🇸🇬 Singapore Was on Our Bucket List … But Is It Worth the Cost?

Loved you Singapore review. I have been there several times on business, but not for fun. My wife and I did what you did and travel full time. We're headed to Asia in November and will end up in Tokyo. We would like to extend our tour of Asia for a couple of months to slow travel. Do you have favorite places to go during a December to March time frame?

Hotel prices have really skyrocketed in the region since the pandemic. When discussing hotel prices, it&#39;s common for one to refer to them as pre-pandemic prices and post-pandemic prices. And a lot of these post-pandemic prices leave me speechless. in Japan, it&#39; was recently reported that post-pandemic hotel prices are up 60 %. I was there in summer 2017/2018/2019, but now the prices of my same hotels are sky high. <br> As for S.E. Asia, I came home one month before the 2020 global, pandemic shutdown, but still check prices and try to keep current in preparation for when I can get back to the region. I&#39;ve been back and forth, spending both short stays and very extended stays in Southeast Asia, nearly annually, starting from the late 1990s, and up to and into 2020. <br> Although I spend most of my time in Bangkok, I fly into Singapore from LAX on Singapore Air and then fly to Bangkok first for my longest stay and then to Malaysia, to rest up, and back to Singapore before eventually flying home. I travel the world female and solo and have been out and about starting at age seventeen in the early/mid-1970s. <br> As for Singapore, I usually stay there for up to two weeks and have stayed in a range of accommodations from 2-star to 5-star. For years of trips, I stayed at the YMCA International House Hotel at 1 Orchard Rd (Dhoby Gaut MRT Station). The Y Hotels around Asia are unisex and usually quite nice, but not automatically inexpensive.  A sibling will be coming home tomorrow from Asia and stayed at the Y hotel, in Hong Kong, a very famous one. She&#39;s there solo and first time to Asia although she&#39;s traveled to other continents over the decades. She loved her Y in Hong Kong. I recommended the hotel to her although I had never stayed at it, but I knew of it very well. So, when traveling also check out Y&#39;s. And also serviced apartment buildings which are common in Asia. <br> Serviced apartment buildings are run like hotels, however one basically gets an apartment, with a kitchen, but which are referred to as rooms in that part of the world. They are also connected to different companies, for example, the Discovery ASR group. Plus, one can collect points. The Dusit group also has serviced apartments globally. There are also other international serviced apartment groups. There&#39;s the Centrepoint chain of serviced apartments, which is very popular, along with smaller independent groups. <br> As for hotels in Singapore, for years I have also stayed at The Four Seasons Hotel on Orchard Blvd, above Orchard Road which is a 5-start hotel. For a hotel at that level, the prices were always excellent compared to Four Seasons hotels on other continents. Pre-pandemic, one could get a standard room, in high season, for around $325-$340 before tax. Now, it&#39;s around $510-$525 before tax. The owner of the hotel is Singaporean and lives in Singapore and would drop by the hotel. If one even tries to stay at a Four Seasons in Europe, expect $1,200-$2,000 a night before tax for a standard room. <br> Depending on where one is traveling to in the world, one could be staying at a 5-star hotel for less than a 2-star hotel in a different part of the world. So, don&#39;t let the star-rating keep one from searching prices and specials. Less than a year after the Four Seasons Hotel opened in Kuala Lumpur, in 2018, I paid in the mid-$200 range for a standard room with a great view. <br> There&#39;s a lot of choice out there, one just needs to shop around to find what fits one&#39;s own budget. And if one has hotel points or AmEx points, then use them when necessary. I don&#39;t have hotel points. <br> And as for flying between countries within Southeast Asia, I save my Singapore Air frequent flyer miles for that situation as it takes fewer mileage points for a free plane ticket within Asia than to use them to fly from the U.S. to Singapore. I like Singapore as my flight base as it&#39;s convenient and hassle free. Plus, with those mileage points, I can usually fly in both Economy Class and Business Class for free within the region. <br> In 2018, I flew from Singapore to Jakarta in Business Class for free, checked into the Four Seasons Hotel there for less than $250 a night a and all of the hotel rooms are suites with a huge, separate living room and a bathroom area nearly the length of the room. After Jakarta, I flew back to Singapore (free in Business Class) and to the Four Seasons Hotel, where they had stored my luggage as they knew that I would be back for some more days before flying home. So, when I arrived back, my luggage was already sitting in my new room. <br> In 2017, I wanted to go to Hong Kong for Chinese New Year/Lunar New Year. I cashed in my Singapore Air frequent flyer miles and flew off to Hong Kong for 4 days and then back to Singapore, where again, I had left my luggage, as not to need to drag it all to Hong Kong. I stayed some more days in Singapore and then finally flew home. So, always keep all options open and continue to check prices as they fluctuate at the drop of a dime. <br> I came upon your vlog accidentally and decided to watch it. Hope you had fun in Singapore. It&#39;s been interesting to watch it change over the decades of back-and-forth travel of going there. I have had some really good times in Singapore. <br> Hope this information is helpful. <br> Greetings from Los Angeles

Travel to Singapore to eat in the most expensive tourist trap hawker center (la pau sat), eat Australian Mexican fast food (guzman and gomez) then ate the western food in the hotel lounge...did you actually go to Singapore? Singapore is about the food the hawker centres all over town..

I was in Singapore in 2025 for 9 days and I would fully agree with your assessment. You did very well controlling your costs. I didn&#39;t fare quite as well. We stayed at the Hilton - Orchard for 6 nights and at the Swissotel for the last 3 nights. I believe the Hilton rate was about $300/night plus taxes and the Swissotel was about $600 per night plus taxes. That was very expensive for me. But, we enjoyed both hotels very much. The views from the Swissotel were pretty spectacular each evening. We also attended the evening light show in that giant fake forest. Very nice experience. <br><br>Did you guys take the opportunity to go over to terminal 3 (i think) to see the indoor arboretum and waterfall? That was amazing and all inside the air terminal. The airport tram passed through it also and slowed down, so passengers could take photos. So, Singapore is expensive, especially for Asia, but it is one of my favorite places to visit.

The most youthful and cool retirees I have ever seen! 😊😊 Nice video and enjoy your travels. I love Singapore and have been there a few times, essentially just staying in budget hotels and then eat at hawker centres and take the excellent public transportation like buses and the MRT. Budget hotels made sense as I am only in my room at night, so, pointless to stay in pricey hotels. It is also such a safe city-state. Best wishes to both of you from London.

I was familiar with this strategy of doing short stays at expensive cities, but I had not idea that the food, transportaion and entertainment were so affordable in Singapore! I&#39;m always learning something new from your videos! Thank you! David and Lisa.

Nicely done! Budgets are important but the point of traveling is to visit places you want to go, so it&#39;s worth allocating and prioritizing for the things that are important to you. Singapore is on my bucket list. I would have suggested splurging on a stop at the Raffles hotel for a couple of Singapore Slings though. Do you think it&#39;s feasible to stay there longer on a budget, maybe by renting an Airbnb apartment in a close-in suburb?

Love Singapore and been many times as a stopover between Australia and Europe, as well as other Asian destinations. One of the tricks to keep costs down is time of year - when there are events, hotel costs quadruple! If I could go next week I can get a simple hotel with pool between $60 and 80. Early October jumps to $250+ 😢. If you eat in any food court there are plenty of options around $3-5. Museums run by the govt are generally free, and there are some privately run museums which charge a modest fee. Trips to places such as Pulau Ubin, one of the last remaining traditional villages will only cost $8 return for the ferry ftom Changi. Pro tip: if you buy the Singapore pass on Grab for $1, it usually includes free bike rental from Hellobike.

I would say that it&#39;s worth spending more to do full month in a place once you don&#39;t make it a regular fixture and do the kinda budgetary damage that is not easily repaired with small cutbacks in a couple other locations. A place like Singapore can fit the rotation once every 3 years or so.

Singapore is notorious as extremely expensive. $137/night is a great deal there at a decent hotel. I think that visiting Singapore is important to really get to know Southeast Asia since it&#39;s such an important regional hub. But it&#39;s not a place to stay a whole month. 1-2 weeks is perfect to really get a feel for the small city-state. And plan intensive immersion in that period. You can have relaxation after in Vietnam, Thailand or Indonesia