Tai O Heritage Hotel

The perfect place for a staycation.
Most other reviews didn’t give enough credits to this place without actually staying here. Yeah surely, the restaurant, Tai O Lookout, was a very exceptional place for lunch in Tai O which you can sit down and relax, but do consider doing yourself a favor and actually spending a night here.
It took ~1.5 hours each way to go to Tai O, and another 20mins walk from the main streets, this place was worth every single minute to just get there. It’s truly a boutique hotel, with only 8 rooms available, and each of them has unique settings and history. If you stay here, a complementary book is given to us, telling us every single bit of history in Tai O. For instance, our suite has a window metal plate with 9 bullet holes on it, where an Indian police gone rogue and shot at the captain back in 1918.
It’s originally one of the four police stations that’s built in New Territories, but it’s more to that. The police stationed here are also responsible for almost everything regarding the safety of Tai O residents. Illegal immigrants, pirates, typhoons, other wildlife animals, were just some of the dangers they faced. Just imagine the life of people here, when they didn’t even have fresh water (which were carried in barrels on a boat everyday), let alone the Internet or air-​con. I’m a half-​arsed HK history geek, and this is exactly the kind of places that get me very interested.
The night time was fantastic. Quiet and away from the city. And I got a «surprise» birthday cake and sparkling delivered to our room, thanks for my girlfriend who arranged the whole trip for us.
Loved it every moment here, and will recommend here to anyone who’s interested in a HK staycation.

Why is there a hotel at such an outskirts of town? What’s so special about this place for people to sacrifice the convenience of downtown hotels to come stay here? One may ask. Tai O Hotel is actually a heritage site of a hundred years’ old, revitalized into a boutique hotel in 2012. It is not only a place for tourists, even local people would come for a night’s stay to experience the history of the city, as well as appreciate the tranquil fishermen’s neighbourhood around the hotel.
This place was formerly a Police Station, build in 1902 in a typical British colonial style of the time, to combat the prevalent piracy (ya you heard me right) and smuggling over the western coasts of Hong Kong. It has been part of the Marine Police until 1997 and the officers were on patrol on sampan all the while. Due to low crime rate in modern years at Tai O, the Police Station officially closes down on the year 2002. It is listed as a Grade 2 Historical Building, and was rejuvenated into this current hotel form in 2012, under the Development Bureau’s ‘Revitalizing Historic Buildings Through Partnership Scheme’. The hotel has 9 suites in total and is so very often fully booked, especially the dates around local public holidays. But no worries, with the help of the Heritage Interpretation Centre it does have 3 public tours every day in the afternoon (only 15 people per group, so better pre-​book). The hotel has also received an Award of Merit in the 2013 UNESCO Asia-​Pacific Awards for Cultural Heritage Conservation.