Things To Do in Singapore & Singapore Changi Airport Layover Ideas

Although the Singapore Airport is located outside of the city centre, the MRT train provides you a Singapore airport transfer that gets you into the city centre quickly and efficiently. There's lots to see and experience, so take advantage of any extra time to see what you can.

Take the free city tour
If you have over 5 hours to spare, there are two free city tours, both 2 hours long. The daytime Heritage Tour is offered four times a day (09:00, 11:30, 14:30, 16:00), while the City Lights Tour is offered once daily (18:30). Check in at the Singapore Visitor Centre in any terminal at the Singapore Airport.

Shop

Shopping is second only to eating as a national pastime; low taxes and tariffs on imports coupled with huge volume mean that prices are usually very competitive. While you won't find any bazaars with dirt-cheap local handicrafts (in fact, virtually everything sold in Singapore is made elsewhere), goods are generally of reasonably good quality and shopkeepers are generally quite honest due to strong consumer protection laws. Orchard is the main shopping street.

Take in a museum
The Bras Basah area, east of the Orchard area and north of the Singapore River, is Singapore's colonial core, with historical buildings and museums.

One of the finest is the The Singapore Art Museum. The SAM has amassed one of the world's largest public collection of modern and contemporary Southeast Asian artworks. Housed in a restored 19th century mission school, the museum draws from its collection and collaborates with leading international museums - including  the Centre Pompidou and Guggenheim Museum.

The museum was borne out of a project to set up a five-museum precinct in the city that includes the Singapore History Museum, Asian Civilisations Museum, People's Museum and the Children's Museum. The Bras Basah area, east of the Orchard area and north of the Singapore River, is Singapore's colonial core, with historical buildings and museums.

Take a bumboat
Tourist-oriented "bumboats" cruise the Singapore River, offering point-to-point rides and cruises with nice views of the skyscraper skyline. Bumboats also shuttle passengers from Changi Village to Pulau Ubin, a small island off Singapore's northeast coast which is about as close as Singapore gets to unhurried rural living.

Exercise your free access to the casinos
Singapore has two integrated resorts with casinos. Marina Bay Sands at Marina Bay is the larger and swankier of the two, while Resorts World Sentosa at Sentosa aims for a more family-friendly experience. While locals (citizens and permanent residents) have to pay $100/day to get in, foreign visitors can enter for free after presenting their passport.

Catch some rays
Head to one of the three beaches on Sentosa or its southern islands.

Go golfing
Despite its small size, Singapore has a surprisingly large number of golf courses. Those open to the public include the Sentosa Golf Club, the famously challenging home of the Barclays Singapore Open, and the Marina Bay Golf Course, the only 18-hole public course.

Take in the award winning airport features
Even if you are stuck in the Singapore Airport, there are plenty of ways to kill time, as each Changi terminal has a unique design and the airside areas of T1, T2, and T3 are attractions in themselves.

• T2, arguably the most interesting, has an indoor garden, a music listening area with couches and mood lighting, a computer gaming room, a small movie theater, paid massage services, and of course plenty of duty-free shops.
• T3, the newest, has a butterfly garden and plenty of natural light, but fewer entertainment options.
• T1 has a swimming pool and jacuzzi, both open until 23:00.
• You can travel between Changi's main terminals without passing through immigration and, if you have no checked-in luggage to collect, you can clear passport control and customs at any Changiterminal.
• The Budget Terminal, on the other hand, is strictly functional.

Important note: Singapore has very strict drug laws, and drug trafficking carries a mandatory death penalty — which is also applied to foreigners. Even if you technically haven't entered Singapore and are merely transiting (i.e. changing flights without the need to clear passport control and customs) while in possession of drugs, you would still be subject to capital punishment. The paranoid might also like to note that in Singapore, it is an offence even to have any drug metabolites in your system, even if they were consumed outside Singapore, and Customs occasionally does spot urine tests at the airport!

And... homosexual activity is also banned. Be very careful to avoid public displays of affection.

As always, make sure you leave plenty of time to get back to the Singapore Airport and clear security in time for your connecting flight. Enjoy your transit city rather than whiling away the time leaning up against your luggage in the departures lounge.