Our first major long haul trip as a couple was to Bali in 2013. We were flying Singapore Airlines and I discovered both that Singapore had the highest rated airport in the world and also that Singapore was one of the highest rated stopover destinations globally. As such at the end of our 22 days in Bali, I decided to add an eight hour stopover in Singapore.
Singapore has a lot of advantages as a stopover destination. The first is its small size. This means you can get almost anywhere in the entire country very quickly. The second advantage is its great transport network. It has a metro system (the MRT) that can take you from the airport directly downtown in under an hour, regulated taxis and many ride hailing apps; giving you lots of options to get from place to place.
Singapore Changi Flower Garden 
Singapore Changi Butterfly Garden
We landed at approximately 4PM and started exploring the airport. We visited the numerous flower gardens, then the butterfly gardens before trying to find our way through immigration and onto a train to downtown Singapore
We then visited Marina Bay for sightseeing and made our way leisurely to chinatown.
Standing in front the Merlion and Marina Bay Sands
In chinatown we ate at both the Maxwell Food Centre and the Chinatown Complex Food Centre before making our way back to the bay to take in the free light and water show at the Marina Bay Sands, and the late night lights of Singapore.
Following our exploration we were exhausted and headed back to the airport ready for our flight back to London. We really enjoyed our time in Singapore, and this stopover gave me one of my favourite food memories, eating at Tian Tian Hainanese Chicken Rice. We have revisited Singapore since this stopover and would probably do a couple things differently if we were to plan this again.
- We had a pretty horrible flight after this stopover, being tormented by a child who had flown in from Sydney, whilst we were hoping to catch up on sleep. I would advise stopping over on the way in rather than the way out to Singapore, since if you are travelling in Economy, you have much less control over your ability to sleep and the behaviour of people around you.
- Hawker centres can be quite overwhelming due to the large number of stalls inside, it helps if you can figure out what you want, or just join a long line containing locals, since they probably know what is good.
- When clearing immigration in Singapore, you need to clear in the same terminal your flight landed in, even though transfers between terminals are very easy. This can save you from wasting time.
