Private Tours are the best way to understand Hong Kong

**Me Jamie, your host, I am English and I have lived in Hong Kong for 53 years - I know the place.**
**I have personally completed 2,300+ Private Experiences (over 6,000+ guests) since April 2011 and I am considered one of the finest Private Tour Guides in Asia.**

**A blog post with a difference**
**Please do visit Hong Kong in 2025 | Travel, Tourism, Tours, Tips, Daily Life and my personal thoughts on Hong Kong.**
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Insider tip - 13 reasons to book a Tour of Hong Kong

Private Tours are the best way to understand Hong Kong

Exploring Hong Kong on a Private Tour

“Opting for a private tour of Hong Kong eliminates the need to accommodate the preferences of other travellers, giving you unmatched flexibility and the ability to modify your itinerary as you go. This level of personalization and freedom is the primary reason that so many travellers prefer private tours over group options.”

click on the image to enlarge

When I first did a blog post on taking a tour in Hong Kong I stated 12 reasons to book a Private Tour of Hong Kong which I have now decided is 13 reasons! Funny how when I was researching this subject back in 2024 there are seemingly hundreds of posts on why there are 5 or 6 reasons to choose to do a Private Tour, I have come up with 13 solid reasons.

My guests in the image above where are family, Mum, Dad and their adult son, Dad is a major league financier for a Sovereign Fund in Europe and was one of the nicest, friendliest guests I had, so down to earth and no issues with using public transport.

13 reasons to book a Private Tour of Hong Kong

The size of the group is limited to 1 - 6 people
Itineraries customised to your personal specifications with unrivalled flexibility
Go at your own pace based on your personal dynamics and circumstances
You can choose the date and starting time and it can cost a lot less than you think!
Beat the crowds! you will absolutely maximise the time for actual sightseeing
You get a local resident | expert with an insiders knowledge of Hong Kong - the ultimate benefit
Flexibility on changing the itinerary during the tour if required
An opportunity to make amazing memories with family and friends
An in-depth learning and participation experience
You will get a great value for money experience and you will get the best guides
The undivided attention of your Private Tour Guide
Going from attractions A to B to C to D to E seamlessly and hassle free with an expert
You will absolutely have a lot more fun! (p.s. and someone to take your picture!)

Below is the text from one of my previous blog posts in 2024 on this subject.

If you are considering coming to Hong Kong you have choices if you want to book a tour (or not!)

You can choose to explore Hong Kong on your own, using your smart phone, apps and Wikipedia | Instagram | You Tube
You can choose to do a Hotel Coach Tour with 20 - 30 other tourists
You can choose to do a Big Bus Tour a better way of doing a Hotel Coach Tour!
You can choose to go on a Free Tour of Hong Kong (which is NOT free by the way, you have to tip the guide)
You can choose to go on a Group Tour (Cultural or Foodie or both) with anywhere from 6 - 100 participants
You can choose to go on a proper Food Tour as opposed to a more Culture “based” tour
You can choose to go on a Private Tour of Hong Kong

Best Insider Tips for booking a Private Tour of Hong Kong

“For many travellers, the idea of using a private tour guide may be foreign idea (no pun intended). When people hear “private tour,” most think of it as something only intended for ultra-luxury travel or that it almost seems too personal… like “that’s a lot of time with one person and just us.” While it can cost more to take a private tour, the experience you get is usually more personal, meaningful, and fun. And hopefully, built just for you and your family or group.”

As my friends in the business will tell you, I have very strong feelings about companies such as Tripadvisor and Viator (which are the same company) who dominate the “booking a private tour market” and not in a positive meaningful way as I point out below, the worst part of it being is that any crap tour company can be listed first on tour offerings simply by agreeing to pay Tripadvisor and Viator more commission, actual quality of the tour is meaningless to these awful tour comapanies. I have never listed my tours on any OTA and worked freelance for a company called Tours by Locals and left them when they changed their policy that all guides are created equal, they are NOT!

Book the tour directly through the Tour Companies website, you might find it to be much cheaper, companies like Viator, Klook, Tripadvisor, Get Your Guide, Tours by Locals and such generally charge the tour company a 25 - 30% commission for the privilege of listing on their site, on OTA sites (Online Travel Agencies) all tour companies are created equal, I find it amazing how they can make 1,000 private tours look exactly the same and they insist on extraneous twaddle like the tour itinerary with timing which is utterly nonsensical, if someone says you will spend 30 minutes at an attraction you can bet you will be there for an hour, timing does not respect reality!, it is also impossible to get a clear picture of who you are dealing with and their strengths and weaknesses, visiting the tour companies actual website will give you a much clearer picture of who you are dealing with. Personally I can see no good reason to book through an OTA, to me there is a complete lack of quality control with many companies with mediocre quality and reputations getting priority listings because they offer a bigger commission to the OTA and do not get me started on how companies can be listed at no. 1 in the rankings on Tripadvisor purely and simply because they have paid a large sum of money to do this.

I always like to say that you should try and book a private tour with the owner of the company, with J3 Private Tours, you got me, I had no guides on my payroll nor would I ever use freelance guides. Trust me, book the owner, it is normally quite clear on their website who that is.

Unless you are booking a food tour (where ideally you need to book the tour with a company with Hong Kong Chinese guides fluent in Cantonese and English) book a tour if possible with a guide where English is a native language and that they are a long term resident of Hong Kong, I do not speak Cantonese and that is not through lack of trying, my wife‛s first language is Cantonese but I am English and I have lived in Hong Kong for 53 years. Communication is so important on a tour and trust me, there are many levels of English fluency in Hong Kong and what you should be looking for primarily is a Native English Speaker if possible, if you are communicating with the company you can normally get a pretty good idea of English fluency. I have always been open and honest about my pathetic Cantonese language ability!

Due to Hong Kong Government inaction there are very few guides available who are native French, German, Spanish and Portuguese speakers but I am happy to make recommendations for quality tour companies | tour guides with special language skills.

I am no spring chicken at 64 (as of 2025) but I am always disappointed to see young kids leading tours, for me the optimum age range for a Private Tour Guide should be 30 - 70 with the best of us between 35 - 65 | Why this age range? Well you have to know Hong Kong like the back of your hand and more importantly you have life experience by the bucketful and when you doing Private Tours you are doing tours with very diverse people in terms of occupations and ages, I was 50 when I started my new life as a Private Tour Guide, married for a long time with 3 adult sons, in other words I am an adult not a kid! it would be very tough for young person of 20 - 25 to deal with a CEO of a Fortune 500 Company or a real Princess (yes I did a tour with a famous and very wealthy Princess) I know of a couple of exceptions but they where trained as flight attendants and that training was invaluable and for the record, the very best private tour guides are in my experience female (I was a notable exception!)

Please bear in mind these are my personal opinions, others may have a different point of view

The Peak Tram in Hong Kong, one of my favourite subjects for all of the wrong reasons but if you follow my advice then you will have a much better experience. Despite upgrading the Terminals and the Trams (which now have a capacity of 210 people) the Peak Tram is still plagued with issues simply because it is one of the most popular attractions in Hong Kong.

I have been on the Tram thousands of times since 1972 but since 2003 it has had an issue with huge crowds and in 2019 even if you where with a Tour Guide you could easily wait 1 - 2 hours for an 8 minute ride and the pushing and shoving to get onto the tram to get a seat, well that was and is just awful. Post Covid and the new terminals and trams have not resolved the issue, it has also become very expensive and it is going to get much worse by the end of 2025

My advice - do NOT go up to Victoria Peak on the Peak Tram, take a taxi, a bus or Uber but come down on the Tram, you really only need to do the Tram ride one way and going down is a lot more fun and a lot less crowded, you do need to read my blog post about the 16 myths of Victoria Peak, it will enable you to have a much better experience.

Learn more | My blog post about the 16 myths about Victoria Peak in Hong Kong

You must absolutely read the Tripadvisor reviews of any company you are considering, they can be very revealing and beware of certain tour companies who get hundreds of reviews where the reviewer has done precisely one review and they are always glowing 5 star reviews, one company in particular was famous for free tours and they have now morphed into paid tours as well, as a Free Tour Company they were appalling but now all they get is 5 star reviews! I have seen this review manipulation many times since I first listed on Tripadvisor in 2011.

I am still a top drawer guide | advisor | consultant in the Tour business and the big mistake people make is booking the cheapest option, if ever there was a business that exemplified the old saying “you get what you pay for” it is the Private Tour Business and in Hong Kong for any type of Tour business, for the 9 years in which I completed 2,324 Private Tours I had the highest prices but I delivered a top quality tour.

For some reason in Hong Kong a lot of Private Tour Companies in Hong Kong will not accept a booking more than 6 months in advance, I have never understood this, particularly as people on Cruises who are looking for a shore excursion like to book a year in advance, you need to check this as chances are if you wait to long to book your preferred company may already be booked.

If you are booking a private tour then generally you make contact with the company by email, it is not a good idea to send a one line enquiry and one that suggests you are talking with other tour companies as well, the more personal and detailed the enquiry, the faster the response will be.