Things to Do in Singapore: 10 Iconic Experiences

Planning Your Visit

A few practical things to know before you book anything:

One rule: book Universal Studios, S.E.A. Aquarium, and the Marina Bay Sands SkyPark slots in advance during weekends and Singapore school holidays. Same-day tickets are usually available, but timed slots and skip-the-line tickets save 30+ minutes.

1. Marina Bay & the SkyPark

Marina Bay is the postcard view of Singapore — the three-tower Marina Bay Sands hotel topped by the SkyPark (a 340-meter rooftop deck shaped like a boat), the Helix Bridge curving across the water, the lotus-shaped ArtScience Museum, and the Merlion fountain spitting into the bay across from it all. The whole amphitheater comes alive at 8 PM and 9 PM nightly with Spectra, a free 15-minute light and water show synced to music.

The SkyPark Observation Deck is open to non-hotel guests and gives a 360° view across the bay, the financial district, and the Strait of Singapore. The famous infinity pool (the one from every Instagram you've seen) is hotel-guest only — but you don't need a room to take in the same view from the deck or, even better, from one of the two rooftop bars (Cé La Vi or Lavo) that share the top of the building.

2. Gardens by the Bay

Gardens by the Bay is what happens when a city decides to build a garden the size of a small town. The 250-acre site sits on reclaimed land east of Marina Bay Sands and contains three set-piece attractions: the Cloud Forest (a 35-meter indoor mountain wrapped in mist with the world's tallest indoor waterfall), the Flower Dome (the world's largest glass conservatory, with rotating seasonal floral exhibits), and the Supertree Grove — 18 vertical gardens 25–50 meters tall that put on a free light-and-music show called Garden Rhapsody at 7:45 PM and 8:45 PM nightly.

The two domes are climate-controlled and air-conditioned — a welcome break from Singapore's humidity. The Supertrees and outdoor gardens are free to walk through at any hour, and the OCBC Skyway (a 128-meter elevated walkway between two of the Supertrees) gives a view back across Marina Bay that rivals the SkyPark.

3. Sentosa Island

Sentosa is Singapore's resort island — connected to the mainland by a 700-meter causeway, a Cable Car, the Sentosa Express monorail, and a free pedestrian boardwalk. It packs Universal Studios Singapore (Southeast Asia's largest theme park, with the Transformers, Sci-Fi City, and Ancient Egypt zones), the S.E.A. Aquarium (one of the largest in the world), three sandy beaches (Siloso, Palawan, and Tanjong), Adventure Cove waterpark, and the Skyline Luge that lets you race down the hillside on gravity-powered carts.

You can spend a half-day or a full week here. The most efficient first visit is Universal Studios in the morning, Skyline Luge in the late afternoon, and dinner on Siloso Beach with a view of the cargo ships in the strait. Sentosa is more touristy than the rest of Singapore but it's genuinely good — Universal Studios in particular punches well above its weight.

4. Chinatown

Chinatown is one of Singapore's three main heritage districts and easily the busiest. The restored shophouses along Pagoda Street and Trengganu Street are now galleries, clan halls, traditional medicine shops, and street-food stalls. The Buddha Tooth Relic Temple at the south end is a five-story Tang Dynasty-style temple opened in 2007 — gold Buddha hall on the ground floor, a rooftop garden with a massive prayer wheel up top, and a small but excellent Buddhist culture museum in between. Two blocks away, the Sri Mariamman Temple is the oldest Hindu temple in Singapore (built in 1827), with a riot of polychrome figures stacked up its gopuram tower.

The Chinatown Complex (a hawker center on Smith Street) holds the cheapest Michelin-starred meal in the world: Liao Fan Hong Kong Soya Sauce Chicken Rice and Noodle — a soya sauce chicken rice plate for SGD 4 (~USD 3). Be patient with the queue.

5. Little India

Little India is the most sensorially intense neighborhood in Singapore — and the one most travelers underrate. It runs north of the Rochor River along Serangoon Road, and hits with marigold garlands at every corner, sari shops, gold dealers, the call to prayer from the Abdul Gafoor Mosque, and the smell of cumin and sandalwood. The Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple (dedicated to Kali) is open to visitors with shoes off and shoulders covered. The Tan Teng Niah House on Kerbau Road — a riot of fluorescent reds, yellows, blues, and greens on a two-story Chinese villa — is the most photographed building in the district.

The Tekka Centre at the south end is the food anchor: a multi-level wet market downstairs and a hawker center upstairs serving the city's best fish-head curry, biryani, masala dosa, and banana-leaf thalis. Plates run SGD 6–10.

6. Kampong Glam & Haji Lane

Kampong Glam is the historic Malay-Arab quarter — small, walkable, and the most aesthetically Instagram-friendly of Singapore's heritage districts. The gold-domed Sultan Mosque (Masjid Sultan, built in 1824) anchors it and is open to visitors outside prayer times, with robes provided for those in shorts and tank tops. Bussorah Street leading up to the mosque is a tree-lined pedestrian lane of carpet shops, cafés, and Persian rug dealers — possibly the prettiest street in the city.

Haji Lane, one block south, is the boutique strip — a 300-meter alley of independent fashion stores, vintage shops, and bars covered in murals so dense the walls themselves are the attraction. Arab Street holds the Middle Eastern food: shisha bars, Lebanese mezze, Turkish coffee, and some of the best baklava outside Istanbul.

7. Hawker Centers — A Singapore Food Crawl

If you do nothing else in Singapore, eat at a hawker center. They're open-air food courts where dozens of family-run stalls — many of them third-generation or older — serve the dishes that define Singaporean cuisine for SGD 5–8. UNESCO inscribed Singapore's hawker culture on its Intangible Heritage list in 2020. Two stalls have Michelin stars; many more have lines that stretch around the block.

Don't miss the national dishes: Hainanese chicken rice (the unofficial national dish — poached chicken with fragrant rice and chili-ginger sauce), char kway teow (stir-fried flat rice noodles with cockles, prawns, and Chinese sausage), laksa (coconut curry noodle soup with shrimp), chili crab (Singapore's signature seafood dish), satay (grilled skewers with peanut sauce), and kaya toast for breakfast.

Tip:"chope" culture — locals reserve a hawker table by leaving a packet of tissues on it before queuing. Respect the tissue. Pay cash at older stalls; most newer ones accept PayNow QR and contactless cards.

8. Singapore Zoo & Night Safari

The Mandai Wildlife Reserve in Singapore's north holds four parks on a single rainforest campus: Singapore Zoo (open-concept, by daylight), the Night Safari (the world's first nocturnal zoo, opens at 7:15 PM), River Wonders (Asia's first river-themed wildlife park, with pandas), and Bird Paradise (the new aviary that opened in 2023). Singapore Zoo is consistently rated among the top three zoos in Asia, and the Night Safari is a genuinely original concept that no other major city replicates.

The orangutan free-ranging area at Singapore Zoo is the signature exhibit — the apes move freely overhead on a rope canopy with no barriers between them and the path. The Night Safari runs a tram tour through eight regional habitats lit by warm low-level lighting, plus walking trails through the same enclosures. Both parks are best done as a combo: Zoo in late afternoon, an early dinner at one of the Mandai restaurants, then Night Safari at 7:15.

9. Singapore Botanic Gardens & Orchard Road

The Singapore Botanic Gardens are one of three gardens in the world UNESCO has named a World Heritage Site (alongside Kew in London and Padua in Italy) — and they're free to enter. The 82-hectare park stretches from the Tanglin Gate near Orchard Road to the Bukit Timah Gate in the north, with rainforest, the Swan Lake, the Symphony Lake bandstand, and the National Orchid Garden (a paid section, SGD 15, with 1,000+ orchid species and hybrids — the largest display in the world).

Orchard Road, just south of the Botanic Gardens, is Singapore's shopping spine — a 2.2-kilometer boulevard of mega-malls (ION Orchard, Ngee Ann City, Paragon) and flagship stores. The architecture of ION Orchard alone is worth a walk-through. The pairing — a slow tropical garden morning followed by an air-conditioned Orchard Road afternoon — is the city's most relaxed day off from sightseeing.

10. Day Trip: Pulau Ubin

Pulau Ubin is a 10-minute bumboat ride from the Changi Point Ferry Terminal — and a 50-year time warp. The 10-square-kilometer island is one of the last fragments of pre-development Singapore: a kampong (traditional Malay village) of around 30 residents, mangrove forests, dirt roads, and a wildlife reserve at its eastern end called Chek Jawa with intertidal mudflats, sea grass, coastal forest, and a 21-meter wooden viewing tower.

The standard move is: bumboat to the village (boats leave when 12 passengers gather, no schedule, SGD 4 each way), rent a mountain bike from one of the village shops (SGD 8–15 for the day), and ride the loop to Chek Jawa via the Ketam Mountain Bike Park if you want challenge, or via the easier coastal road if you don't. Pack water and lunch — there are only a handful of small seafood restaurants in the village.

Tip: if Pulau Ubin is too rustic and you have a passport-stamping appetite, the day trip alternative is a 1-hour ferry from Tanah Merah Ferry Terminal to Bintan Island in Indonesia — white-sand beaches, mangrove tours, and a different country. Bintan requires bringing your passport and budget a full 12-hour day.

Book a Guided Tour

For the cultural quarters (Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam), a food or heritage walking tour adds real context — history, dish-by-dish recommendations, and introductions to stallholders you'd otherwise walk past. For the rest of Singapore, DIY by MRT and Grab is cheaper, faster, and gives you full schedule control.

Pre-book skip-the-line tickets where they exist (Universal Studios, S.E.A. Aquarium, Marina Bay Sands SkyPark, Cloud Forest, Singapore Zoo + Night Safari) and you'll save 20–30 minutes per attraction. The 4-park Mandai Pass and the Singapore Tourist Pass for MRT both pay for themselves quickly if you're here more than two days.

Staying Connected in Singapore

Singapore has one of the best-connected mobile networks in the world — full 5G coverage across the entire island, including the MRT tunnels, Sentosa, and most of Pulau Ubin. You'll want reliable data for Grab, the MRT app, Google Maps, OpenTable for hawker reservations, and translation apps if you're ordering from older stallholders who speak Mandarin, Hokkien, or Tamil.

US carriers charge $12/day for international roaming on Verizon and AT&T — over a 5-day trip that's $60 for data you can buy as an eSIM for under $10. Local SIMs from Singtel, StarHub, and M1 are sold at Changi Airport and 7-Elevens, but they require a passport scan, take 10–15 minutes to register, and aren't any cheaper than a travel eSIM you can activate before you fly.

If you're transiting Changi to or from another Southeast Asian country, a regional eSIM (covering Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia) is often the better play than a Singapore-only plan — same eSIM works across the region without re-buying.

Frequently Asked Questions