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Travel Like A Local Yet Another Horrible Travel Cliche

Travel Like a Local, Secret Spots, Hidden Gems, Off The Beaten Track | Is there is no end to these facile travel cliches?

That‛s right yet another overblown horrible tourism cliche which is shoved in your face by numerous Tour Companies in Hong Kong in an effort to convince you that there offerings are superior because only “locals” lead Tours.

Travel Like a Local

My understanding of the term local is simply someone who lives in a given place ie Hong Kong there should be no connection to ethnicity or nationality.

Hong Kong has a rather unique history given it was administered by the UK for 156 years until 1997 and is now under Mainland Chinese Governance., I am English and arrived here in 1972 so 25 years under British rule and 27 years under Chinese rule.

I have had over the years some interesting discussions with Chinese residents in Hong Kong who believe (d) or assumed that I was simply an expat here for a couple of years, make a pile of money and then return to the UK., I was simply in no shape or form a LOCAL.

Odd really, I have been here since I was 11 years old and am still here 52 years later, I have been married to a “local” for 40 years whose native language is Cantonese and we have 3 son‛s all born in Hong Kong and 2 of whom have never left and our youngest is an English Teacher.

I consider myself a Hong Konger and a local based simply on my 52 years residency and Hong Kong’s unique history.

I recently wrote this in another blog post

“Do you want a 5 star Hong Kong experience with memories that will last a lifetime or do you want to do a generic tour offered by a generic and mediocre Tour Company with a generic tour guide with an unknown level of English Fluency?”

I should also point out that I was the pioneer of Private Tours in Hong Kong, starting field research in mid 2010 and doing my first tour in April 2011 at which point I had no competition, that changed a few months later!

The crux of the matter is simply that an awful lot of tour companies in Hong Kong do not believe that a foreigner could possibly know Hong Kong and how it ticks so when they say “Travel like a Local” they are suggesting you must do the tour with a local Chinese resident.

Worse, they just love to use the terms “Hidden Gems” and “Secret Spots” which are worse than “Travel like a Local”

I have quite a simple view, when someone visits Hong Kong they need to do a private tour with a resident who has been in Hong Kong for a least 10 years, nationality is irrelevant but I have learnt from my own experience as a Hong Kong Private Tour Guide that tourists or guests visiting Hong Kong are a lot more comfortable doing a tour with someone who speaks their native language, be it English, Spanish, French, German, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Korean, etc

From my personal perspective, the worst possible tour you can take in Hong Kong, the “travel like a local” tour with 20 people and a headset | microphone | binder decked out local guide with or without a flag, I have been on them all!

This is a kind of accurate description of “Travel Like a Local”

“To "Travel Like a Local" means stepping off the beaten path, embracing the unfamiliar, and seeking authentic experiences. It's about understanding that travel isn't merely a transaction of seeing new places; it's a meaningful connection with cultures, traditions, and people.”

Off the beaten path is just a less irritating term than hidden gems or secret spots.

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 or very, very fluent

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% (but almost) 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!

Luckily I have a group of friends who do the best Private Tour Companies in Hong Kong and they are simply focused on giving their guests the best possible experience when they visit Hong Kong, in other words they tell the Hong Kong story from their personal point of view

So, click on the button below for a great article from Fodors about “travelling like a local”

The best bit of the article repeats a lot of what I have said

“A century later, not much has changed in travel. Travel media is still rife with tropes like “hidden gem,” “off the beaten path” (a phrase that is itself very well-beaten), or “like a local.” While some of the travel tropes are just trite, it’s that last one that’s grown troublesome as popular tourist destinations worldwide begin to grapple with the prospect of overtourism as “revenge travelers” return with the vigor of a cattle drive.

“Traveling like a local” is frequently thrown out in close proximity to exaltations about “authenticity”–seeing the real destination instead of a contrived facsimile, sanitized for tourist consumption. But travelers risk being wholly inauthentic by seeking to emulate locals (which they’re not). Even if they stay in a vacation home that could have been rented to a local as a primary residence and take up parking spaces at the local supermarket, they’re not locals—they’re just temporarily congesting the same spaces that are part of someone else’s everyday reality”

6 quite different Hong Kong Tour Guide Bio’s | some do private tours, some do group tours and some do both

The last BIO, bottom right, well I am quite astonished that he refuses to take Guests to Statue Square in Central and the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple, citing that you can learn about them on Wikipedia, to me this is utterly nonsensical, I visited with Guests 1,110 times the Sik Sik Yuen Wong Tai Sin Temple because it is such a cultural icon and I visited Statue Square 1,165 times because of it’s history - this is a private tour guide as well!, as the old axiom is you get what you pay for.

The one thing that has always baffled me about tour companies in Hong Kong is there rather odd way of dealing with Victoria Peak as part of the tour itinerary.

I must stress that this a personal opinion, there are views and then there are VIEWS!

Victoria Peak or the Peak has the most amazing panoramic city view on the planet and yet a lot of tour companies (including private tour companies) simply choose NOT to take guests to the spot (or Jamie’s spot at the Peak) and opt to take guests to the Peak Tower 428 Sky Terrace (you have to pay) or the easier to get to Lions Pavillion (free) or simply tell people to visit the Peak under their own steam as it is not worth it.

I find their rationale to be rather odd to put it mildly.

I do understand why some companies cite time as an issue (20 minutes to walk there, 20 minutes to walk back and however long you spend there) so figure an hour, that to me is irrelevant, to truly understand Hong Kong and it’s history you have to do the Lugard Road Walk to my spot and then take in the amazing panoramic city view and get a detailed explanation of what you are seeing, the view from the other 2 locations pales into comparison and I feel sorry for the many guests missing out on the worlds greatest panoramic city view primarily because the tour company or guide simply cannot find a way to fit it into the itinerary.

I have written many articles about the Peak which explains things in more detail and yes, I have been to my spot over 6,000 times since 1972, so yes I know what I am talking about.

…and you must also take into account that to me anyway, hidden gems, secret spots, off the beaten path and travel like a local have been rendered meaningless by social media, with millions if not billions of photos and seemingly millions of video‛s of all the great places

What pictures and video‛s cannot tell you is the story behind what you are seeing, some of my favourite You Tube Video‛s are of couples and families with young kids visiting “local” Chinese Restaurants in Hong Kong and coming up short as in many cases the staff do not speak English and there are NO English menu‛s

They love to spout the fact that they are the only foreigners in the place so it must be a local restaurant and a hidden gem.

There is a much simpler explanation for this - Hong Kong has an area of 430sq miles, we have between 15 - 20,000 restaurants (licensed and unlicensed) Hong Kong‛s population is 7.5 million people of which 92% are ethnic Chinese and we get 3 - 5 million Chinese tourists coming to Hong Kong every month.

In a nutshell, you can pretty much go into any and I do mean any Chinese restaurant in Hong Kong and never see a another foreigner.

Doing a Food Tour with my friends can make the Hong Kong Food scene come alive and that is what matters

.. And this brings me back rather nicely to the issue of doing food tours in Hong Kong because despite my living in Hong Kong for 52 years I do not speak Cantonese (an issue I have mentioned in many blog posts) I have eaten at over 1,250 Chinese restaurants in my time here and I am quite familiar with the food and customs but this is one area where quite simply the tour has be given by a Chinese person fluent in Cantonese due to the nature of how food tours are conducted.

I have many opinions when it comes to Chinese food having eaten at so many places and certain dishes I could eat every day but by the same token, some of the food to me is just horrible, I am not a fan of offal | pig intestines | eating fish eyes and the way they prepare Chicken and such but that is just me and they totally suck at desserts, if you are really lucky you could get mango pudding with carnation milk but for some reason I cannot fathom every one raves about pineapple buns which are a horribly crumbly, messy bread product with a glazed sugary coating of sorts and a totally bland taste and they have not really changed in the 52 years I have lived here.

I am serious if you are coming to Hong Kong then my friends offer simply the best food tours in Hong Kong and it is not simply a case of turning up at a restaurant, you can talk to staff, chefs, owners and such via the Tour Guide who will give you the stories about the restaurants and the food and that is the point, it is the stories behind the restaurants, the staff and the food that make for a great food tour.

Because I do not speak Cantonese it is not possible for me to do that, so food tours are were always off the menu and I never had a problem with that, if you want to learn about Hong Kong food then there are some fabulous companies doing food tours (and some not so fabulous so choose wisely)

I did however eat in quite a few Chinese restaurants on my private tours with guests who simply wanted to spend their time understanding the culture and enjoying a simple meal, they did not have the time to spend 4 - 5 hours on a food tour when they are in Hong Kong for 24 - 48 hours.

Finally

I never use the term “Travel like a Local” I did 2,324 private tours in 9 years and it was my “job” to give my guests the Hong Kong story based on the fact I have lived in Hong Kong for 52 years and raised a family here and have a lifetime of facts, figures and dry statistics which I elegantly wove into my story telling and I never, ever shied away from discussing difficult topics, one of my endearing qualities of being a Brit - my aim was to give you a lifetime of memories.

Jamie

Retired Hong Kong Private Tour Guide

J3 Private Tours and J3 Consultants

2,324 completed Private Tours of Hong Kong

J3 Group Hong Kong

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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!

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