Sai Kung Day Trip: Beaches, Boats and Seafood in Hong Kong's New Territories

A Sai Kung day trip is the easiest way to see that Hong Kong is mostly countryside. An hour from the towers you get fishing boats, a public pier full of sampans, and beaches you reach by hopping on a small wooden boat with whoever else is going.

The catch is the one thing almost nobody writing about Sai Kung leads with: there is no MTR station here. Getting there is a two-leg trip, and if you want the islands it is three. Here is how it actually works, with the real fares.

Is a Sai Kung day trip worth it?

Yes, if you want a beach and a boat rather than another skyline viewpoint. Sai Kung Town is a working waterfront: seafood restaurants along the promenade with tanks out front, a public pier where boat operators call out destinations, and hills straight behind the town.

It is a different trip from the outlying islands. Lamma Island and Cheung Chau are ferry rides from Central on a fixed timetable. Sai Kung is a bus ride into the New Territories, and the boats there run on demand instead of a schedule. That makes it more flexible and slightly more improvised.

How to get to Sai Kung (there is no MTR)

Sai Kung does not appear anywhere on the MTR's list of stations, on any of the ten lines. Every route is MTR to a railhead, then a bus or green minibus. All of them take Octopus, so tap on and forget the coins. If you have not sorted payment yet, start with what an Octopus card actually is.

• Bus 92 from Diamond Hill Station, HK$7.80. Diamond Hill sits on both the Kwun Tong Line and the Tuen Ma Line, which makes this the simplest connection from most of Kowloon.
• Green minibus 1A from the Choi Hung Road interchange, HK$10.90. Quicker than the bus and it runs often, but minibuses fill up and then drive past. If you have not used one before, read our guide to Hong Kong minibuses first, because the stopping rules are not obvious.
• Bus 792M from Tseung Kwan O Station, HK$9.40. The pick if you are already on the Tseung Kwan O Line.
• Minibus 101M from Hang Hau Station, HK$10.90. Another Tseung Kwan O Line option.
• Bus 299X from Sha Tin Central, HK$11.70. The one to use from the New Territories rather than from town.

A taxi from Central takes around 45 minutes, closer to an hour on a peak weekend, and drops you at Sai Kung Pier. Split four ways it is a reasonable shortcut on the way out. Our Hong Kong taxi guide covers what the meter should be doing.

Sharp Island and the sandbar you can walk across

The boats leave from Sai Kung Public Pier, and they are the point of the trip. Operators run small open boats to Sharp Island, a ten minute ride across the bay. There is no published timetable. You walk the pier, find out which boat is going where, and buy on the spot.

Fares depend on the operator and which beach you want, and they are not standardised: expect somewhere around HK$30 to HK$40 per person, with the far side of the island costing a little more. Ask the price before you get on.

Sharp Island's draw is the tombolo, a thin natural causeway of sand and stone linking the island to a smaller one beside it. At low tide you walk across. At high tide it is underwater and you do not. Check the Hong Kong Observatory's tide predictions before you commit to the crossing, because the boats do not wait for the tide and neither does the tide wait for you.

The licensed kaito ferries from the same pier go further out: Kau Sai Village and High Island for HK$65, and Fo Tau Fan Chau for HK$80 as a prepaid return. Those are set fares rather than negotiated ones.

Which beaches actually have lifeguards

Both of Sharp Island's beaches, Kiu Tsui Beach and Hap Mun Bay Beach, are gazetted public beaches run by the Leisure and Cultural Services Department, as is Trio Beach at Hebe Haven on the way into town.

Their lifeguard cover runs April to October: 9am to 6pm in April and May, 9am to 6pm on weekdays in June to August with 8am to 7pm at weekends and public holidays, then back to 9am to 6pm for September and October. From November to March, lifeguard service at all three is suspended. Swim in winter and there is nobody watching the water, which is worth knowing before you build a cold-season trip around a beach.

Hiking from Sai Kung

Sai Kung is the front door to the MacLehose Trail, which runs close to 100km across the New Territories in ten sections. Sections one and two start out here and are rated challenging, so they are a day's commitment rather than an add-on to a beach trip.

For the trailheads, minibus 9 runs from Sai Kung Town towards Tai Mong Tsai for HK$5.20 and on to the Lady MacLehose Holiday Village for HK$8.40. Minibus 7 goes further up the coast to Hoi Ha for HK$14.50.

Eating on the seafood street

The promenade restaurants are the reason a lot of people come. Chuen Kee and Sing Kee are the two names you will see most. The format is the same at both: tanks and steamer baskets at the front, you point at what you want, and it comes back cooked.

Confirm what your pick costs before it leaves the tank. Choosing live seafood by sight is exactly how a lunch bill gets away from you, and asking at the tank is easier than arguing at the table.

Quick answers

Does Sai Kung have an MTR station? No. Sai Kung is not on any of the MTR's ten lines. The nearest railheads are Diamond Hill, Choi Hung, Hang Hau and Tseung Kwan O, all of which have a bus or minibus onward.

How do I get to Sai Kung from Central? Take the MTR to Diamond Hill and change to bus 92 for HK$7.80, or to Choi Hung for minibus 1A at HK$10.90. A taxi is about 45 minutes.

Where is Sai Kung in Hong Kong? On the east coast of the New Territories, on a peninsula facing the Sai Kung islands. It is north-east of Kowloon and well outside the built-up city.

Is it worth going to Sai Kung? If you want beaches, a boat ride and seafood, yes. If you are on a short trip and have not seen Victoria Harbour yet, do that first and keep Sai Kung for a return visit.