4 Days in Singapore and Beyond
Just tap your contactless bank card at the MRT gate and skip the EZ-Link line entirely, SimplyGo reads Visa and Mastercard directly at standard fares plus a small foreign-card admin fee, no card purchase or deposit required. Four days is enough to eat through Singapore’s best hawker centres, walk the neighbourhoods that aren’t Orchard Road, and still cross into an actual second country for a day. Only have a weekend? Drop to the 2-day version ; got a full week, the 6-day crosses two borders instead of one.
Book these before you go:
- Johor Bahru day trip : worth booking if you’d rather not navigate the Causeway crossing solo
- Chinatown hawker food tour : a solid first-night orientation
- Your Singapore hotel : Chinatown or Bugis, close to this itinerary’s food stops and the MRT to the Causeway
| Day | Focus | Distance/time |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chinatown Complex hawker crawl, Kampong Glam after dark | in city |
| 2 | Katong, Tiong Bahru, Little India after dark | in city |
| 3 | Lau Pa Sat, Old Airport Road | in city |
| 4 | Johor Bahru, Malaysia | Causeway crossing, ~1hr each way plus immigration |
Day 1: Chinatown hawker crawl, then Kampong Glam after dark
Get to a hawker centre before you do anything else. Chinatown Complex is the move: over 700 stalls, more than 220 of them serving food, home to Liao Fan Hawker Chan, the stall that turned a Michelin star into a plate of soya chicken rice costing a few dollars. Maxwell Food Centre nearby has Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice, Bib Gourmand-listed, if the Chinatown Complex queue is too much.
Spend the afternoon in Chinatown proper: Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, free entry, respectful dress required, and the shophouse streets around Pagoda Street. By evening, move to Kampong Glam: Sultan Mosque at dusk, Haji Lane’s independent boutiques and murals, dinner around Arab Street.
Day 2: Katong, Tiong Bahru, Little India after dark
Morning in Katong and Joo Chiat, Peranakan shophouses in colours no design brief would sign off on, and the actual birthplace of Katong laksa, order it here. Midday, get to Tiong Bahru: 1930s art-deco blocks, secondhand bookshops, a bakery queue that’s earned its reputation.
Save Little India for evening, when Tekka Centre and the spice shops around Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple light up and get genuinely louder than the daytime version of the same streets. Dinner here rather than heading back toward the hotel.
Day 3: Lau Pa Sat and Old Airport Road
Lau Pa Sat is a Victorian cast-iron market that turns into a satay street after dark, when the road outside closes to traffic. For lunch, skip the tourist version and get to Old Airport Road Food Centre instead, no queue theatre, just Singaporeans eating where they actually eat. If you want the skyline everyone photographs, it’s a short walk from here, twenty minutes gets you the postcard shot without needing a whole day built around it.
Day 4: Cross the Causeway into Johor Bahru, Malaysia
This is a different country. Singapore split from Malaysia in 1965 and runs its own currency, the Singapore dollar, JB runs on ringgit, so bring some cash or expect a currency conversion fee on cards. Get there by bus or the KTM shuttle train across the Causeway, bring your passport either way, it’s an actual border with its own immigration queue, budget more time for that than the short physical distance suggests.
Is the RTS Link open yet, and should you plan around it? No, not as of mid-2026. Singapore and Malaysia have been building the RTS Link, a five-minute cross-border train meant to replace the queue chaos at the Causeway, but it’s still in testing with a target of opening by the end of 2026, and some reports point to early 2027. Use the bus or the existing KTM shuttle train for now.
Spend the day in JB, eat, wander the markets, and be back in Singapore for the night, most visitors find one day plenty rather than an overnight. Should you do Johor Bahru or Bintan/Batam if you’ve only got one border day? Johor Bahru, it’s faster to reach and doesn’t need a ferry crossing; save Bintan or Batam for a trip with a fifth day to spare.
Getting around without renting a car
Don’t rent a car. Tap a contactless bank card or your phone wallet directly at the gantry through SimplyGo, no top-up, no registration needed, though foreign-issued cards carry a SGD 0.60/day admin fee. Grab is the ride-hail app for anything door to door, not Uber, which sold its Southeast Asia business and left in 2018.
The fine print that actually bites
Littering starts at SGD 300, eating or drinking anything, including water, on the MRT can cost SGD 500, and vaping is fully banned with fines up to SGD 10,000. The chewing gum law bans sale and import, not the act of chewing it. Tap water is safe straight from the tap, and tipping isn’t expected anywhere, though sit-down restaurants often add 9% GST plus a 10% service charge regardless. Carry small bills, hawker stalls are cash-first pockets in a city that otherwise wants you to tap and walk away.