Offbeat Singapore and Beyond: 5 Days
Five days buys you enough slack to leave the country entirely for an afternoon, which is a strange sentence to write about a place the size of Singapore, but here we are. Builds on the 4-day stopover ; the 6-day version adds Indonesia by ferry on top of this.
| Day | Focus |
|---|---|
| 1 | Changi arrival, Maxwell Food Centre, Marina Bay’s free half, Lau Pa Sat satay |
| 2 | Chinatown Complex’s hawker hub, Little India, Kampong Glam after dark |
| 3 | Katong, Joo Chiat, and Tiong Bahru |
| 4 | Pulau Ubin, the kampong-era island |
| 5 | Johor Bahru, Malaysia, a different country and currency |
Book these before you go
- Compare rates for Singapore hotels near Chinatown or Katong
- Book a guided Pulau Ubin cycling tour if you’d rather not navigate the trails solo
Day 1: Changi to hawker stool, no detours
- Land at Changi (14 Skytrax World’s Best Airport wins and counting) and MRT into the city in about 35 minutes for a couple of SGD.
- Head straight to Maxwell Food Centre for Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice, a Michelin Bib Gourmand stall and the one Anthony Bourdain filmed at, for the price of a mediocre airport sandwich.
- If a stool has a folded tissue packet on it, someone’s chope’d it, it’s taken, move along.
- Afternoon: walk the Marina Bay waterfront to Gardens by the Bay, where the Supertree Grove and OCBC Skyway are free and outdoors; the Cloud Forest and Flower Dome conservatories are ticketed and optional.
- Evening: satay at Lau Pa Sat, the Victorian cast-iron market hall (ironwork shipped from Glasgow) that closes its outer lane to cars each night, followed by the free Spectra light show at Marina Bay Sands.
Day 2: Chinatown Complex, Little India, Kampong Glam
- Morning: Chinatown Complex, the country’s largest hawker centre at 700-plus stalls, home to Liao Fan Hawker Chan’s soy sauce chicken, Lian He Ben Ji Claypot Rice (charcoal-cooked since 1979), and Xiu Ji Ikan Bilis Yong Tau Foo’s Bib Gourmand yong tau foo. The July 2026 Michelin update added several more stalls to the list, worth asking around for.
- Walk to Buddha Tooth Relic Temple after, free entry, rooftop garden included.
- Afternoon: Tekka Centre in Little India, heavier on Indian and Malay dishes, surrounded by spice shops and gold merchants.
- Evening: Kampong Glam, under Sultan Mosque’s golden dome, with Haji Lane’s strip of independent boutiques and cafes as the reason to linger.
Day 3: Katong, Joo Chiat, Tiong Bahru
- Morning: Katong and Joo Chiat, Peranakan territory, pastel shophouses with hand-painted tiles and carved timber shutters. Order laksa here, it’s the reference version most other laksa in the country gets compared to.
- Afternoon: Joo Chiat Road’s antique and kueh shops, several family-run for generations.
- Evening: Tiong Bahru, a 1930s art-deco estate locals half-seriously call the city’s coolest postcode, curved balconies, indie bookshops, cafes worth the price.
Day 4: Pulau Ubin
- Morning: bumboat from Changi Point Ferry Terminal (not the airport) to Pulau Ubin, about 10 minutes, SGD 4 per person each way, cash only, leaves once 12 passengers are aboard. Singapore’s last “kampong-era” island, no malls, barely any development since the 1960s.
- Rent a bike at the jetty and ride out to Chek Jawa Wetlands for mangroves and a boardwalk that stays quiet even on weekends.
- Evening: back in the city, Old Airport Road Food Centre, a hawker centre that trades on being slightly off the tourist path, which keeps the queues shorter than Maxwell’s.
Day 5: Johor Bahru, Malaysia, a whole other country for the afternoon
- Morning: take a bus or the KTM shuttle train across the Woodlands Causeway to Johor Bahru. A direct rail link between Woodlands and Bukit Chagar has been under construction for a while and is meant to open soon, though the date keeps sliding between late 2026 and early 2027, so don’t count on it yet.
- Bring a passport. This is a different country, Malaysia, with its own currency (ringgit, not Singapore dollars) and its own immigration checkpoint, not a suburb across a bridge.
- Spend the day at JB’s malls and hawker stalls, noticeably cheaper than Singapore prices for comparable food and goods, before crossing back ahead of the evening queue at the checkpoint.
- Evening: one last dinner back in Singapore, ideally somewhere you haven’t already tried, Chinatown’s Ann Siang Hill shophouse cafes are a good closer.
Getting around
- Tap a contactless bank card or phone wallet directly at MRT and bus gantries, no separate transit card required.
- Grab is the ride-hail app to use everywhere in Singapore; Uber sold its Southeast Asia business to Grab in 2018 and no longer operates here.
- Bumboats to Pulau Ubin and buses to Johor Bahru don’t run to a strict timetable, budget extra slack on both.
Things to know
- Singapore has been independent from Malaysia since 1965, a separate sovereign country with its own currency, the Singapore dollar, not ringgit and not US dollars.
- Tipping isn’t expected, and tap water is safe to drink.
- The chewing gum law bans sale and import only; chewing a stick you brought with you isn’t the crime the internet keeps saying it is.
The one call worth making
Don’t treat Johor Bahru as a rushed half-day bolt-on. Cross early, and you’ll have time to actually eat there rather than just clear immigration twice for a photo.