It’s Just One Big City, Right?
Before our trip, we must have asked ourselves this question a thousand times, yet never landed on a solid answer when looking online. So, while travelling through Indonesia, we did what any clueless travellers would do, and asked anyone & everyone who had been there.
Unhelpfully, the responses were completely mixed. Some people had packed up and moved there for good, while others insisted two days was more than enough, often because of the price tag. No use for us!
So, if you’re wondering how long you really need in Singapore, hopefully I’ll be able to help once and for all!
A Quick Disclaimer
Before we dive in, I have a little caveat… This guide is based on adults without kids. Singapore is absolutely doable with ankle biters in tow, but timing and costs will look very different. But, as an irresponsible, bald idiot with no children, I have no idea just how different. (Sorry!)
First, How Expensive is it Really?
For some folks, the best way to decide how long to stay in Singapore could be simple – just check the price tag! So, I think it makes sense to tackle that first.
There’s no escaping it, it’s way pricier than most of Southeast Asia. Everything costs more, from food to transport to accommodation. Truthfully, if you’ve got deep pockets, the sky’s the limit when it comes to spending! But most of us have regular sized pockets, so I’ll focus on the minimum costs you can expect, so you know what you’re in for!
Getting Around
Taxis
Although ‘Grab‘ is available, you can expect to pay anywhere from £3.50 to £10 a pop, and considerably more late at night. These costs add up fast, especially if you’re allergic to walking!
Buses & Trains
Thankfully, Singapore’s public transport system is fantastic and very affordable – just a couple of quid per ride. But if you’re planning to explore the city properly, I STRONGLY recommend getting a ‘Tourist Pass’. This gives you unlimited bus and MRT rides for 1 to 3 days (£10 – £18), so if you have some exploration planned, it is definitely the most economical option. Also, if you’re intending to head to Sentosa Island (where Universal Studios is), the Sentosa Tourist Pass costs slightly more at £19 for 3 days.
The MRT and buses are everywhere, so if walking isn’t your thing, you can minimise it easily. We mostly used a combination of the MRT and walking, only using buses when there wasn’t a convenient train station nearby.
“It Actually Works!”
As a Brit, the thought of using public transport makes me gag. My experience tells me it’ll be late or cancelled, smell like vomit, and be full of questionable characters – with at least one person passed out in the aisle. So, as I gazed down at my 3-day tourist pass in Singapore, I was rather sceptical!
But I’m happy to report that Singapore’s system is nothing like the one back home. Not a single dodgy character, no suspicious stains, and not a single train or bus we used was late… Not even by a minute! Also, on one occasion, an older gentleman tapped me on the shoulder to politely inform me that I wasn’t even allowed to eat the apple I was casually gnawing on, while in the station (more on that later). Everyone respects the rules, and the result is a public transport system that is clean and actually works. It’s fantastic.
Rentals
Renting a moped or car is possible, but not recommended. Traffic can be bad, road laws are very strict, and parking is a nightmare.
You’ll also spot e-scooters and the occasional cyclist, but by law, they’re restricted to cycle paths only. Which might be a bit limiting .
Accomodation
This is the most expensive part of staying in Singapore, especially compared to the rest of Southeast Asia. I’ll give you a real example; we stayed at ‘Wink at Upper Cross Street’, a budget option in Chinatown.
It cost us £52.50 per night for a standard double room with shared bathrooms – about three times what we were usually paying in Indonesia! The room was basic but comfortable, with flushable toilets (always a bonus), and it was clean enough. The ‘included breakfast’ was very poor, but the location was excellent, with just a 5-minute walk to the China Town MRT station.
That’s about as cheap as you’ll find for a private double room in a central location. If you’re on a tighter budget, you can find dormitory beds for around £10 per night, and cheaper private rooms further out from the centre. But unless you’re staying a week or more, I wouldn’t recommend staying too far out – it’ll eat up your time!
Food & Drink (Most Importantly, Beer)
Let’s get the bad news out of the way first… Beer is not wallet-friendly in Singapore. Prices are similar to the UK, so if you want a draft beer, expect to pay £6 or more. The same goes for all alcohol, it’s pricey across the board. I suppose for some people, that alone might be a valid reason to keep their time in Singapore short! Soft drinks, are similar too, usually costing £1-£3, depending on what you’re after.
So, the booze thing is a bit of a bummer, but the good news is that food can be cheap! But only if you avoid ‘proper’ restaurants… We learned this the hard way when we went out for a curry and somehow racked up a £50 bill for not very much food. Instead, stick to Hawker centres and street food – which, let’s be honest, is way more fun anyway. Here, you can get a delicious meal and a drink for £6-£7 while getting to try all kinds of unusual and wonderful foods. After our (delicious) slip-up at the Indian restaurant, we ate Hawker food for basically every meal.
Groceries
If you’re really looking to cut costs, you could stay somewhere with a kitchen and cook your own meals. But that felt like way too much time and faff for us.
That said, we did wander through a few supermarkets out of curiosity, and the prices weren’t exactly budget-friendly! From what we could see, groceries in Singapore cost the same, or more, than in the UK – and there is no Aldi to save the day!
‘The Apple’
Ever seen those ‘perfect’ Japanese fruits on TV or YouTube? The ones that have been meticulously bred, hand-sorted, and practically worshipped to achieve fruit perfection? If not, give it a Google, it’s pretty nuts.
Turns out, Singaporeans love these luxury fruits too. You’ll find them everywhere, from supermarkets and convenience stores, to market stalls – apples, pears, mangoes, grapes, even individually wrapped strawberries and cherries! You can literally spend £15 on a single strawberry!
Obviously, I could only breeze past these pristine fruits so many times before I had to buy one. A single cherry felt underwhelming, and a perfect mango required peeling, so I settled on an apple. But even that was a tough call… Do I throw all logic out the window and splurge on a near £20 apple, or do I exercise some restraint and go for the slightly less ridiculous £8 option?
Well, I went for the £8 apple. It was big, bright red, perfectly round, and had a single flawless leaf protruding from its stalk. By all measures, it looked like a fruit crafted by the gods.
And yet… After just one bite, I immediately regretted not going for the £20 version. It was crisp, and super juicy, but almost completely devoid of flavour! Slightly sweet water with an extremely meagre apple-like aroma.
Fortunately, before I had too much time to mourn my overpriced disappointment, a local man interrupted me to let me know I wasn’t allowed to eat it on the train. Which meant I had to inhale it at top speed before boarding – giving me little time to lament my purchase.
The Baseline Cost
So, with all those costs in mind. If all we did in Singapore was eat, sleep, and wander the streets, our baseline would have sat around £45 per day per person. A solo traveller could probably knock that down to £25-£30, though you’d have a pretty dull time. But hey, at least the maths is easy – if you’ve got £60, you could last 2 days – simple! Not too bad, right?
But, in reality no one goes to Singapore just to do nothing!
So… Money Aside, How Long Do You Actually Need There?
Well, not entirely aside… One of your biggest expenses in Singapore will likely be the activities you choose to do. I’ll dive into those later when I share our itinerary along with rough costs!
Is There Much To Do?
For its size, Singapore is home to a surprising amount of things to do. If you want to tick off the full checklist, you’ll need a week or more. Some attractions are far enough apart to warrant a dedicated day, like a trip to Sentosa, or one of the other islands just off the coast
Here is The First Answer:
If you don’t have a restrictive budget, and you want to see everything Singapore has to offer – you’ll need at least a week in country, and it’ll be a PACKED, full-on seven days!
But honestly, most of us won’t aspire to do everything, that starts to sound more like work than a holiday! We certainly didn’t anyway, and that leads me to my next point – what should you do while you’re there?
Well, There’s ‘Usual Stuff’
Like most destinations, Singapore has its popular attractions that most visitors want to check out. They’re the must-sees, especially if you’re tight on time. Which, in my opinion, look like this:
– Gardens at the Bay: You’ll need at least half a day, possibly more if you plan to explore all the grounds.
– One or more of the shopping malls: If you’re not a fan of shopping (like me), an hour or two is plenty.
– Marina Bay Sands: An afternoon/evening should be enough to see the sights and enjoy the views.
– At least one Hawker centre: You’ll need a couple of hours, including travel time, to investigate it all and enjoy your food.
– The Botanical Gardens: You’ll need about 2 hours to explore, and unless you’re staying nearby, it’s a 20+ minute train ride to get there from central.
– China Town: An hour and a half is plenty, unless you decide to sit down for a leisurely meal at one of the many restaurants!
Add all that up, including travel time and meals, and you’ve already used up 2 full days! Then, if you want, there’s the popular option of Sentosa Island, which is another whole day in itself.
Here is The Second Answer:
If you stick to the highlights only, you’ll need 2 very busy days in country, or make it 3 days if you plan to include Sentosa Island.
Then There’s ‘Other Stuff’
As I mentioned earlier, there’s a lot to see and do in Singapore. I’m talking about things like museums, national parks, galleries, wetlands, beaches, islands, and so more. But, ultimately, it’s up to you to decide what to do, so I can’t tell you exactly how much time you’ll need for your personal preferences (that’s not a cop out, I promise). So, to give you a taste of how long things take, I’ll walk you through what we did day by day with timings, and include some costs for good measure!
Day 1
Our flight from Kuala Lumpur to Singapore landed around 9:30AM (disappointingly, we didn’t get to see the indoor waterfall – oh well!). From there, we marched straight to the information desk, where they pointed us toward a tourist pass vendor in the airport.
After dropping off our bags at the Wink at Upper Cross Street hotel, we set off for our first adventure around 11AM, ready to for some exploration by foot!
– Sri Mariamman Temple: 30 minutes (Free entry!)
– Buddha Tooth Relic Temple: At least 1 hour (Free entry!)
– Thian Hock Keng Temple: 30 minutes (Free entry!)
– Chinatown hawker centre: We wanted to try Hawker Chan, but the queue was too long and we went to the place next door! This took about 40 minutes.
– Walked back to the hotel to check in and grab a quick coffee!
– The Pinnacle at Duxton: A cheaper alternative to Marina Bay Sands viewing deck for watching the light fade and seeing a night-time cityscape. It was a long walk, but we arrived at 5PM and stayed until dark. (£3.50 per person for the viewing deck.)
– Little India: Our last activity of the day. We got there via MRT, and accidentally had a very expensive meal – whoops!
Day 2
We started the second day a little late, not leaving our hotel until 10AM – we needed a rest after the previous day! Day 2 was no easier though, it was full-on, and we covered a lot of ground using the MRT.
– Fort Canning Park: You’ll need at least 1 hour to wander the beautiful grounds (Free entry!)
– Fort Canning Heritage Gallery: 45 minutes here (Free entry!)
– Singapore National museum: At least 1 hour (Entrance £15)
– Lunch in a market street hawker centre: We spent about 30 minutes here.
– Garden at the bay: You’ll need quite a few hours. We were in the area from 3:30PM until late (See next section for costs!)
– ‘Garden Rhapsody’ Light Show at the Super Tree Grove: Starts at 7:45PM and lasts for 15-minutes.
– Dinner at the food court in the gardens: We finally tried ‘Hawker Chan’ here – it was alright. You’ll need 30 minutes.
– ‘Spectra’ laser water show at Marina bay: Starts at 9PM and lasts for 15 minutes.
– Explore ‘The Shoppes’ luxury shopping mall: At least 45 minutes here.
Super Grove? More like Super Groan!
I’m not the sharpest tool in the shed, that’s for sure. But even so, I still think the ticketing and pricing for Gardens by the Bay is absolutely cryptic… We tried to book our tickets online in advance to avoid the queues, but we could not make heads or tails of what we were looking at. When the prices are so high, getting it wrong isn’t an option, so we opted to go to the counter – and I’m glad we did.
It gets very confusing when you’re faced with a complicated seemingly illogical range of ticket combinations, each offering different mixes of attractions. You can also buy individual tickets for each separate attraction, but, of course, this isn’t the most economical choice!
In a nutshell, the attractions are: The Skywalk, The Observation Deck, The Cloud Forest, The Flower Dome, and a selection of children’s attractions.
Oddly, there is no general ticket that gives you access to everything, nor is there a single ticket for the main four attractions. It’s a bit baffling and, honestly, a little sneaky. If you’re not careful, the bill racks up scarily fast! We were behind a family of four in the queue, and their final bill was hundreds of dollars.
After much deliberation and confused discussion with the equally bamboozled cashier, we settled on buying two types of tickets each:
– Cloud Forest & Super Observatory combo (£21 per person)
– Skywalk (£8.50 per person)
We didn’t visit the Flower Dome for two reasons: first, we wanted to keep costs down, and second, it didn’t seem possible to buy a stand-alone ticket for it. We would have had to buy another combo ticket for £21… This could have been miscommunication, or me just being dense, but just be wary.
So, our total came to just under £60. But don’t forget, there are lots of free sections of the gardens you can explore too!
Day 3
Our third day began with a few errands we needed to run at the nearby mall in Chinatown, so we didn’t get to our first stop until 10:30AM. Again, this day involved a lot of MRT rides!
– Botanical garden: We wanted to catch a glimpse of the elusive Singapore otters, but sadly, no luck! You’ll need at least an hour and a half here, and make time for a coffee at one of the cafes! (Free to enter!)
– Quick look around ‘Cluny court’: It’s a posh, farm shop-style place. 20 minutes was enough. We also grabbed a cheap lunch to go from here.
– Bukit Timah Nature Reserve: It’s a fairly long train ride, around 30 minutes, then depending on your route, you may want 2+ hours here. (Free to enter!)
– ‘Beauty world’ Hawker centre: A cup of coffee with the locals 30 minutes
– Headed back to the accommodation for a shower and a dry set of clothes!
– Maxwell Hawker Centre: This is the best hawker centre, in our opinion. If you only try one, make it Maxwell!
Day 4
Our last full day in the city, and we were cream crackered! But nevertheless, we had a couple more things to do. This day was not as full-on as the previous two, it was more chilled, and we got to our first stop at 10AM. NOTE: Our 3-day tourist pass ran out mid-morning on this day, so for our final bus rides, we paid using tap-and-go.
– St. Andrews Cathedral: 20 minutes required (Free to enter!)
– National Gallery Singapore: It’s a big place with a lot to see, especially if you get talking to the extremely enthusiastic staff there! We took at least 2 hours looking around (£12 for general admission).
Pro Tip: If you buy this online, don’t forget to check a site called ‘Traveloka’, you may find decent discount offers on there!
– Vivo city: A long bus ride to have lunch in Singapore’s biggest mall and look across to Sentosa Island (there wasn’t much to see). You’ll want at least an hour to find somewhere for lunch or sit in a café.
– Maxwell Hawker centre: We loved it so much we went back again for our last dinner.
Day 5
Our last day was simple! Get up, eat our ‘breakfast’, then check-out and head to the bus station to catch our midday bus to Malaka in Malaysia.
So, How Long Did We Need In Singapore?
Although we spent 4 nights in Singapore, our itinerary only really needed 3 and a half days in country to cover our itinerary.
We could have easily stretched it to 4 or 5 days to enjoy a more relaxed pace. Of course, if we’d visited Sentosa Island, gone up Marina Bay Sands, or had a ‘beach day,’ we’d have also needed extra time. But on the flip side, we could have skipped the museums and nature reserves and still filled the same amount of time with other activities.
Here is The Third Answer:
Excluding arrival and departure, you’ll need 3 to 4 full-on days to cover most of the highlights and squeeze in a few extras (like museums, beaches, or national parks). If you prefer a more relaxed pace, aim for 4 to 5 days.
And The Cost?
For completeness, let’s quickly break down our rough total cost.
As previously mentioned, our baseline was about £45 per person per day. The additional costs each day looked something like this:
NOTE – These are rough estimates and don’t include random purchases like souvenirs, the odd cold drink, etc.
– Day 1: +£28.50pp (due to the restaurant meal)
– Day 2: +£45pp (due to Gardens by the Bay)
– Day 3: No real additional costs
– Day 4: +£16pp (due to National Gallery and a few bus rides)
– Day 5: +£2 (due to a bus ride)
Since I didn’t keep an exact log of every single purchase, it’s tricky to give a precise figure for total costs. But, with the above numbers and baseline costs, we spent £300-£325 per person for our time in Singapore. Not too shabby, especially when coming from the UK, where it feels like you’re paying for the air you breathe!
So, In Conclusion…
Based on what you want to do, your budget, and your energy levels, here are the 3 main takeaways from all of the above (and don’t forget to factor in travel time at either end of your trip):
1. If you don’t have a restrictive budget and want to see everything Singapore has to offer, you’ll need at least a week. And it will be a full-on week too!
2. If you’re focusing on the ‘highlights,’ you’ll need 2 full-on days, or 3-4 if you decide to include Sentosa Island.
3. To cover most of the highlights and a few other activities (like museums, beaches, or national parks), you’ll need 3 to 4 full-on days. If you prefer a slower pace, make it 4 to 5 days.
Again, the above applies mainly to those traveling without kids. As an outdoorsy couple without children, backpacking on a sabbatical, 3-4 usable days was the perfect amount of time for us to do everything we wanted. Additionally, since Singapore is quite a bit more expensive than the rest of Southeast Asia, staying longer would have started to eat into our overall budget!
That said, under different circumstances, we would have stayed longer. There was more we wanted to see, and compared to the UK, as a tourist, it’s not too expensive. Overall, it’s just a fantastic place to be – it’s clean, everything works as it should, the food is amazing, the people are lovely, and it’s super warm (perhaps too warm for some!).
I hope this has helped answer the big question, ‘How long do you need in Singapore?’ and shed some light on the costs too! One final parting comment: Do make sure to include it in your travel plans – I’m certain you’ll love it there, and that’s coming from someone who generally hates cities!
Stay bald folks.
Toodles,
Jack
