Are you wondering where you should go during your free time? While some of you may be wondering there is not much to do, I would ask you to think twice. If you love adventuring, or even if you want to try something new and get out of your comfort zone, you will love this piece! There are so many hiking spots in Singapore that you have yet to discover from easy trails to challenging trails. Here are the top 5 Singapore public parks you should visit!
Windsor Nature Park
Photo credit: Jonathan Choo, ST Photo
If you want to start with something light, you should visit Windsor Nature Park. This park offers four different routes for you to choose from! From bringing your pets to a stroll for wheelchair accessibility, this park allows everyone to enjoy their unique view and get a breath of fresh air. The Hanguana Trail is a handicap-friendly trail for anyone to visit. Get a sight of the freshwater stream beside the path, ten native plant species, and look out for birds, monitor lizards, and even wild boars as you tread along this 350m trail which would take you an estimate of 10 minutes!
Photo credit: NParks
Bring your furry friends along the Venus Loop trail for all the animal lovers out there! With an estimated time of 45 minutes, you can stroll along this 1.8km pathway and spend this time with your beloved furry friends as you look out for scenic views!
Photo credit: Kimberly Lai
Do you want to see the best part of Windsor Nature Park? Then you should visit their Squirrel and Drongo Trail! Taking an estimate of an hour to complete this 2.2km trail, keep your eyes up peeled as you see the forest at a sub-canopy level which is made up of smaller trees that grow in the shade! Did you know that almost half of the 122 dragonfly species can be seen in the area? The marshes and streams allow them to make this place the perfect environment to live in! Look out for monkeys and monitor lizards around you.
Photo credit: Kimberly Lai
If you want to enjoy the whole experience, you can take the trail to TreeTop Walk, which follows the three tracks starting from the Hanguana Trail to the Squirrel and Drongo Trail, which shows you directions to the 2km Treetop Walk.
Punggol Waterway Park
Photo credit: Ramesh Kurup
Once you are ready to move on from the novice trails, you can visit Punggol Waterway Park. Consisting of 3 different routes from easy to moderate, this park allows you to choose the best-suited path. Headed towards the Lor Halus Bridge, the Punggol Promenade Nature Trail takes an estimate of 30 minutes to finish 1.2km. You can also bring your bicycles to ride around the area or enjoy walking around this nature trail, taking some time off for yourself.
The Punggol Waterway trail is an alternative which is a 4.0km walk for you to unwind along the beautiful river. Taking an estimate of 70 minutes, you can choose to run, ride your bicycle, or walk along the bridge and exercise.
Photo credit: NParks
Taking an estimate of 3 hours, the 10.6km Punggol Waterway Loop allows you to stretch your legs and enjoy a moderate-level hike. Get to explore all of Punggol Waterway Park with this entire trail, especially as you look out for wildlife along the way! This whole experience is made flexible for you and your companions, with four different park sections for you to check out, such as The Green Gallery, Recreation Zone, Nature Cove, and Heritage Zone. Do check out the water playground, especially if you have children tagging along with you!
Mandai T15 Trail
Photo credit: Ray Chong
Another underrated hiking trail you need to check out is the Mandai T15 trail! Also known as the Gangsa trail, it stretches from Mandai to Chestnut Nature Park. This 7.1km trail will take approximately 3 hours to complete. Starting at the entrance, you will be able to see the three iconic signs of Singapore’s attractions: Singapore Zoo, Night Safari, and River Wonders! This trail is popular among bikers and is considered easy to ride around. So do look out for them as you hike since it is a single trail shared between bikers and hikers.
Photo credit: Cheekiemonkies
As the trail is family-friendly, you can bring your children with you on weekends! Younger children are also encouraged to come with you as the distance should be all right for them. There are many entrances for you to start with. The southern entrance leads you to Chestnut Nature Park, another park with multiple trails for you to continue your journey. Or you could choose to start from the signage labelled as Bukit Panjang entrance.
Lastly, you can start from the northern entrance located at the junction of Mandai Road and Mandai Lake, which is the road leading to Singapore Zoo. Since this trail guides in the same direction, you can ensure that you would not stray away. In the southern part of the trail, you will get to see a few wildlife animals such as mouse deer, oriental whip snakes, birds, and many more around the corner. Please note that the trees grow food for the animals, hence it would be wise not to disturb them.
Photo credit: Ray Chong
Unfortunately, a few areas have been marked as out of bounds, such as the firing range for NS. Others are categorised as causing damages to the forest floor.
MacRitchie Reservoir
Photo credit: NParks
Now that we have covered the easy to moderate trails, let us dive into our moderate to challenging paths for you to try! I’m sure you have heard of MacRitchie as one of the most popular trekking places in Singapore. With a wide variety of trails to choose from, MacRitchie Reservoir allows you to customise your journey from novice to challenging trails. Starting with the easy trails, you have the Prunus and Petai trail, also known as the green trail, which you can hike within an estimate of 1 hour since it only covers 3km of the whole reservoir. Make sure to look out for turtles and monitor lizards nearby.
The Lornie trail, also known as the purple trail, is a 4.8km trail that is slightly longer than the green trail, taking 2 hours. You get to walk on a boardwalk near the edge of the reservoir to get an up-close glimpse of the water.
Photo credit: Sassy Mama
Once you have completed the purple trail, you can up the game by moving towards the orange path, which interlinks with Windsor Nature Park’s Venus Link! You will walk about 4.8km around the area, which should take you about 3 to 4 hours. Head to the Treetop Walk to experience the breath-taking view of the park above 25m on the bridge!
If you wish to experience the Treetop Walk and see the wildlife along the Prunus and Petai trail, you should take the blue path will take approximately 4 to 5 hours since it covers about 10.3km of the reservoir.
Photo credit: Lester Ng
Up for a challenge? Embark on the yellow and pink trail to get the whole adventure of Macritchie Reservoir! Going along the Lornie trail and Nature trail, the yellow path is about 11km long, looping around the reservoir. At a moderate level, this trail is estimated at 4 hours long. Meanwhile, the pink track is rendered as a difficult trail, possibly due to the terrain in the area, which surprisingly covers 9.5km of the reservoir. Starting from the Nature trail, it leads you to the other side of the course, the Rifle Range Link.
Do take your time to unwind embrace nature as you look out for more wildlife such as flying lemurs, tree frogs, and long-tailed macaque monkeys hiding in plain sight.
Coast to Coast Trail
Photo credit: NParks
Are you ready to go all out and get the best experience by exploring Singapore? This Coast-to-Coast trail is 36 km long and takes a whopping 7 hours or more, depending on how fast you trek. There are many ways you can start this journey, or you can also choose to break this trail up into shorter distances! Starting from Jurong Lake Gardens to Lower Seletar Reservoir Park, there are ten different trails you can embark on.
Photo credit: NParks Coast to Coast Trail App
While on this journey, many of us might get lost unintentionally. You can be sure to stay on track by downloading the “Coast to Coast” (C2C) guide app as recommended by National Parks (NParks). Within each checkpoint, there are many places you need to visit! Feel free to check them out in the app itself.
This journey gets your interests piqued and keeps you motivated to finish this trail from various parks to memorial sites. Note that the Jurong Park Connector in checkpoint one has temporarily been closed until June 2022 for development works. Look out for quests and earn points from the app during your hike.
Summary
With that, we hope this piece was helpful in guiding you to the various trails you can hike at according to your preference. You can check out NParks’ website to find out more about these individual parks here. As you jump on this adventure to explore Singapore, make sure you are well prepared for your journeys by hydrating and eating well. You should also check the weather forecast a day before your trip so that you can prepare beforehand.
Enjoy your journey and let us know your thoughts in the comments below! If you would like to check out Singapore, feel free to check out our website for tours that we offer here.
