Final Thoughts on Hong Kong

A car lovers dream

If you have any appreciation for cars you would love going to Hong Kong.  When you first import a car into Hong Kong you have to pay a “first registration tax” of 40% of the cars value up to 150K.  Above 150K it jumps to 75%+.   The limited amount of space in Hong Kong and the additional tax added to cars means that generally it’s the wealthy driving a car around.   As you walk around Hong Kong you quickly get the impression that everyone is rich just looking at the cars.   No one seems to own a basic car at all.  Everyone is driving an Audi, BMW, Mercedes, Lexus and of those cars they are generally the most high end trim level offered.

As you walk down the street in Hong Kong, you’ll see every type of high end car you can imagine on a daily basis.  I can’t even count all the Ferrari’s, Lamborghini’s, Rolls Royce’s, McLaren’s, and every other major super car you can imagine that I saw on a daily basis.  We headed out one night and parked just outside our place was the Lamborghini Aventador.    This is a $400,000 car but with the 100% tax added to a car that expensive the owner ended up paying $800K for it.   As a fan of sports cars, I thoroughly enjoyed all the amazing cars in Hong Kong.

Amazing Wealth in Hong Kong

Going right along with the nice cars, the amount of wealth in Hong Kong was beyond anything I have ever seen before.  The wealth was very obvious everywhere you looked in Hong Kong.  Insane cars everywhere.   The general cost of living (food/housing) is extremely high.   At the mall we walked by 5 to 7 designer stores like Fendi, Gucci, etc that were all for babies… These were full on stores that didn’t even sell adult clothes and they were not small stores and they were busy.   The amount of money being thrown around in Macau.    Obviously not everyone in Hong Kong is wealthy but as you walk around you quickly get the sense that there are a lot of very wealthy people.   It’s worth noting that we averaged $194/day in Hong Kong so we were well over budget and it wasn’t for lack of trying.  Hong Kong is just an expensive place to be!

The New York of Asia

If I had to summarize Hong Kong I would say it’s the New York of Asia.  There’s huge sky scrapers, a million things to do, a new place to eat every day, and you could spend years here and feel like you never fully understood the entire city.   No matter what you are interested in Hong Kong can probably give you a number of options that will keep you happy.   The city truly never sleeps and there’s something going on 24/7.

Visiting Hong Kong

There’s a very diverse mix of cultures with a huge British influence that makes Hong Kong extremely accessible for the average American (or English speaker).   Hong Kong is the Asia I was hoping for in my head before we went on our trip.  Hong Kong is the perfect blend of Asian culture and Western culture in my personal opinion.   Getting around Hong Kong is easy.   Talking with people in Hong Kong is easy.   If you’re on the fence about visiting Asia I would definitely recommend you start with Hong Kong.   The icing on the cake is that there is no visa for Hong Kong like there is in China.   We paid $250/person for our China visa but you can enter Hong Kong without a visa if you’re a US Citizen.

We Love Hong Kong

I would absolutely visit Hong Kong again if I ever get the opportunity.  There were a million things to do there and we only had 10 days to explore it all which wasn’t nearly enough time.   We thoroughly enjoyed the food in Hong Kong, loved our Dragon’s Back hike, and felt like we could spend hours just walking around the different neighborhoods in Hong Kong.