Best Time to Visit Hong Kong

Hong Kong lies firmly in subtropical South China. This means that it doesn’t have four seasons, but it does have better and worse seasons to visit. Usually, the best seasons are the cool, dry Autumn and Winter. The summer/spring heat and humidity are famously oppressive. Winter is another great time to visit, but when the weather is cool and the humidity spikes, the permeating coldness can be uncomfortable.

The Best Time to Visit Hong Kong - October to December

The late-Fall and Winter months are some of the best for visiting Hong Kong. The cooler, drier weather is complemented by few holidays, meaning that the small, already crowded city won’t be inundated with visitors from the mainland. The notable exception is "Golden Week" when enormous crowds of mainlanders typically flood the city.

The temperature average ranges from 26º down to 17º (79º to 63º Fahrenheit) and the monsoon season is typically finished, so the trade winds blow smoothly.

Top Things to Do

During this Autumn/December period, the Fragrant Harbor is your oyster.
There is no better time to do outdoor activities like hiking on the mountainous coast and islands or exploring the city on foot.

What to pack?

Visiting the city during this period requires no real special clothing items. Of course, it's subtropical so a rain jacket and/or umbrella is never a bad idea. Besides that, a few t-shirts, long-sleeved shirts (for the cooler nights), and shorts/trousers ought to be just fine for clothing. Sunblock is a good idea too, as Hong Kong's proximity to the equator results in plenty of regular, direct sunlight year-round.

Best Time to Save Money

Pretty much always the best time to visit Hong Kong if you want to save money is November-April. The reason, of course, is that you can do things outside for free.

Hong Kong is a notoriously expensive city, with rent comparable to London, New York, and other world-class metropolises. The priciness extends to the food, drinks, shopping, movies, theme parks, and public transportation. Whatever you do in Hong Kong, it's going to cost you. Visitors coming from the mainland of china are often floored by the costliness of...pretty much everything in Hong Kong.

A few more tips on money-saving:

• Eat local food instead of Western Food.
• Shop at night markets instead of grocery stores/malls.
• Skip the cable cars up the mountains and walk up yourself.
• Use the ding ding tram- travel the city cheap and like a local.
• Stay in Kowloon (on the peninsula) instead of Hong Kong Island.

Best Time to Avoid Crowds

October 1st- 7th is usually about the biggest crowd season. National Holiday (Golden Week) isn't a holiday that requires spending time with the family, so people all over China like to travel. Hong Kong is one of their most popular tourist destinations.

Chinese New Year is another time that hordes of tourists flock to the city, so do your best to avoid it if you don't want crowds.

Of course, the low season for travel is the summer- June-September. The weather is scorching hot, extremely rainy, and it's typhoon season.

Visiting Hong Kong from January to March

The city only gets warmer from January, the coldest month. At an average January low of 13ºC (55ºF), it may seem pretty temperate, but the city can have a bitter, ubiquitous coldness that is difficult to escape- as many places don't have insulation or indoor heating.

The temperature ranges from an average of 16º to 20º during this season. (61º to 68º Fahrenheit) It is also the lowest rainfall and sunshine season in Hong Kong.

February provides one of the best times to see the city, as it is usually when Lunar New Year is celebrated. The official celebrations last for about 2 weeks, but most people actually celebrate just the first several days. It's a good time to see fireworks, local customs, and have some traditional celebratory food.

This is another good season for the great outdoors, as the weather is cool enough to ascent the peaks without getting coated in sweat. It's not great beach season yet though.

Visiting Hong Kong From April to May

It's starting to get hot and rainy again. The temperature climbs up into the mid-to-upper 20s Celsius (low 70s to mid-80s Fahrenheit)

Also, the rainfall begins to rapidly increase per month. The average rainfall more than doubles from March to April (from 45mm to 112 mm) and goes up again in May (up to 158 mm).

At least it's beach weather again. But you may need a rain jacket.

Visiting Hong Kong from June to September

Now the weather is full-on hot. The average high and low for this period is 31ºC and 26ºC respectively (88ºF to 79ºF). With hot, sunny weather, and tons of rain, we are approaching monsoon season.

The rainfall also continues to climb, up to about 240 mm, with 19 rainy days per month- meaning more days of rain per month than days without rain.

Forget about hiking, mostly forget about seeing the city on foot, and really any outdoor activity besides the beach when it's sunny and not rainy. This period is a great time for the indoors in Hong Kong.

Continue to read: Hong Kong Weather