. In May, the Bun Festival involves 18-meter towers covered in steamed buns that young men climb at midnight — part religious rite, part extreme sport, all since the Qing Dynasty.
Lantau
Lantau is twice the size of Hong Kong Island and mostly empty. The Tai O fishing village on the western shore is Hong Kong's last stilt-house community. Salted fish dries on bamboo racks. The smell is assertive. The sunset over the Pearl River Delta, from the old ferry pier, is silent and spectacular.
You can eat dim sum in Central at 9 AM, hike through a fishing village at 10:30, and be back for lunch. That proximity is the magic.
