See Hong Kong's Greener Side
If you're more Patagonia than Prada and you find yourself in Hong Kong for the weekend, don't panic. Though Asia's World City is rightly famed for its near clinical obsession with malls, all those shiny shopping destinations are packed onto a very small area of the land that the British used to call their own. Every weekend, geared-up Hong Kongers explode into the semi-wilderness on hundreds of miles of fantastic trails, some of which lead to stretches of cotton-white beaches that are almost shocking to stumble on. The best of these are in Sai Kung, a district of Hong Kong's New Territories north of Victoria Harbor. Take a bus or a cab to the trailhead, and walk a couple of hours to the magnificent, cow-inhabited Tai Long Wan beach. Lie in the fine sand, breathe in the fresh air, and order a plate of pad Thai and a cold Tsingtao beer. This is, after all, civilization.
— By Krista Mahr