Fort Siloso is a decommissioned coastal artillery battery in Sentosa, Singapore. It consists of 12 such batteries which made up "Fortress Singapore" at the start of World War II, and saw action during the Battle of Singapore.
Singapore: Gardens, Skyline and Street Food
Contents
1. About Singapore
2. Things to do
– Ascend the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark
– Take a Singapore River Cruise
– Explore Gardens by the Bay
– Spend a Morning at the National Museum of Singapore
– Tour the Singapore Botanic Gardens
– Photograph the Merlion Statue at Merlion Park
– Explore the Asian Civilisations Museum
– Wander the Chinatown Heritage Centre
– Discover the Singapore Oceanarium
– Spend a Morning at the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari
– Explore Fort Siloso and Sentosa’s Dark Past
3. Getting around
4. Vegan dining options
5. Best time to visit
6. Where to stay
About Singapore
Singapore is a city that gets you immediately. We’d barely stepped off the MRT at Raffles Place before it started — the sheer audacity of the place, the glass and steel towers stacking up above the Singapore River like a canyon dreamed up by someone who’d been given an unlimited budget and absolutely no restraint, and then the water itself, the Straits of Singapore glittering beyond the financial district, reminding you that this tiny island state — barely 734 square kilometres, smaller than many of the world’s capital cities — has planted itself at one of the most strategically important maritime crossroads on the planet and spent two centuries making the most of it with extraordinary, rather relentless efficiency.
Modern Singapore begins on 28 January 1819, when Sir Thomas Stamford Raffles arrived and recognised the island immediately as the natural site for a new British free-trade port. At the time the entire population amounted to around 1,000 people. By 1824 it was a British colony; by 1832 the administrative centre of the Straits Settlements; and by 1869, with the opening of the Suez Canal shortening the Europe-to-Asia route, already indispensable. The twentieth century brought rather more drama: Singapore became the most important port in Asia, fell to Japanese forces on 15 February 1942 — Churchill called it the worst disaster in British military history — was occupied for three and a half years as Syonan-to, and eventually achieved independence on 9 August 1965 after a turbulent merger with and subsequent expulsion from Malaysia. Lee Kuan Yew wept on television. What followed was rather remarkable: within a generation, Singapore had become one of the wealthiest and most efficiently run city-states in human history, with 5.7 million people speaking four official languages and more than 160 nationalities calling it home. The name, incidentally, derives from the Sanskrit Singapura — lion city — though the scholars remain doubtful that lions were ever actually here. The legend has rather stuck regardless, and the Merlion spouting water into Marina Bay has become the country’s most recognisable symbol. We photographed it from every angle. So did everyone else. There is a reason.
The real Singapore — the one that rewards unhurried exploration — is in the neighbourhoods: the incense-scented temples and brightly painted shophouses of Chinatown, the sari shops and banana-leaf curry houses of Little India, the mosques and Arab traders of Kampong Glam. The food scene alone, shaped by Chinese, Malay, Indian, Peranakan and dozens of other culinary traditions, is worth the airfare. More than five million residents pack into an island barely thirty miles long, and the density, rather than making things feel cramped, seems to have the opposite effect: everywhere you look, something interesting is happening.
Things to do
Ascend the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark
Take a Singapore River Cruise
A bumboat cruise along the Singapore River is one of the most enjoyable things you can do in the city, and considerably cheaper than you’d expect. The river has been the commercial artery of Singapore since Raffles arrived in 1819, its banks crowded for over a century with bumboats — from the Dutch boomschuit, a flat-bottomed vessel — transferring cargo between deep-water ships and the riverside godowns. By the 1980s it was so polluted no fish could survive in it; Lee Kuan Yew’s clean-up operation from 1977 restored it entirely. Today the cruise runs from Clarke Quay downstream past the Fullerton Hotel — the former General Post Office, opened in 1928 and arguably Singapore’s most beautiful colonial building — and out into Marina Bay. In the evenings, the illuminated colonial facades reflected on the water make for one of the most atmospheric settings in Asia. We went twice.
Details:
- Location: Departs from Clarke Quay jetty and various points along the river
- Website: rivercruise.com.sg
- Hours: Daily 9:00 AM – 11:00 PM (departures approximately every 30 minutes)
- Fees: S$28 (adult) / S$18 (child)
Explore Gardens by the Bay
Gardens by the Bay is, on paper, just a garden. In practice it is a 101-hectare marvel that manages to be one of the most genuinely impressive things we’ve seen anywhere, which is not something we say lightly. Opened in June 2012 on reclaimed land next to Marina Bay Sands, its headline attractions are two climate-controlled conservatories: the Flower Dome, the world’s largest glass greenhouse at 1.28 hectares, and the Cloud Forest, a misty 35-metre mountain draped in orchids and pitcher plants (your phone fogs up immediately — you have been warned). Then there are the Supertrees: eighteen towering vertical gardens between 25 and 50 metres tall, now synonymous with the Singapore skyline. Every evening they stage the free Garden Rhapsody light show, pulsing and glowing against the night sky in a display considerably more moving than it has any right to be. We photographed them from every angle. We regret nothing.
Details:
- Location: 18 Marina Gardens Drive, Marina Bay
- Website: gardensbythebay.com.sg
- Hours: Outdoor gardens open daily 5:00 AM – 2:00 AM (free); conservatories open daily 9:00 AM – 9:00 PM
- Fees: Flower Dome + Cloud Forest S$32 (adult) / S$18 (child under 12); Garden Rhapsody light show free (7:45 PM and 8:45 PM nightly)
Spend a Morning at the National Museum of Singapore
The National Museum of Singapore, which traces its origins to 1887 when it opened as the Raffles Library and Museum, is the country’s oldest and, we’d argue, its most important. The original neoclassical building with its rotunda dome is preserved as a national monument, with a modern glass extension added in 2006 that cleverly complements rather than undermines it. Inside, the Singapore History Gallery walks you from the island’s earliest recorded presence in the third century CE through the Srivijaya and Majapahit empires, the colonial period and the Japanese Occupation — handling the Syonan-to years with particular gravity and care — right through to independence in 1965. The Life in Singapore gallery, covering daily life and culture from the 1950s to the 1980s, is the sort of thing that starts as a quick browse and ends ninety minutes later with you astonished by how much you didn’t know. Allow at least half a day.
Details:
- Location: 93 Stamford Road, Civic District
- Website: nationalmuseum.sg
- Hours: Daily 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM
- Fees: S$20 (adult) / S$15 (senior/student/child); under 6s free; Singapore residents free on certain days — check the website
Tour the Singapore Botanic Gardens
Look, we know. It’s a garden. We are not particularly au fait with the finer points of orchid taxonomy. But the Singapore Botanic Gardens is something else entirely — a 74-hectare UNESCO World Heritage Site in continuous existence since 1859 and the only tropical garden on the UNESCO list. Its role in regional history is remarkable: in 1877, Henry Ridley — known ever after as Mad Ridley for his rather forceful enthusiasm — received rubber tree seedlings here from Kew Gardens and spent twenty years badgering Malayan farmers to plant them. By the early twentieth century, Malaya and Singapore produced more than half the world’s rubber. Today the gardens are free to enter, with the National Orchid Garden (60,000 plants, 1,000-plus species) the one paid attraction. On a weekday morning before the tour groups arrive, it is one of the most peaceful places in the city.
Details:
- Location: 1 Cluny Road, Tanglin
- Website: nparks.gov.sg/sbg
- Hours: Daily 5:00 AM – 12:00 midnight (National Orchid Garden 8:30 AM – 7:00 PM)
- Fees: Gardens free; National Orchid Garden S$15 (adult) / S$5 (senior) / S$3 (student); children under 12 free
Photograph the Merlion Statue at Merlion Park
Langkawi has its eagle, Toronto its CN Tower, and Singapore has the Merlion — that 8.6-metre, 70-tonne half-lion, half-fish spouting water into Marina Bay with serene indifference to the hundreds of tourists photographing it. Designed in 1963 by British ichthyologist Alec Fraser-Brunner as a logo for the Singapore Tourist Promotion Board, the Merlion is, rather wonderfully, one year older than Singapore as a nation. The lion head references Singapura, lion city; the fish tail nods to the island’s fishing village origins, though historians note it was actually a thriving trading harbour by the fourteenth century — so the tail is doing some heavy lifting. Sculptor Lim Nang Seng built it with all eight of his children and Lee Kuan Yew unveiled it on 15 September 1972. It was relocated to its current promontory in 2002 after the Esplanade Bridge blocked the original view. It has been called one of the world’s great tourist disappointments. We photographed it anyway.
Details:
- Location: Merlion Park, 1 Fullerton Road, Marina Bay
- Website: visitsingapore.com
- Hours: Open 24 hours; best at dusk when the MBS SkyPark lights up behind it
- Fees: Free
Explore the Asian Civilisations Museum
The Asian Civilisations Museum occupies the former Empress Place Building, a handsome neoclassical structure built in 1865 as a government office complex — named for Queen Victoria, who was technically Empress of India rather than Singapore, though one imagines she wasn’t splitting hairs. It sits directly on the Singapore River adjacent to the Cavenagh Bridge, Singapore’s oldest surviving bridge, completed in 1869. Inside is one of the most important collections of pan-Asian art in Southeast Asia: Tang dynasty ceramics, Hindu and Buddhist sculpture, Islamic decorative arts, Peranakan silverware and Chinese export porcelain, all displayed with real intelligence. The building is beautiful, the admission modest, and the whole thing is the kind of place you walk into with an hour to spare and leave three hours later still slightly astonished. We went in because our river cruise was delayed. We stayed because it was extraordinary.
Details:
- Location: 1 Empress Place, Civic District
- Website: nhb.gov.sg/acm
- Hours: Daily 10:00 AM – 7:00 PM; Friday 10:00 AM – 9:00 PM
- Fees: S$20 (adult) / S$15 (senior/student); under 6s free; free on Friday evenings from 6:00 PM–9:00 P
Wander the Chinatown Heritage Centre
The Chinatown Heritage Centre puts everything you’ve seen in Chinatown into context — and Chinatown here is worth contextualising. It is not merely a tourist district with red lanterns and competitively priced phone cases. Singapore’s Chinatown was designated under Raffles’ 1822 Town Plan for Chinese settlers arriving from Fujian, Guangdong and Teochew provinces, each community with its own dialect, temples and clan associations. By the late nineteenth century it was one of Asia’s most densely populated districts, with a dozen people sleeping to a room amid clan houses, Taoist temples and opium dens the colonial government spent decades trying to regulate or abolish depending on the political mood. The Heritage Centre, spread across three restored shophouses on Pagoda Street, recreates these conditions with impressive rigour. We went in for forty-five minutes and stayed for two hours. The exhibit on the coolie trade is the most important piece of Singapore history we encountered on the whole trip.
Details:
- Location: 48 Pagoda Street, Chinatown
- Website: chinatownheritagecentre.com.sg
- Hours: Daily 10:00 AM – 8:00 PM (last admission 7:00 PM)
- Fees: S$20 (adult) / S$14 (senior/student/child 7–12); under 7s free
Discover the Singapore Oceanarium
The Singapore Oceanarium opened in 2024 at Resorts World Sentosa, replacing the former SEA Aquarium and now the largest oceanarium in Asia. Over 100,000 marine animals across 40-plus habitats are displayed using an impressive combination of traditional glass-panel tanks and immersive digital projection. The Open Ocean zone is the standout: you walk through a tunnel with sharks, rays, tuna, trevally and Napoleon wrasse cruising overhead and on all sides in lazy, rather magnificent circles. We arrived planning to spend an hour and stayed for nearly three, which is either a testament to the quality of what’s on show or evidence that we find fish considerably more interesting than we’d previously realised. Probably both. Book ahead during school holidays when the queues can be substantial.
Details:
- Location: Resorts World Sentosa, 8 Sentosa Gateway, Sentosa Island
- Website: rwsentosa.com
- Hours: Daily 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM (extended on peak days — check the website)
- Fees: From S$45 (adult) / S$35 (child 4–12); book online in advance for the best rates
Spend a Morning at the Singapore Zoo and Night Safari
The Singapore Zoo takes you by surprise even when you know perfectly well what you’re walking into. Opened in 1973 and covering 26 hectares of Mandai rainforest, it is rated among the finest zoos in the world for its open-concept design — deep moats and planted vegetation replacing cages, creating a surprisingly convincing impression that you’re sharing the animals’ habitat. Over 300 species, including white tigers, Sumatran orangutans and proboscis monkeys, live here. The Breakfast with Orangutans experience, where you share a buffet with free-roaming Bornean orangutans who have absolutely no interest in your feelings about their table manners, is one of the more unexpected ways to start a morning. But the real headline is the Night Safari — the world’s first nocturnal zoo, opened 1994 — where tram rides after dark bring you face to face with leopards, Malayan tigers and Asian elephants at their most active. On a rainy Wednesday evening, it was magical.
Details:
- Location: 80 Mandai Lake Road, Mandai
- Website: mandai.com
- Hours: Singapore Zoo daily 8:30 AM – 6:00 PM; Night Safari daily 6:30 PM – midnight
- Fees: Singapore Zoo S$49 (adult) / S$34 (child 3–12); Night Safari S$55 (adult) / S$38 (child); Breakfast with Orangutans additional charge; combination tickets available
Explore Fort Siloso and Sentosa’s Dark Past
Most visitors to Sentosa see the beaches and Universal Studios and assume that’s broadly the point of the island. They are missing something important. Sentosa was known until 1972 as Pulau Blakang Mati — Island of Death Behind — a name the Singapore Tourism Board wisely retired when converting the former British military stronghold into a leisure destination. Fort Siloso, built from 1878 on Tiger Hill at the island’s western tip, is the only intact survivor of four coastal forts constructed here and was gazetted as Singapore’s 74th National Monument in 2022. The popular myth that its guns faced only seaward and were useless during the February 1942 Japanese invasion is just that — a myth. The guns could traverse inland and several did. The Heritage Trail through the Battery Command Post, tunnel complexes and original gun emplacements is one of the most genuinely thought-provoking hours in Singapore. It is, predictably, all but deserted while the queues form for Universal Studios a mile away.
Details:
- Location: Fort Siloso, Siloso Point, Sentosa Island (access via Sentosa Express to Beach Station, then Fort Siloso Skywalk)
- Website: sentosa.com.sg/en/attractions/fort-siloso
- Hours: Daily 10:00 AM – 6:00 PM (last admission 5:30 PM)
- Fees: S$20 (adult) / S$14 (child 4–12 and senior); under 4s free; Sentosa Island entry via Sentosa Express S$4 per person
Getting to and Around Singapore
Getting to Singapore
By Air: Singapore Changi Airport (SIN) is the main international gateway and, by several widely consulted indices, one of the finest airports in the world — consistently rated number one in the Skytrax World Airport Awards, which it has claimed a record-equalling number of times. It is served by more than 100 airlines connecting to some 100 countries, with direct long-haul services from London Heathrow on Singapore Airlines and British Airways taking approximately thirteen hours. Terminal 4 opened in 2017 and has become notable for its fully automated check-in and bag-drop procedures and its rather impressive Heritage Zone featuring a traditional Peranakan shophouse. Terminal 2 is currently undergoing a major expansion expected to complete in 2028.
By Train from Malaysia: The Woodlands Train Checkpoint connects Singapore to the Malaysian rail network via Johor Bahru, and the KTM intercity service operates from JB Sentral across the Causeway to Woodlands CIQ. A new Rapid Transit System link between Woodlands North and Bukit Chagar in Johor Bahru, long planned and much delayed, was expected to open by 2026 — check current schedules before travelling, as the timeline has shifted on multiple occasions. Most visitors arriving from Kuala Lumpur take the ETS train to JB Sentral and then a taxi or bus across the Causeway, which adds an hour or so to the journey but remains considerably cheaper than flying.
By Bus from Malaysia: Long-distance coach services from Kuala Lumpur, Penang, Ipoh and other Malaysian cities terminate at the Queen Street Bus Terminal or the Larkin Bus Terminal in Johor Bahru, from where onward connections cross the Causeway regularly.
By Ferry from Indonesia and Malaysia: The HarbourFront Ferry Terminal and Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal both handle ferry services from the Indonesian Riau Islands — including Batam and Bintan, both popular weekend destinations for Singapore residents — as well as from Tanjung Belungkor in Malaysia’s Johor state. Crossings from Batam take approximately 45 minutes; from Bintan, around one hour.
Getting Around
MRT (Mass Rapid Transit): The MRT is the single most useful thing in Singapore for getting around, and it is clean, punctual, air-conditioned and blissfully cheap in a city where almost everything else is expensive. The network currently covers six lines with a total of 133 stations, connecting the airport, the CBD, Orchard Road, the cultural districts and the northern, eastern and western suburbs. A journey from Changi Airport to Orchard Road costs around S$2.50 on an EZ-Link card, takes about fifty minutes and involves no stress whatsoever. Trains run from approximately 5:30 AM to midnight, with frequencies of three to five minutes at peak times.
- Website: smrt.com.sg
- Fare: From S$0.92 per ride (distance-based); EZ-Link card (S$12 including S$7 stored value) available at all stations
Bus: The public bus network is extensive and covers areas the MRT doesn’t, operated by SBS Transit and SMRT Buses. The same EZ-Link card works across both systems, and the myTransport.SG app provides real-time arrival information and journey planning.
Grab: The dominant ride-hailing app in Southeast Asia operates throughout Singapore and is reliable, quick and considerably more convenient than flagging down a taxi, with fares agreed upfront. Surge pricing applies during peak times but is clearly displayed before you confirm.
Taxis: Metered taxis are available throughout the city and at all major hotels, shopping centres and transport hubs. The various surcharges — for peak hours, late nights, booking fees and CBD zones — can add substantially to the meter fare, so checking the total upfront via Grab or ComfortDelGro’s app is advisable.
SBS Transit and NETS FlashPay Bikes: Singapore’s public bike-sharing schemes, including Anywheel and Moovit, operate across the island, and the network of dedicated cycling paths connecting many of the parks and residential areas is expanding. The East Coast Parkway in particular offers a lovely flat route along the seafront.
Driving: Rental cars are available at the airport and various locations across the city, but Singapore’s Electronic Road Pricing system — a congestion charge applied to vehicles entering the CBD and expressways during peak hours — combined with some of the most expensive petrol prices in Asia and parking costs that will make your eyes water makes driving within the city considerably more hassle than it’s worth. For day trips across the Causeway to Johor Bahru or further into Malaysia, a rental car makes considerably more sense.
Vegan Dining in Singapore
🍔 nomVnom Bistro
Singapore’s most committed and most enjoyable fully vegan fast-food operation has been doing its thing at Clarke Quay Central since 2015, and it remains — by some distance — the best place in the city for plant-based food that makes absolutely no concessions to the idea that eating without animal products should be either virtuous or joyless. The menu covers what is reputedly the greatest variety of vegan burgers available anywhere in the world: Lion’s Mane Truffle Burger, Tempeh Rendang Burger, Satay Burger, Jackfruit Burger, QQ Cheesy Burger and several more, along with pizza, pasta, udon noodles, rice dishes, ice cream and baked goods — all made without dairy, eggs, alliums (no garlic or onion) or alcohol, and all Halal-friendly. Every burger comes with a complimentary shot of apple cider vinegar, which sounds alarming but is in fact slightly sweet, tangy and oddly pleasant. The restaurant overlooks the Singapore River from the third floor of the Clarke Quay Central building, which gives it one of the better views of any budget eatery we’ve encountered in Asia. No service charge. No GST added on top. Prices that actually reflect what you read on the menu. In Singapore, this is practically radical.
- Location: 6 Eu Tong Sen Street #03-105/106/107, Clarke Quay Central
- Hours: Daily 11:00 AM – 10:30 PM
- Website: nomvnom.com
🍜 Whole Earth
Whole Earth is the kind of restaurant that answers every question about whether plant-based cooking can be serious food. Established for over a decade and regarded by many Singaporeans as the definitive venue for upscale vegetarian and vegan Chinese and Thai cuisine in the city, it received a Michelin Bib Gourmand designation — awarded to restaurants offering exceptional food at moderate prices — which in Singapore is not handed out lightly. The braised mushrooms, the mock-Peking duck and the Thai green curry using tofu and seasonal vegetables were all exceptional, and the service managed the rare trick of being genuinely warm without being in the least bit performatively attentive.
- Location: 76 Peck Seah Street, Tanjong Pagar
- Hours: Daily 11:30 AM – 3:00 PM and 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM
- Website: wholeearthsg.com
🥘 Herbivore
A long-running and warmly regarded plant-based restaurant on Middle Road that has been serving Japanese-influenced vegan food — ramen, donburi, teriyaki, soba — since 2010, making it one of the most established vegan restaurants in the city. The menu is almost entirely vegan (a small number of dishes use dairy, clearly marked) and covers everything from simple noodle dishes to more elaborate set meals. It is unpretentious, affordable, reliably good and the sort of place where you find yourself ordering dessert without having planned to.
- Location: 164 Middle Road, Bugis
- Hours: Monday–Saturday 11:30 AM – 3:00 PM and 5:30 PM – 9:30 PM; Sunday 11:30 AM – 9:00 PM
- Website: herbivore.com.sg
🍱 Sufood
A plant-based fine-dining concept originally from Taiwan that operates a flagship restaurant in Singapore at Raffles Place, serving an eight-course set dinner of elaborate and beautifully presented vegan dishes at prices that are, by Raffles Place standards, entirely reasonable. The kitchen works with considerable technical ambition — this is vegan food assembled with the kind of care that the words “vegan set menu” do not always lead you to anticipate — and the result is a dinner that works well as a special occasion meal without requiring you to take out a second mortgage. Reservations are advised.
- Location: 30 Raffles Place, #01-27, Chevron House
- Hours: Lunch Monday–Friday 11:30 AM – 2:30 PM; Dinner daily 5:30 PM – 10:00 PM
- Website: sufood.com.sg
The Best Time to Visit Singapore
December to March — Northeast Monsoon
This is Singapore’s wetter season in terms of sustained rainfall, driven by the northeast monsoon that blows down from the South China Sea. Rain tends to arrive as prolonged downpours, often overnight or in the late evening, rather than the intense but brief afternoon thunderstorms of the drier months. Temperatures are marginally cooler — if 26°C can be called cool, which it is only by comparison with the thirty-three degrees of April. Christmas and the first two weeks of January bring the highest hotel prices of the year; the weeks immediately after New Year and through February offer genuinely better value. Chinese New Year, whose date shifts annually between late January and mid-February, is one of the most extraordinary events in the Singapore calendar — Chinatown transforms completely, the Chingay Parade in February is spectacular, and the abundance of reunion dinner food available in the hawker centres around this period is not to be missed.
Packing: Lightweight, breathable clothing in natural fibres, a compact umbrella for evening downpours (don’t bother with a mac — it’s too hot to wear one and the rain is usually over in twenty minutes), reef-safe sunscreen for any beach excursions and enough layers for aggressively air-conditioned shopping centres and restaurants, which in Singapore can be genuinely cold.
April to May — Inter-Monsoon
The heat builds to its annual peak in April and May — these are the warmest months of the year, with daytime highs regularly reaching 33°C and humidity to match — and the rainfall shifts to a pattern of intense afternoon thunderstorms that arrive with considerable drama, drench everything for thirty minutes and then clear to bright sunshine. This is not necessarily a bad time to visit: the storms are actually rather impressive to watch from a covered vantage point, hotel rates are reasonable outside the school holiday window, and the Singapore Food Festival in July is worth planning around if you can extend the trip. The Vesak Day celebrations in May — the most important festival in the Buddhist calendar, marked by processions and ceremonies at temples across the city — are one of the more distinctive cultural events of the year.
Packing: The lightest possible clothing, a quality sunscreen (the UV index in Singapore is classified as extreme for most of the year), insect repellent for any evening outdoor activities, and the psychological resilience to deal with sweat before 9 AM.
June to September — Southwest Monsoon
This is generally Singapore’s driest period, with the southwest monsoon producing less rainfall than the northeast monsoon season and the afternoon thunderstorm pattern becoming more sporadic. It is also the period that contains the country’s two most significant events: National Day on 9 August, celebrating Singapore’s independence in 1965, marked with a massive parade and aerial display over the Marina Bay floating platform that is genuinely impressive; and the Formula 1 Singapore Grand Prix in September, the world’s only night street race, which takes the cars through the illuminated streets of the Civic District around Marina Bay at speeds that, from the grandstand, feel slightly improbable. Hotel prices peak around National Day weekend and the Grand Prix. The Singapore Food Festival, typically held in July, is the country’s largest annual food event and showcases the extraordinary depth and diversity of Singapore’s hawker culture.
One caveat: transboundary haze from forest fires and peat fires in Sumatra can be a significant issue in July and August in bad years, occasionally causing the Pollutant Standards Index to reach unhealthy levels. It varies considerably from year to year and is largely unpredictable, but worth checking current air quality reports if respiratory health is a concern.
Packing: Everything from the inter-monsoon packing list, plus an N95 mask if you are travelling during a known haze period and plan to spend significant time outdoors.
October to November — Second Inter-Monsoon and Deepavali
As the southwest monsoon retreats and the northeast monsoon begins to establish itself, October and November see rainfall increasing again with a return to afternoon and evening thunderstorms. Hotel rates ease considerably from the Grand Prix peak, and October and November contain one of the most visually extraordinary events in the Singapore cultural calendar: Deepavali, the Hindu festival of lights, transforms Little India’s Serangoon Road into a corridor of illuminated arches and light installations that needs to be seen to be appreciated. The Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple on Serangoon Road, built in 1881 and dedicated to the goddess Kali, is at its most atmospheric during the Deepavali season. Hari Raya Haji, the Muslim festival of sacrifice, also falls in this general window (its date shifts annually with the Islamic calendar), and the smells coming from the Kampong Glam area during the preparations are reason enough to wander that direction.
Packing: The usual tropical kit, a compact umbrella, and comfortable walking shoes that can handle the occasional soaking without becoming impossible to wear again the following morning.
Overall Best Time
February to April — after the Chinese New Year peak and before the intense heat of May — offers the most manageable combination of weather, hotel rates and crowd levels for most visitors. September, around the Grand Prix, is the most atmospherically exciting time to be in the city, though you’ll pay for it. If you’re coming primarily for the food and culture and have no particular requirement to lie on a beach (Sentosa’s beaches are pleasant but not the main event in Singapore), it is honestly very difficult to have a bad time here in any month.
Where to Stay in Singapore?
Marina Bay and the CBD
Singapore’s most glamorous base by some distance: Marina Bay Sands sits here, Gardens by the Bay is a ten-minute walk, the MRT connections via Bayfront and Downtown stations put you within easy reach of everywhere else, and the views of the bay at night from virtually any vantage point are extraordinary. It is, naturally, not cheap, though the lower end of the mid-range market is better represented here than you’d expect.
Hotels:
- Marina Bay Sands (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐) — The defining statement hotel of Singapore: 2,561 rooms across three towers, an infinity pool on the 57th floor that is every bit as spectacular as the photographs suggest, six celebrity-chef restaurants, a casino and the Shoppes at Marina Bay Sands directly below. If you’re going to stay here, which we entirely understand, book a room facing the bay.
- Mandarin Oriental Singapore (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐) — A slightly more classically elegant alternative to the MBS behemoth, with exceptional service, an outdoor pool with bay views and a strong line-up of restaurants in a location immediately adjacent to Esplanade and the Theatres on the Bay.
- Wink Capsule Hostel — A capsule-format hostel in the heart of the CBD near Telok Ayer MRT, offering well-designed individual sleeping pods with privacy screens and personal power sockets. Not glamorous, but considerably more thoughtfully designed than most budget options in the city, and the location is hard to argue with.
Chinatown and Tanjong Pagar
A quieter, more characterful base in the restored shophouse streets of Chinatown and the former colonial neighbourhood of Tanjong Pagar, with excellent access to the city’s best hawker centres, the Chinatown Heritage Centre, Maxwell Food Centre and the MRT at Outram Park and Chinatown stations.
Hotels:
- Capella Singapore (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐) — Strictly speaking on Sentosa rather than Chinatown, but we’ve placed it in this category as the luxury option for the southern end of the island. Set within the restored colonial buildings of the former British Hendon Camp and designed by Norman Foster, it was selected as the venue for the 2018 Trump-Kim summit, which at least confirms it passes the security sweep. The grounds alone are worth a look.
- Amoy Hotel (⭐⭐⭐⭐) — A beautifully restored 1920s Chinatown shophouse hotel on Ann Siang Hill, with fifty well-designed rooms that manage the difficult trick of being both characterful and genuinely comfortable. The location — on a charming pedestrianised lane just off Club Street — is one of the most pleasant in the city. A thoughtful, intelligent mid-range option.
- BEAT Arts Hostel at Chinatown — A sociable, well-reviewed hostel in a restored Chinatown shophouse near the Outram Park MRT, with both dormitory and private room options, a lively common area and the kind of atmosphere that makes budget travel feel like a deliberate lifestyle choice rather than a compromise.
Orchard Road and Bugis
Singapore’s primary shopping corridor has a better range of hotels than you might expect for what is essentially a giant mall district, and the Bugis area immediately to the east sits in the middle of the cultural triangle formed by Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam, making it arguably the most interesting neighbourhood base in the city.
Hotels:
- Four Seasons Hotel Singapore (⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐) — Widely regarded as one of the finest hotels in Singapore, on Orchard Boulevard just off the main shopping strip, with two pools, a full spa, one of the city’s best fitness centres and the kind of room product that justifies the rates — just about.
- Hotel Indigo Singapore Katong (⭐⭐⭐⭐) — Slightly further east than Orchard but excellent value for a design-led boutique property with genuine neighbourhood character in the Peranakan Katong district. The building references Peranakan architectural details throughout, the staff clearly know the local area well, and the East Coast Park — Singapore’s best waterfront jogging and cycling route — is fifteen minutes away.
- Bunc Hostel — A well-regarded and sociable backpacker hostel in the Little India district, with dormitory and private room options, free breakfast, a communal kitchen and a reliably helpful team who know the neighbourhood well. The Little India location is one of the most interesting in the city, putting you within easy walking distance of Mustafa Centre, the Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple and the Tekka Centre hawker market.
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