Places to visit in Singapore
92 places to visit in Singapore, each with LOQAH's carefully crafted stamp of its own: National Orchid Garden, Singapore Botanic Gardens, Abdul Gaffoor Mosque and more. Stand at any of them with the app open and the stamp is yours, confirmed on site, in your Singapore volume.
2 UNESCO World Heritage sites · 17 National monuments · 1 Heritage site · 19 Famous places to visit · 53 Hidden gems
UNESCO World Heritage sites in Singapore (2)
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National Orchid Garden
A garden within the Singapore Botanic Gardens given over to orchids, opened in 1995 and holding more than a thousand species and many more hybrids. Some of its hybrids are named after visiting heads of state and celebrities, a custom known as orchid diplomacy.
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Singapore Botanic Gardens
A tropical garden on the edge of Orchard Road, founded in 1859 and the only tropical garden on UNESCO's World Heritage list. It holds a patch of original rainforest, swan lakes and the National Orchid Garden, where thousands of orchids grow.
National monuments in Singapore (17)
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Abdul Gaffoor Mosque
A mosque on Dunlop Street in Little India, built in 1910 by Shaik Abdul Gaffoor on the site of a smaller wooden mosque. Above its entrance is a sunburst crest of Arabic calligraphy, and it has been a national monument since 1979.
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Armenian Church
Singapore's oldest surviving Christian church, completed in 1835 on Hill Street and consecrated the following year. A small white neoclassical building in a quiet garden, it was built for a tiny Armenian community and became a national monument in 1973.
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Cathedral of the Good Shepherd
Singapore's oldest Catholic church, built in 1847 in the Civic District off Queen Street. A neoclassical building in the shape of a Latin cross, with a spire, it is the cathedral of the Archdiocese of Singapore and a national monument.
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Former Ford Factory
The car assembly plant on Upper Bukit Timah Road where British forces surrendered Singapore to the Japanese army on 15 February 1942. Now a national monument, it holds a gallery on life in Singapore under the wartime occupation.
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Jamae Mosque
A mosque on South Bridge Road in Chinatown, built in the 1830s by Muslim immigrants from South India and one of the earliest Indian Muslim mosques in the country. Its eclectic gateway, with twin minaret towers, has made it a national monument since 1974.
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Lau Pa Sat
A Victorian cast-iron market hall in the financial district, built on this site in 1894 and now a hawker centre. Its octagonal frame shelters stalls of local food, and in the evening the street beside it closes to traffic for satay grilled in the open.
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Maghain Aboth Synagogue
The oldest synagogue in Southeast Asia, built in 1878 on Waterloo Street in the old heart of the city. A modest classical building with a pale facade, it still serves the Jewish community and is a national monument.
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Masjid Hajjah Fatimah
A mosque on Beach Road in Kampong Glam, built in the 1840s by a Malacca-born noblewoman, Hajjah Fatimah. Its minaret leans slightly and looks more like a church steeple, a mix of European and Malay styles that makes it unlike any other mosque in the city.
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Masjid Sultan
The principal mosque of Kampong Glam, first built in 1826 and rebuilt in its present form in 1932. Its golden domes stand at the end of Bussorah Street, and it is the best-known mosque in the country and a national monument.
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Sri Mariamman Temple
Singapore's oldest Hindu temple, founded in 1827 on South Bridge Road in Chinatown and built in the Dravidian style. Its gopuram is crowded with painted figures of gods, and each year it hosts the Theemithi festival, when devotees walk across burning coals.
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Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple
A temple to Vishnu on Serangoon Road in Little India, founded in 1855 by early Tamil settlers. Its 20 metre gopuram, added in 1966, shows the god's incarnations, and the Thaipusam procession sets out from here each year.
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Sri Thendayuthapani Temple
A temple to Murugan on Tank Road, built by the Chettiar community in 1859 and among the most important Hindu monuments in Singapore. It is the end point of the Thaipusam procession, when devotees carrying kavadis walk here from Little India.
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St Andrew's Cathedral
Singapore's Anglican cathedral, a white Gothic Revival church near City Hall, built between 1856 and 1861 on a site used for worship since 1836. Its walls were finished in Madras chunam, a plaster of shell lime, egg white and sugar that gives them their smooth glow.
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The Arts House
Built in 1827, this is the oldest government building in Singapore and perhaps the oldest surviving building of any kind, and it housed Parliament from 1965 to 1999. Today it is an arts venue for exhibitions and concerts in the Civic District.
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The Istana
A white Palladian mansion in large parkland off Orchard Road, built in 1869 as Government House for the British governors. It is now the office of the President and Prime Minister, and the grounds are opened to the public on a few holidays each year.
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Thian Hock Keng Temple
A Hokkien temple on Telok Ayer Street built for Mazu, the Chinese goddess of the sea. It once stood on the shoreline, and sailors arriving from China came here to give thanks for a safe crossing. It is now a national monument.
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Victoria Theatre and Concert Hall
Two white colonial halls on Empress Place joined by a clock tower, the oldest part built in 1862 and the whole finished in 1909. It is home to the Singapore Symphony Orchestra and reopened in 2014 after a four-year renovation.
Heritage sites in Singapore (1)
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Bukit Timah Nature Reserve
A patch of primary rainforest on the slopes of Bukit Timah Hill, the country's highest natural peak at about 165 metres. Trails climb to the summit through old trees, among long-tailed macaques, colugos and a remarkable number of plant species for so small a place.
Famous places to visit in Singapore (19)
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Buddha Tooth Relic Temple and Museum
A Chinese Buddhist temple in Chinatown, built in the style of the Tang dynasty and opened in 2007. It is named for the tooth relic of the Buddha kept in a golden stupa on an upper floor, and its rooftop garden holds a large prayer wheel.
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Chinatown
The old Chinese quarter of Singapore, streets of restored shophouses running up from South Bridge Road to Ann Siang Hill. Buddhist, Hindu and Muslim places of worship stand within a few streets of each other, and its hawker centres are among the city's best known.
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Emerald Hill
A short, sloping street just off Orchard Road lined with terraced houses once owned by wealthy Peranakan families. Many of the homes are in the Chinese Baroque style, with carved doors, coloured tiles and shuttered windows.
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Fort Canning Hill
A 48 metre hill in the city centre, once the seat of ancient Malay kings and later home to Stamford Raffles and a British fort. Today it is a wooded park with old gates, gardens and the Battlebox, the underground bunker of the British command in 1942.
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Gardens by the Bay
A 105 hectare park on reclaimed land beside Marina Reservoir, laid out as three waterfront gardens. Its giant steel Supertrees glow and hum with light at night, and the Flower Dome beside them is the largest glass greenhouse in the world.
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Haw Par Villa
A garden built in 1937 by Aw Boon Haw and Aw Boon Par, the brothers behind Tiger Balm, along Pasir Panjang Road. Over 1,000 statues and 150 dioramas act out Chinese myths, legends and moral tales, including a grisly walk through the Ten Courts of Hell.
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Jewel Changi Airport
A glass dome linked to Terminals 1, 2 and 3 of Changi Airport, holding a terraced indoor forest and about 300 shops and restaurants. At its centre the Rain Vortex falls from an opening in the roof, the world's tallest indoor waterfall.
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Lazarus Island
One of Singapore's Southern Islands, joined by a causeway to St John's Island and reached by ferry from there. Its quiet crescent of sand and clear water make it one of the best beaches within the country's waters, with little built on it.
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Little India
The Tamil heart of Singapore, known in the community as Tekka, across the river from Chinatown. Its markets, flower-garland stalls and temples are at their busiest during Deepavali and Thaipusam, when the streets fill with lights and processions.
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Marina Bay Sands
Three hotel towers joined at the top by a ship-shaped SkyPark, opened in 2010 on the edge of Marina Bay. Designed by Moshe Safdie, the resort holds a 1,850-room hotel, a mall, a theatre and the ArtScience Museum, and its rooftop pool looks straight down on the city.
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Merlion Park
A waterfront park at One Fullerton where the Merlion, half lion and half fish, spouts water into Marina Bay. The original statue stands 8.6 metres tall and has a 2 metre cub beside it; together they are the most photographed figures in the country.
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Orchard Road
A 2.5 kilometre boulevard of department stores, malls, restaurants and coffeehouses in central Singapore. It takes its name from the nutmeg and pepper orchards that once lined it, and it is at its busiest at night and when the Christmas lights go up.
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Pulau Ubin
An island off Singapore's north-east coast, one of the last places in the country with a kampong village and dirt tracks. Bumboats cross from Changi, and people hire bicycles to ride past old granite quarries to the Chek Jawa wetlands.
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Raffles Hotel
A colonial hotel on Beach Road opened by the Armenian Sarkies brothers in 1887 and named after Stamford Raffles. Its white verandas and courtyards are a national monument, and its Long Bar is where the Singapore Sling was first mixed.
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Sentosa
A resort island off Singapore's south coast, reached by causeway, cable car or monorail across Keppel Harbour. Once the British military outpost of Pulau Blakang Mati, it now holds beaches such as Siloso and Palawan, Universal Studios and an old fort.
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Singapore Flyer
A giant observation wheel at the edge of Marina Bay, opened in April 2008 and 165 metres tall. Its 28 air-conditioned capsules each hold 28 people, and one turn gives a slow view over the bay, the city and the ships waiting in the strait.
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Singapore Zoo
A 28 hectare zoo on the edge of Upper Seletar Reservoir, set in the forested heart of the island. It is known for keeping its animals in open landscaped enclosures, divided by moats and streams rather than bars, and has neighbours in the Night Safari and Bird Paradise.
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The Fullerton Hotel Singapore
A grand colonnaded building at the mouth of the Singapore River, commissioned in 1924 for the colony's centenary and long home to the General Post Office. Named after Robert Fullerton, first Governor of the Straits Settlements, it is now a luxury hotel.
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Universal Studios Singapore
A film theme park inside Resorts World Sentosa, opened in 2010 and one of only five Universal Studios parks in the world. Its 24 rides, shows and attractions are spread across seven themed zones, from ancient Egypt to the streets of New York, behind the revolving globe at its gate.
Hidden gems in Singapore (53)
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Adventure Cove Waterpark
A water park in Resorts World Sentosa, the other half of the Marine Life Park beside the oceanarium. Its slides and lazy river wind through the grounds, and a reef lagoon lets swimmers snorkel among tropical fish.
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ArtScience Museum
A museum shaped like a lotus flower on the waterfront of Marina Bay Sands, opened in 2011. Its exhibitions mix art, science, culture and technology, and it is the largest private museum in Singapore.
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Asian Civilisations Museum
A museum in the colonial Empress Place Building on the bank of the Singapore River, devoted to the cultures of Asia. Its collections trace the trade that linked China, India, Southeast Asia and the Islamic world, including treasures from a ninth-century shipwreck.
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Bird Paradise
An aviary park in Mandai that opened in 2023, taking over from the old Jurong Bird Park. Its 17 hectares hold large walk-in aviaries themed on habitats around the world, where birds fly freely over the paths.
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Bishan-Ang Mo Kio Park
A large park in the heartland between Bishan and Ang Mo Kio, with the Kallang River running through its middle. The river's old concrete canal was replaced with a winding stream and grassy banks, where families paddle and otters are often seen.
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Boat Quay
A curve of old shophouses on the southern bank of the Singapore River near its mouth, running from UOB Plaza to Elgin Bridge. Once the centre of the port's trade, it now lines the water with restaurant tables beneath the towers of the financial district.
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CHIJMES
A walled complex on Victoria Street that began life as the Catholic Convent of the Holy Infant Jesus and now holds restaurants and bars. Its Gothic chapel, with stained glass and a slender spire, is used today for weddings and concerts.
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Central Sikh Temple
A gurdwara at Towner Road, by the junction with Serangoon Road, first established in 1912 and moved to this site in 1986 after several earlier homes. A large dome crowns the prayer hall, and its langar serves free meals to anyone who comes.
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Changi Beach Park
A long, quiet beach park at the northern tip of Changi, in the east of Singapore, looking out towards Pulau Ubin. It is a place for picnics, cycling and watching planes pass low on their way in and out of Changi Airport.
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Changi Chapel and Museum
A museum in Changi on the lives of the prisoners of war held in the Changi camp during the Japanese occupation. At its centre is a replica of one of the simple chapels the prisoners built, alongside copies of the murals some of them painted.
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Chek Jawa Wetlands
A 100-hectare wetland at the south-eastern tip of Pulau Ubin, among the last places in Singapore with a natural rocky shore. Boardwalks lead through mangroves and out over the sea, and low tide uncovers flats full of shore life.
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Clarke Quay
A row of restored 19th-century warehouses on the Singapore River, upstream of Boat Quay, where traders once unloaded goods from bumboats. It is now the liveliest stretch of the river at night, packed with restaurants and bars along the water.
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Coney Island
A 133-hectare island off Punggol in the north-east, joined to the mainland by bridges and left largely wild. Its trails run through casuarina woods and along quiet beaches, between Pulau Ubin and the mainland.
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Dempsey Hill
A cluster of former British army barracks across from the Singapore Botanic Gardens, now turned into restaurants, bars and shops. The low colonial blocks sit among big trees, which makes it feel a long way from the city centre.
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East Coast Park
A long beach park on land reclaimed in the 1970s along Singapore's south-east shore. People come for its cycling and skating tracks, barbecue pits and seafood restaurants, with ships anchored offshore in the strait.
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Esplanade, Theatres on the Bay
The national centre for the performing arts, on the waterfront near the mouth of the Singapore River. Its two rounded domes, one a concert hall of about 1,600 seats and the other a theatre for about 2,000, are covered in spiky sunshades that earned it the nickname The Durian.
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Fort Siloso
A coastal artillery battery on Sentosa, one of twelve that made up 'Fortress Singapore' at the start of the Second World War, and one that saw action in the Battle of Singapore. Its guns, tunnels and barracks are now a military museum.
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Haji Lane
A narrow lane of shophouses in Kampong Glam, painted with bold murals and given over to independent shops, bars and cafés. It is short enough to walk end to end in a few minutes, and is at its busiest after dark.
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Henderson Waves
The highest pedestrian bridge in Singapore, carrying the Southern Ridges trail over Henderson Road towards Mount Faber. Its curved wooden ribs rise and fall like waves, giving shade by day, and are lit up after dark.
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HortPark
A 9-hectare park in Queenstown devoted to gardening, opened in 2007, with themed display gardens and glasshouses. It sits on the Southern Ridges, linked to Kent Ridge Park and Telok Blangah Hill by walkways through the trees.
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Jurong Lake Gardens
Singapore's national gardens in the west of the island: three linked gardens around Jurong Lake, the Chinese, the Japanese and the Lakeside. The lakeside side has wetlands, boardwalks and play areas, while the Chinese Garden is known for its pagoda by the water.
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Kampong Glam
The old Malay and Muslim quarter north of the river, gathered around the golden domes of Sultan Mosque. Its lanes of shophouses hold textile merchants, perfume sellers and cafés, with Arab Street and Haji Lane at its heart.
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Katong
A residential district in the east, stretching from Fort Road to Joo Chiat, that once ran down to the sea before land was reclaimed for East Coast Park. It is the old home of the Peranakan community, known for its pastel shophouses and its own style of laksa.
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Kent Ridge Park
A 47-hectare park on a ridge between the National University of Singapore and the Science Park. Its undisturbed forest draws bird-watchers, and a canopy walk links it into the Southern Ridges trail towards Mount Faber.
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Kong Meng San Phor Kark See Monastery
The largest Buddhist temple and monastery in Singapore, on Bright Hill Road in Bishan, which is why most people simply call it Bright Hill Temple. Its grounds spread across a hillside of prayer halls, and on Vesak Day devotees circle it in a slow pilgrimage of three steps and a bow.
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Kranji War Memorial
A Commonwealth war cemetery and memorial in the north of Singapore, for the men and women who died defending Singapore and Malaya in the Second World War. Rows of graves climb a gentle slope to memorial walls carved with the names of thousands who have no known grave.
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Kusu Island
A small island about 5.6 kilometres south of the main island, whose name means Tortoise Island in Hokkien. It holds a Chinese temple and a Malay shrine on a hilltop, and draws pilgrims by the thousand each year in the ninth lunar month.
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Kwan Im Thong Hood Cho Temple
A traditional Chinese temple on Waterloo Street dedicated to Kuan Yin, the Goddess of Mercy, and believed to bring good luck to those who pray there. Many worshippers also visit the Hindu temple of Krishna a few doors away.
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Labrador Nature Reserve
A coastal reserve in the south of mainland Singapore, home to the only rocky sea cliff on the mainland open to the public. Alongside its shore and forest it keeps the remains of old gun batteries and bunkers from the island's coastal defences.
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MacRitchie Reservoir
Singapore's oldest reservoir and its first water supply, mostly finished in 1867 and named after the engineer James MacRitchie in 1922. Forest trails and boardwalks run around its shores, and the TreeTop Walk suspension bridge crosses the canopy nearby.
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Marina Barrage
A tidal barrage across the Marina Channel, built where five rivers meet the sea, which turned Marina Bay into a freshwater reservoir in the middle of the city. Its grassy green roof is a favourite spot for flying kites and for watching the skyline.
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Maxwell Food Centre
A hawker centre at the corner of Maxwell Road and South Bridge Road, on the edge of Chinatown. It is one of the city's best known for Hainanese chicken rice, and the queues at its most famous stalls form well before lunch.
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Mount Faber
A 94-metre hill above Telok Blangah, once named after it, looking out over the harbour towards Sentosa. Trails climb it from HarbourFront and the Southern Ridges, and the cable car across to the island starts here.
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National Gallery Singapore
An art museum made from two colonial landmarks, the former Supreme Court and City Hall, joined under a single roof in the Civic District. It holds more than 9,000 works, the largest public collection of Singaporean and Southeast Asian art from the 19th century to now.
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National Museum of Singapore
The country's oldest museum, which grew from a section of a library founded in 1849, now in a domed colonial building on Stamford Road. Its galleries tell the history and culture of Singapore from early times to the present.
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Newton Food Centre
An open-air hawker centre on Newton Circus, busiest in the evening. It is known for satay and for seafood stalls grilling stingray and cooking chilli crab, and it appeared in the film Crazy Rich Asians.
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Night Safari
The world's first zoo built for night, opened in 1994 in the forest at Mandai. A tram and walking trails lead after dark past animals of Asia and Africa, lit softly so that they keep to their nocturnal habits.
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Peranakan Museum
A museum on Armenian Street devoted to Peranakan culture, the mixed heritage of Chinese, Malay and other settlers in the Straits. It shows beadwork, embroidered kebaya, porcelain and wedding finery, and is the sister museum of the Asian Civilisations Museum.
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Punggol Waterway Park
A 12-hectare riverine park along Sentul Crescent in Punggol, following the man-made Punggol Waterway through the new town. It is laid out in four themed areas, with lawns, play spaces and promenades by the water.
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Reflections at Bukit Chandu
A Second World War interpretive centre on a hill off Pasir Panjang Road, run by the National Archives of Singapore. It recalls the stand made by the Malay Regiment on this ridge during the Battle of Pasir Panjang in 1942.
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River Wonders
A river-themed zoo and aquarium in Mandai, set between the Singapore Zoo and the Night Safari. Its exhibits follow great rivers such as the Amazon, the Mekong and the Yangtze, with a boat ride through the grounds and a pair of giant pandas.
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Saint John's Island
The largest of the Southern Islands in the Singapore Marine Park, 6.5 kilometres off the main island. Once a quarantine station, it is now a quiet place of lagoons, beaches and forest paths, linked by causeway to Lazarus Island.
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Science Centre Singapore
A hands-on science museum in Jurong East with more than 850 exhibits across eight galleries. It has drawn school groups and families since the late 1970s, and more than a million visitors come through every year.
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Singapore Cable Car
A gondola line from Mount Faber across Keppel Harbour to the resort island of Sentosa, opened in 1974. It was the second aerial ropeway in the world to span a harbour, after one in Barcelona, and its cabins pass high above the ships.
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Singapore Oceanarium
The successor to the S.E.A. Aquarium, one of the two main attractions of the Marine Life Park in Resorts World Sentosa. Its galleries are built around huge viewing panels into tanks of sharks, rays and reef fish from the world's oceans.
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Sisters' Islands
Two small islands south of the main island, Big Sister and Little Sister, separated by a narrow channel and reached by boat from Marina South Pier or West Coast Pier. Their reefs form a marine park, with intertidal walks among corals, clams and sea stars.
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Southern Ridges
Ten kilometres of trails linking a chain of parks along Singapore's southern ridge, from Kent Ridge Park to HarbourFront. Much of the walk runs on raised walkways and bridges among the treetops, including the wave-shaped Henderson Waves.
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Sri Krishnan Temple
A Hindu temple on Waterloo Street built in 1870, the only Tamil temple in Singapore dedicated to Krishna and his consort Rukmini. Many devotees also pray at the Chinese temple of Kuan Yin next door, a habit known locally as cross-worshipping.
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Sri Veeramakaliamman Temple
A temple to Kali in the middle of Little India, begun as a shrine in 1855 and built up as a temple by Bengali labourers in 1881. Its tower of painted figures rises over Serangoon Road, and it was known in its early days as Soonambu Kambam Kovil.
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Sungei Buloh Wetland Reserve
Mangroves, mudflats and ponds covering 130 hectares in the north-west of Singapore, the first wetland reserve gazetted in the country, in 2002. Migratory shorebirds stop here on their long flights, and boardwalks pass monitor lizards, mudskippers and the odd saltwater crocodile.
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The Battlebox
A bomb-proof command bunker dug under Fort Canning Hill, from which British commanders ran the defence of Malaya and Singapore in the Second World War. Its underground rooms are now a museum that retraces the last days before the surrender in 1942.
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The Helix Bridge
A pedestrian bridge across Marina Bay, linking Marina Centre with Marina South, opened in 2010. Its curving steel frame is shaped like the double helix of DNA and is lit up at night over the water of the bay.
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Tiong Bahru
The oldest housing estate in Singapore, built from the 1920s by the colonial Singapore Improvement Trust. Its low, curving Art Deco blocks now hold bakeries, independent shops and cafés, and its market is known for its hawker food.
Collecting in Singapore
What are the best places to visit in Singapore?
LOQAH lists 92 places in Singapore. The best known include National Orchid Garden, Singapore Botanic Gardens, Abdul Gaffoor Mosque, Armenian Church and Cathedral of the Good Shepherd. Each has a stamp of its own to collect when you are there.
How many LOQAH stamps are there in Singapore?
92, and more are added over time. Each place has LOQAH's carefully crafted stamp of its own.
How do I collect a stamp in Singapore?
Open LOQAH at the place and get its stamp. LOQAH checks where you are once, at that moment; at the place itself the stamp is confirmed on site, with a gold badge.
I have been to places in Singapore before. Can I add them?
Yes. In Earlier trips, choose Singapore and swipe through its stamps, or import your Google Timeline. Each one goes into your volume with the date, if you know it.
Collect your first stamp.
LOQAH is free on iPhone and Android, in India and 20 more countries, with more countries on the way. Stand at a place, collect its stamp, and keep every trip in a passport that grows.