For a city like nowhere else — futuristic, green and spotless, with a skyline of supertrees and infinity pools rising over heritage shophouses, and one of the world's great food cultures eaten cheaply at open-air hawker centres. It is also the easiest introduction to Asia: safe, clean, English-speaking and tied together by a superb metro. Marina Bay, Gardens by the Bay and the hawker stalls are reason enough; the multicultural neighbourhoods seal it.

How many days do you need in Singapore?

Three days covers the essentials — Marina Bay and Gardens by the Bay, the colonial Civic District, Chinatown, Little India and Kampong Glam, and as much hawker food as you can manage. Five days lets you add the Botanic Gardens, Sentosa Island and Jewel Changi at a relaxed pace. Many visitors pass through on a stopover and find two days enough for the highlights, though the city repays longer.

When is the best time to visit Singapore?

Singapore is hot, humid and close to the equator all year, with no real seasons — the temperature barely moves from around 30 degrees. It is marginally drier from February to April, and wettest during the northeast monsoon from November to January, though rain usually comes in short, heavy bursts rather than all day. There is no wrong time to go; an umbrella and the city's air-conditioning handle the rest.

Is Singapore expensive?

It can be, but it need not be. Hotels, cocktails and attractions are priced at world-city levels, and alcohol in particular is costly. But the food — the thing Singapore does best — is among the cheapest great eating anywhere, with a full hawker-centre meal for a few dollars, and the metro is cheap and efficient. Many of the headline sights, from the Gardens light show to the Botanic Gardens, are free.

Is Singapore easy to get around?

Yes — it is one of the easiest cities in the world to navigate. The MRT metro is fast, cheap, clean and reaches almost everywhere, the central districts are walkable, and Grab (the local rideshare) covers the gaps. English is an official language and signage is everywhere. From Changi Airport — itself a sight, via the Jewel Rain Vortex — the city centre is around 20 to 30 minutes by taxi or a direct MRT ride.

Boutique Hotels in Singapore — Art, Design & Skyline

Where to stay in Singapore

Singapore is compact and superbly connected, so almost anywhere central works — the choice is really one of character. Marina Bay is the showpiece district, all skyline and luxury towers; Orchard Road is the shopping belt; Chinatown and Kampong Glam are the heritage-and-nightlife quarters; and the Civic District, the old colonial core around the museums and Raffles, sits quietly in the middle of it all, walkable to most of the above.

It is in the Civic District, on Seah Street in the Bugis arts quarter, that our Singapore address sits. Naumi Hotel Singapore is a design and art-led boutique hotel, part hotel and part gallery — a four-storey street-art mural across its facade, a shifting video installation in the lobby, design furniture in the rooms, and a guest-only infinity pool on the tenth-floor roof with skyline views. A few doors from Raffles and a short walk from the museums and the Marina Bay waterfront, it makes an arty, central base for a city stay, more about design and the rooftop than about scale.

What to do in Singapore

Marina Bay is the obvious starting point — the soaring Marina Bay Sands, the futuristic domes and Supertrees of Gardens by the Bay, the waterfront promenade and the free nightly Spectra light-and-water show. From there the city divides into its quarters: the colonial Civic District, with the National Gallery, the National Museum and the bar at Raffles where the Singapore Sling was invented; Chinatown, with its temples, the Maxwell and Chinatown Complex hawker centres and the speakeasies of Amoy Street; Little India, the grittiest and most vivid quarter, around the Sri Veeramakaliamman temple and Tekka Centre; and Kampong Glam, around the golden Sultan Mosque, with the boutiques of Haji Lane.

Beyond the centre, the island keeps giving. The Singapore Botanic Gardens, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and the orchid garden within it make a green half-day; Sentosa Island has the beaches, Universal Studios and the cable car; and Jewel Changi, with its indoor Rain Vortex waterfall, is worth arriving early or leaving late for. But the constant, wherever you go, is the food — the hawker centres are the real heart of Singapore, and grazing through them is the single best thing to do on the island.