Compared to paying the exorbitant expense of cab fare only to get stuck in traffic on the BQE, or the pain of hauling your crap from one transfer point to another and squeezing yourself and your luggage into a packed A train at rush hour, getting from Chek Lap Kok Airport on Lantau Island to Kowloon or Central Hong Kong — or back — is a veritable breeze. The how is detailed below; the pithy nature of this post should speak volumes.

Arrival.

Once you clear customs, directly across the hall you’ll see these signs:

Nearby there are several of your typical airport currency exchanges and ATM machines. Exchange, or better yet, take out about $1000HKD (about $130USD; the current exchange rate is roughly $7.80HKD to the US dollar — check here for the latest), which should last you a good few days in HK.

Just in front of the trains you’ll see these ticket machines. Depending on the location of your hotel, buy the appropriate single or roundtrip ticket. Fares below:

• Kowloon: $90HKD/$11.50USD Single-trip  /  $160HKD/$20.50USD Round-trip
• Hong Kong: $100HKD/$13USD Single-trip  /  $180HKD/$23USD Round-trip

More information about the MTR can be found here.

The trains are fast, no-frills, and they show up every 12 minutes. They only make three stops; Tsing-Yi, Kowloon, and Hong Kong. Onboard, you’ll find this handy progress meter:

The Kowloon stop is actually in the relatively new development of West Kowloon, rather than where your hotel probably is, which is Tsim Sha Tsui further to the south and east, about a 5-10 minute cab ride away. If you’re staying in HK, the HK stop on the MTR is below the ifc (International Finance Centre) in Central (for fans of the latest Batman movie, this is the building in Hong Kong that Batman goes batgliding off of). Here’s the MTR map.

Whether you’re arriving at the Kowloon or Hong Kong stops, you’ll see taxi stands near the exits. Now, this part is important, important, important. Many, if not most taxi drivers in post-colonial HK don’t speak much English, so be sure you have your hotel name, in both English and Chinese, and perhaps a map or a photo printed out on something that the cabbie can read. It sounds absurd, but it’s happened too many times to us to count, and it really totally sucks, coming upon hour-18 or -20 into your trip only to faceplant with the finish line in sight!

Taxis are stupid cheap in HK, so don’t worry too much about dough. For the short ride to your hotel should be maybe 3-5 clams US. Total elapsed time from boarding the train: 35-45 mins.

Departure.

In short, you do the reverse of the above, with one particularly awesome twist: Free In-Town Check-In Service.

So say the scenario is this: you’re getting kicked out of your hotel and you’re dragging all your bags around, your flight doesn’t leave til the evening but you still have a few things to check out in the city — what to do? In-town check-in, that’s what.

After heading down to the trains in either Kowloon or Hong Kong, you’ll see something like the following; an airport check-in area:

One which works much like its counterpart at the actual airport. To gain access to the desks, use your round-trip MTR card (or purchase another single-trip ticket if you didn’t get one when you arrived).

Et voilà — you are baggage-free once again!

Once you are ready to head back to the airport, just descend one more level to the trains …