48 Hours in Singapore - Our Family Travel Itinerary

Due to some last minute flight cancellations, we ended up with only just over 48 hours in Singapore.  We had never planned to spend too long there as after Thailand and Vietnam we knew it would be expensive, but we had hoped for a little more time to explore.  Singapore was the last country we visited before heading home so we were all getting tired and there is so much more to see and do that we had to just pick a couple of things and be content with that. If you want to catch up on the first parts of our trip, this is our Thailand Itinerary and our Vietnam Itinerary.

We arrived in the evening and left the airport to find our hotel.  After we had settled in, we went for a walk around the local area and to find some dinner.  We stayed at five/6 Splendour Hotel in the Geylang district and were delighted to have safe flat pavements after the crazy Vietnamese streets.  The hotel was unfortunately 3x as expensive as what we were used to and nowhere near as nice, but this is what we had expected from Singapore.

For our full day in Singapore (which also happened to be my birthday), we headed over to colourful Chinatown to check out the world's cheapest Michelin Starred food at Hawker Chan.  The children were really excited to try it, although none were that enamoured by it in reality.  Definitely something to tick off the bucket list though!

After lunch, we wanted to explore Gardens by The Bay and we decided to walk there so we could take in more of Singapore.  You can really see a city when you walk through it and the buildings had incorporated trees and nature in so many amazing ways, it was fascinating to see such a built up city trying to be green.  Singapore feels like such a safe place to walk around and I wish we had more time to explore on foot.

Gardens by the Bay is a huge area of nature and art.  Much of it is free to enjoy including the children's gardens and splash zone and the Supertree Grove, but there are areas you can pay to go in as well.  We bought tickets for the flower dome and the cloud forest and both were incredible to explore.  The iconic structures are full of colour and nature in engaging and beautiful ways and we loved the man made waterfall in the centre of the cloud forest as well as the walkways high up.  The closest I can think to describe it is Singapore's version of the Eden Project. 

We spent all afternoon exploring and as the evening set in, there was a light and music show in the 

supertree grove celebrating the multicultural aspect of Singapore's history.  It was fantastic to watch and completely free with the famous Marina Bay Sands hotel in the background. To leave the gardens we actually ended up walking through MBS and we headed to a Singaporean restaurant for a birthday meal.

Our final day in Singapore was also the final day of our Asian Adventure and I wanted to get to the Haig Street Hawker Market.  Hawker markets are the cheapest way to eat in Singapore, they are like a huge food court full of individual vendors and I had watched an episode of a street food documentary on Netflix about a stall selling the traditional dessert of Putu Piring. We headed over there to get some lunch and try the dessert before heading back to the airport to check in our luggage.  We still had many hours until our flight but one thing on our holiday list that we didn't want to miss out on was the Jewel centre in Singapore's Changi Airport.

Singapore has one of the most incredible airports and we all wanted to see the waterfall in the centre.  Not only is there a climbing nets centre, a cinema and a swimming pool in the airport, there are also so many interactive exhibits and so much to see and do.  Our top priority was the Pokemon Centre where there were exclusive games to play and limited edition merchandise to buy. It did not disappoint and was one of the highlights of the children's trip.  We spent all afternoon exploring the airport, eating at the food court downstairs and watching the light show on the waterfall.  As we had already checked in our suitcases, we could enjoy the Changi airport until an hour before our 11pm flight home.

It was a very quick stop in Singapore and I found it so hard to choose what to spend our time on.  I would have loved to do the Night Safari, visit Universal Studios or the water park over on Sentosa Island, spend more time walking the colourful and quirky streets and have a Singapore Sling at Raffles hotel.  It was a great way to end our adventure and hopefully we can visit again in the future.