Where to stay in Singapore: the 6 neighborhoods to know in 2026

The Civic District is the European town of the 1822 plan: the Padang, a cricket lawn lined by St Andrew's Cathedral and the old City Hall, now a museum; the columns of Parliament and the Victoria Theatre on the riverbank; Fort Canning, the hill where the first governor had his house built; the Raffles, the arcades of CHIJMES, the National Museum under its dome of 1887. Across the water, on land reclaimed from the sea, Marina Bay: the three towers of Marina Bay Sands with their boat perched on the 57th floor, the Merlion spouting into the bay, the shells of the Esplanade, the big wheel, and the Gardens by the Bay with their fifty-meter Supertrees, lit every evening at a quarter to eight. The walk around the bay is three and a half kilometers, on foot, after sunset, when the heat drops. The downside: the most expensive hotels in the city, and nothing of a neighborhood where people live. A member says what he thinks of the gardens, and he does not agree with everyone.

Not sold on the style of this artificial forest...

aroundtheworld

Chinatown is the Chinese quarter of the 1822 plan, and it has kept its rows of shophouses with colored shutters, the Hindu temple of Sri Mariamman from 1827 planted in the middle, the Jamae mosque two streets on, the Thian Hock Keng of Telok Ayer, which faced the sea before the land fill, and the Buddha Tooth Relic Temple, brand new and all red. You eat at the Chinatown Complex and at Maxwell, on a plastic stool, for five dollars. In the evening, Ann Siang Hill and Club Street put their tables out on the road, Duxton Hill pours its cocktails, and the quays of the river, Boat Quay under the towers, Clarke Quay under the neon, Robertson Quay quieter, keep going until two in the morning. The downside: shophouse rooms are small and have no window on the street, and Clarke Quay on a Saturday night can be heard from afar.

Orchard Road used to be a road through nutmeg plantations; today it is two kilometers of malls, ION, Ngee Ann City, Paragon, linked by air-conditioned walkways, with the Istana, the president's palace, behind its gates at the end of the street. To the west, the Botanic Gardens, open from five in the morning to midnight and free, sixty-four hectares of lawns, lakes and primary forest, with the paying orchid garden in the middle. Orchard's hotels are the most numerous in the city, from the grand hotel in its park to the cabin with an adjustable bed. It is also from here that the road north begins: the zoo and the Night Safari at Mandai thirty minutes away, the treetop walkway of MacRitchie, the hill of Bukit Timah, and Jurong to the west for the Science Centre. The downside: a street made for shopping, which goes dark at ten. A member says what the zoo is worth.

Set in lush vegetation, a tropical forest that works really well with the local climate, the Singapore Zoo is splendid. There are quite a few enclosures that are open and spacious.

Jean Luc

What to see & do in the neighborhood

Singapore Zoo

+4 recs

The 1822 plan put the Malays and the Arabs around the Sultan Mosque, and Kampong Glam has stayed that village: the golden dome at the end of Bussorah Street, the fabric merchants of Arab Street, the painted walls and the shops of Haji Lane, the Turkish cafés and the kebabs in the evening. Next door, Bugis, its covered market open twenty-four hours and its malls, then, across the railway line, Little India: Serangoon Road, the jasmine garlands, the temple of Sri Veeramakaliamman, the Tekka Centre for biryani, and the Mustafa Centre, open day and night, where you find everything. This is the district of capsules and small hotels, the cheapest in the center, two stations from the bay. The downside: tiny rooms, and Serangoon Road packed on Sunday, the workers' day off.

Sentosa is an island of five square kilometers linked to the city by a bridge, a monorail leaving from the VivoCity mall and a cable car leaving from Mount Faber. You come for the beaches of imported sand, Siloso, Palawan, Tanjong, lined with bars and coconut palms, with the cargo ships at anchor as a backdrop; for Universal Studios and the oceanarium on the Resorts World side; for Fort Siloso, the British guns of 1942 and the walkway through the trees. The hotels range from the beach resort to villas in the forest, and all of them have a pool. Opposite, on the mainland, HarbourFront, its metro station and VivoCity, the largest mall on the island, with the ferries to Kusu Island and Haw Par Villa, the park of Tiger Balm statues, ten minutes to the west. The downside: island prices, and Chinatown twenty minutes away by metro.

The east is the Singapore where people live: Katong and Joo Chiat, their Peranakan shophouses with pastel tiles on Koon Seng Road, the laksa of East Coast Road, the kueh shops; Geylang Serai and its Malay market; East Coast Park, fifteen kilometers of beach planted with casuarinas, cycle paths and barbecues, with the cargo ships on the horizon. At the far end, Changi: the village and its hawkers facing the Pulau Ubin jetty, the museum of the prisoners of 1942, and the airport, with the forty-meter waterfall of the Jewel under its glass roof. You sleep here for a dawn flight, for the beach, or to pay a third less for your room than in town. The downside: the bay forty-five minutes away by metro, and none of the historic quarters on foot.