Such a Hong Kong Cliche

Discover the Real Hong Kong with Jamie

Hidden Gems & Secret Spots - A myth in Hong Kong

Hidden Germs in Hong Kong | Secret Spots in Hong Kong

Two of the worst cliches in the world of Tourism

I am not one to rant (well not much anyway) but I have decided that AI is the reason that so many travel and tourism sites use the phrases hidden gems and secret spots, I have read thousands of online travel and tourism articles and the use of these phrases drives me somewhat nuts.

I am not a writer, not even close, I am stilted and clunky and I will never win a Pulitzer Prize but I do have a distinctive style of sorts and that’s why I will never use AI

A few months ago I tried out AI on my website and on a blog post and deleted it all within 12 hours, quite simply it was not me, it was too perfect and used words and phrases that I would never use, in a nutshell I lost my writing integrity and that was just not on.

It also got me thinking about some quite mediocre local Travel Agencies in Hong Kong, the two offending phrases I mention above are pretty common place and yet when reading a lot of the blurb it seemed to me that AI was being used to give the impression that the people in the company and the guides all spoke perfect English and thus more attractive to tourists looking to book a tour in Hong Kong

Fluency in English in Hong Kong is variable, very variable, I have lived here for 52 years, when a local (and I really hate that word) says they are fluent in English you have to be cautious, there is a huge difference between being fluent and a Native English Speaker, there are many degrees of fluency!

Quite a lot of my friends who are Private Tour Guides are native English Speakers

In fact the Hong Kong Government runs a scheme in local Chinese Schools here called NETS which translates to Native Speaking English Teacher (!) to try and ensure that the kids get to be more proficient in the English language.

My wife speaks 3 languages, for her Cantonese the local Hong Kong language is Native but her English is not quite 100% native despite my efforts! it is one of the things I love about her!

My point is she has heard the phrases secret spots and hidden gems but is a little vague on what they mean

Anyway, I digress and back to my blog post

It is knowing the story behind each place | attraction you visit that really counts, all my private tour guide friends are master storytellers and have lived in Hong Kong for a long time ( I am at 52 years!) it is our responsibility to bring Hong Kong alive!

For the record a lot of my friends who are the best Private Tour Guides in Hong Kong think I am a bit of a fruitcake with my “thing” about these awful phrases Hidden Gems and Secret Spots, I cannot help it, it is such a cliche to use these phrases in Hong Kong.

Even the Hong Kong Tourism Board who are very professional and help a lot of people jumped onto the bandwagon by coming up with the name “Old Town Central” to lump together a series of “attractions” in a particular district on Hong Kong Island, the name is meaningless and has NO historical context and I am sorry to say that a lot of mediocre Tour Companies have jumped in to promote “Old Town Central” tours.

Hong Kong has seemingly hundreds to lifestyle websites (which I subscribe to in the interests of research) and without fail, all of them when they do “25 things to do in Hong Kong blog posts” totally overuse the hidden gem and secret spot thing!

To me it really is a silly cliche, I have lived here for 52 years and as a Private Tour Guide it just makes me a little peeved at how people think that cool places remain hidden from the world in Hong Kong, we have a very savvy population of 7.5 million people and they know EVERYTHING and I mean everything because they spend their entire lives gazing at their smartphones, information junkies does not even come close to the correct phrase to describe them.

One of the classic examples I like to use in a humorous way is the hiking story, most of Hong Kong is hilly and rocky and not built on, we have many great hiking trails, most of them are quite remote (and do not get me started on hikers in Hong Kong), as a resident, you do your research, you figure that the hiking trail you have chosen is hidden and very remote, you gear up on Sunday morning with your North Face “look” … walking poles in your hand you set off and when you get there, there are 50,000 Hong Kong residents all geared up walking the trail.. it really does happen on Sundays here.

I wrote quite a lengthy post about this subject in 2019 on my other website j3tourshongkong.com and I am putting some of the text here, things have not changed much.

Social Media has significantly transformed the way travellers discover new places, leading to an overuse of terms like hidden gems and secret spots. This trend seems to have been overlooked by numerous tour companies in Hong Kong and worldwide.

Ever since Instagram, Facebook, Tik Tok, X (formerly Twitter) and other social media sites became mainstream, literally hundreds of millions (if not BILLIONS) of photographs and video’s of tourist attractions and peoples personal holidays snaps have been uploaded to the web, basically completely destroying any sense of joy and wonderment at stumbling across something amazing on your holiday (I should point out there are exceptions!)

Here in Hong Kong, every Tom, Dick and Harry starting with the Hong Kong Tourism Board likes to use these awful cliches and they became cliches because for the most part people cannot be bothered to think about the message they are trying to convey, with a bit of research there are plenty of other phrases that can be used to set you apart from everyone else with a view to making sure you have an exceptional time in Hong Kong.

As a retired Private Tour Guide with 2,324 private tours under my belt (and who has lived in Hong Kong for 52 years) I have lost count of the number of people who requested going to various sites and such because they had heard it was a hidden gem or a secret spot and quite simply when you are doing a 3,4,5,6 or 8 hour tour, going off to this hidden gem in general is a complete and utter waste of time as there are very few places in any city which have that wow factor and why bother travelling 30 - 45 minutes there, 30 - 45 minutes back for an explanation and a snap with your smart phone. it does not make a lot of sense to me! I should point out that I always gave my guests the option to visit “the place” whilst pointing out the timing factor, seeing a place and hearing the stories are so much more valuable than a couple of smartphone images., I guess I am a little old fashioned but then again, we have 3 sons aged 24, 31 and 41 so I am familiar with how young people think these days!

I must also point out that there are tour companies in Hong Kong that can put together an Instagram themed tour for you and will have no problem at all calling them hidden gems or secret spots! I just hope you have the time and interest to hear the stories.

The other reality that I had to explain to my guests was that the vast majority of holiday images are taken with a smartphone with questionable image quality and naturally every one uses filters to give the image that wow factor and when you see the hidden gem or secret spot in person you are really disappointed! particularly if it is a cloudy day.

In Hong Kong a friend of mine did a blog post in 2021 with this headline

Choi Hung Estate – the Most Instagrammable Public Housing in Hong Kong

Type it into Google and see the images.

The images have very vibrant colours and look cool, but in person on a cloudy (or sunny day) the colours are very drab and it is a very deflating moment! but it does not stop hundreds of mainly young people trekking there every day and it is quite a hike on public transport from downtown so to speak.

…. and this leads me back to how social media has changed tourism.

A common problem with obsessing over hidden gems and secret spots and as mentioned above is that you can easily spend a huge amount of time ie 2 hours getting there, 2 hours back and 5 minutes taking a picture, Hong Kong is a lot bigger than you think, about 430 sq. miles in area or over 1,113 sq. km and you would be amazed at how many hidden gems and secret spots are out in the sticks and even with a car, take ages to get to.

I once had a young lady contact me 6 years ago and she sent me a list of 40 places she wanted to visit in ONE DAY and naturally, most of the spots were “secret” or hidden gems, I estimated it would take at least a week to visit them all and this was something she could not comprehend. I later heard she spent 3 days with a guide but there is no way they could have covered 40 spots spread of 430sq miles even in 3 days… each to their own I guess.

Let’s face it most visitors to Hong Kong are here for only a day or two and need to maximise their time which is why you need a first rate Private Tour Guide who knows their way around Hong Kong and by the way hidden gems are a myth, since the rise of Google (and social media) there is NO such thing as a secret spot, you can find anything on Google these days because that hidden gem has been visited and blogged about a thousand times already and yes, I am repeating myself to make the point.

If you want to get a feel for some Hong Kong hidden gems and secret spots go here to Atlas Obscura. they are up to 26 cool and unusual things to do.

So what is my point you might ask……

Simply put, there are a lot of Tour Companies in Hong Kong who also obsess about hidden gems and secret spots and who think our most amazing and iconic places to visit are too touristy and too crowded and you can do them on your own or worse skip them altogether which makes me somewhat incredulous.

Have a look at my images below, this is the most amazing city view in the world, it is the view from my spot at the Peak, by Peak I mean Victoria Peak.

These are not secret spots or hidden spots, I have been going to Victoria Peak for 52 years since I arrived in 1972, they have with the curse of social media become well known but for some reason, visitors to Hong Kong shrug their shoulders and take the easy options, such a shame

Amazingly unless you hire a top quality Private Tour Guide the chances are you will NOT see this view, you will end up on top of the Peak Tower having taken up the Peak Tram along with thousands of other people.. and you will get a nice view, that’s right, a nice view, to get the world class view you need to walk about 20 minutes through a jungle (well along a leafy road!) and even then, the people who do make it that far stop at the wrong place!

… and no my spot is not a secret spot by any means, I have been to it well over 6,000 times since 1972 and it never ceases to amaze me, no matter what the weather is like.

In addition Victoria Peak to me is Hong Kong, it’s historical importance since 1841 simply cannot be overstated and you need to know the history both historical and current and you need an expert to explain what you are seeing, an hour spent at the Peak with a real and passionate expert is worth much more than 50 hidden gems or secret spots.

oh… and the view of Hong Kong Island from either the Avenue of Stars, TST Promenade or the Ocean Terminal Deck in Kowloon looking across Victoria Harbour to Hong Kong Island is simply staggering as well, again, most people avoid these places because they are touristy and crowded and again a huge mistake.

…. at the end of the day forget about hidden gems and secret spots and hire a top notch Private Tour Guide in Hong Kong who will use their extensive knowledge to give an amazing and rewarding tour of Hong Kong.

… and do not get me started on “seeing Hong Kong like a local” I will cover that in another blog post and yes, like everyone else I have to use this phrase in my marketing!!

As mentioned earlier my favourite alternative term for hidden gems and secret spots was nailed by Atlas Obscura, the quirky Travel and Tourism site who simply say “cool and unusual things to do in Hong Kong” and yes, that makes them stand out in a very crowded field and yes, (I get repetitive at times!) I mentioned them above and I am sad to say that they actually changed very recently in March 2024 their banner headline to

The Atlas Obscura Guide To Hong Kong

26 Cool, Hidden, and Unusual Things to Do in Hong Kong

They have joined the thousands of other travel and tourism publications using the term “hidden” !

In my mind, there are no secret spots or hidden gems in Hong Kong because of social media but the really great private tour guides in Hong Kong (my friends) will know places that are not overrun by smart phone toting gangs of young people looking for their 20 seconds of fame which are relatively accessible over the course of a tour and which have that wow factor.

Finally I should point out that there is one secret spot and hidden gem (sorry!) in Hong Kong that offers quite simply the most magnificent city view in the world (I am not kidding) located at Victoria Peak on Hong Kong Island.

I have posted the day and night images - it is rarely visited by your average tourist | visitor because it requires a 20 minute walk there and 20 minutes back from the Peak Tower where most people go. There are plenty of Tripadvisor reviews about this place and many blog posts but there is a catch, the vast majority of people who go there stop at the wrong spot, the view is great but it is not the spot!

If you have a tour with one of my friends you can mention that you would like to see “Jamie’s spot at the Peak” and they will smile and nod…. I visited it for the first time on January 3rd 1972 and have been there over 6,000 times (in all weathers) it is my favourite place in the world.

I should point out that the 2nd best city view in the world is on Barker Road at Victoria Peak next to Jack Ma’s mansion (he is a Mainland Chinese mega billionaire), see below and amazingly almost NO ONE goes there which is odd as Barker Road hosts the homes of many billionaires and some very, very important people.

Again, if you want to visit this spot on Barker Road, book a tour with Amy at Hong Kong Greeters, she has a car (there is no public transport on Barker Road) as it is quite a long road, it is such an interesting place to visit.

J3 Group Hong Kong

J3 Consultants Hong Kong | J3 Private Tours Hong Kong

J3 Consultants Private Hong Kong Experience is tailored for individuals who prefer to explore Hong Kong independently, without joining any guided tours.

This unique experience offers an authentic insight into the real Hong Kong, providing a deeper understanding of the city's culture, history, and local way of life.

Led by Jamie, a dedicated Hong Kong specialist and resident for 52 years, the experience covers many aspects of Hong Kong's identity, spanning its time under both British and Chinese rule.

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Jamie, your friend in Hong Kong

52 years living in Hong Kong, our family arrived on January 2nd 1972

I have lived here for 25 years under British Rule, 27 years under Chinese Rule

I have 45 years of Business Consultancy experience in Hong Kong

My wife is a local & has lived her entire life in Hong Kong, her first language is Cantonese

We have 3 Adult sons all born and educated in Hong Kong, 2 still live in Hong Kong

I pioneered the Private Tour Industry in Hong Kong in 2010

2,324 completed award winning Private Tours of Hong Kong from 2011 - 2020

……and yes, I am a bit of an expert on the Hong Kong car culture!

© Jamie Lloyd | J3 Consultants Hong Kong | J3 Private Tours Hong Kong | | 2011 - 2024.

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