duvy

My husband and I go to Hong Kong almost every year to visit his family. We speak the local dialect (Cantonese) but are not so good with the written language. Does any one know any english language websites that offer tours (to the mainland, Singapore, Thailand, etc) that originate from and end in Hong Kong?

Kathie

Is there a reason you want tours for these destinations? Really, you can do any of these places on your own easily and less expensively than with a tour group. Unless you really like to do group tours, I'd encourage you to do these trips on your own. If you just need someone to book airfare from Hong Kong to any of these destinations, you can contact any travel agent to do it or you can do it on your own on the web. Hotels are easily booked on the web as well.

If you are going into mainland China, it can pay for you to wait until you are in Hong Kong to get your airfare and hotels. For other destinations, there is no advantage to booking from Hong Kong.

duvy

kathie, now that we're retired, we're thinking about making the most of these grueling long flights by extending our stay in Asia, e.g., spend one week in HK, go away for a week, return to HK, etc. I suppose we can do these trips on our own, like you suggested, and wait until we get to HK to make the arrangements (and resist my urge to always plan in advance)

Thanks for you input.

Kathie

If you want to go somewhere other than mainland China, then go ahead and make your arangements in advance. It's easy to do so from home. You may want to make your flights part of your larger flight plan, say, home to Hong Kong to Bangkok to home or you might want a roundtrip flight to Hong Kong then a roundtrip from HKG to somewhere else.

If you know where you want to go for a your next trip, we can help you brainstorm how to do it.

Cicerone

I live in Hong Kong, but I don’t take tours. However, a source which might be good for you to start with would be The South China Morning Post, which as you know is the main English-language newspaper in Hong Kong. If you live in a major city, you should be able to buy a copy. Their travel section is esp. large on Sat and Sundays. There is also an on-line version which has some articles, classified ads and advertising, see http://www.scmp.com/portal/site/SCMP/.

My company uses Swire Travel, a very large travel agency here, but we use them almost exclusively for flights and not package travel. And they are not necessarily cheap. But you could look at them. See http://www.swiretravel.com/en/

Also Dragon Air, the regional carrier (and arm of Cathay Pacific) offers packages from Hong Kong, as does Cathay Pacific. See their websites. I think Thai Air, Singapore Air and other airlines may also offer packages tailored to Hong Kong residents. When accessing websites, put in Hong Kong as your place of residence. (You may need a Hong Kong ID to participate in some of these packages.)

Also, some hotels in the region offer packages to local residents, you might ask when checking for availability.

If you are comfortable enough to travel with Cantonese-speaking tour groups, there are of course hundreds of agencies here, and I think you could wait until you come on a visit here to book a short trip from Hong Kong, assuming you would not be planning a trip over a heavy travel period like a school holiday, etc.