Malacca, Cameron Highlands, Batu Caves
Intended For: One 3yo, one 6yo, Mum and Dad.
Overview: Hire a car at Johor Bahru and drive up to the Cameron Highlights. See farms. Experience coolish weather. Drink tea and coffee. Road trip, baby!
Strengths: Road trip, baby! Cameron Highlands are reportedly a good getaway for the city kid. Budget-friendly, flexible, no-fly holiday. Hire car will also help cushion any culture shock. Side trips to Malacca, Legoland and Batu Caves to smooth the road trip. And let’s not forget the biggest strength – it’s a road trip! (And to a place where they grow tea.)
Forseeable difficulties and mitigating strategies: When I first asked Dad what he thought of doing a Malaysian road trip, he said, “That’s a great idea! Kids in the back seat, suitcase in the boot… I could even meet up with you at the end!” So… I guess one foreseeable difficulty might be convincing Dad to come along on the road trip.
Mum will have to drive on Malaysian roads, unless she can somehow convince Grandad to get involved. Having seen what it’s like on Malaysian roads, I’m just about ready to suck it up and I’m sure I’ll get used to it, more or less.
Driving escalates towards end of holiday. In the past what has worked has been front-loading the driving, and tapering off towards the end as the kids lose patience with it. The hope is that the kids will stick with us for the big Legoland finish (and that they won’t lose patience with the driving so much if we don’t front-load it as heavily).
Estimated Price Bracket: Low. Car hire does bump up the cost a bit.
Itinerary:
Day One
- Taxi/private hire vehicle to Johor Bahru
- Pick up hire car
- Drive to Cameron Highlands – 430km – expect to average 50km/hr with kids under five, and allowing for the windy mountain roads at the end = 8.6 (say 9) hours of driving. This means we should split the driving over two days, possibly with a two-night (one day) stop in Malacca, which doesn’t take us too far off track.
- Overnight Malacca
Day Two
- At leisure in Malacca
- Overnight in Malacca
Day Three
- Drive to Cameron Highlands
- Overnight Cameron Highlands
Days Four, Five
- At leisure in Cameron Highlands
- Tea plantation, strawberry farm, mountain scenery, casual hiking
- Overnight in Cameron Highlands (3 nights total)
Day Six
- Drive south
- Stop at Batu Caves (just north of KL)
- Get a few more miles south, stop at random location overnight
Day Seven
- South again to JB
- Overnight in JB
Day Eight
- Legoland
- Return car in JB
- Home to Singapore (taxi/private hire vehicle)
Day Nine
- Spare day for contingencies like breaking down, getting lost, or deciding not to follow the above plan. After all, it is a road trip.
But seriously, who doesn’t like a road trip?
Update: I’ve been following the adventures of Madeline, David, Lillian, and Edward through Malaysia via their blog. They’re also going from Singapore through Malacca (Malaka) and KL, although not so much as a road trip.
We are currently doing some research into locations we may want to catch up with the extended family next, so I have been checking your blog also for ideas (at the moment hoping to meet somewhere over there). Needs to be a place it is easy to get reasonable flights to from several locations, relatively affordable, safe, maybe even touristy to make it easier on less traveled relatives, and easy to book several rooms/bungalows in. Singapore and Bangkok would be easy but as we’ve done those, we are looking at other options. Do you have suggestions? So far I think Langkawi and Bintan island are high on our list.
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Hm.
Gosh.
Bintan we’ve never been to (this shocks most people) but it could definitely work and if you go there I’d check the back of the island (away from the main resort area) for something a bit more laid back (also less expensive). It would be a short ferry ride from Singapore so easy to get to.
Langkawi we’ve also never been to (for some reason we keep missing the obvious places) but it has lots of good reviews from families. Most people get there by short flight from Singapore, so as long as you’re opening up the prospect of short onward flights…
You could always go somewhere in Thailand away from Bangkok? The north of Thailand is a place I long to return to and has lots of variety. Three To Go is there at the moment and could give you some good tips.
http://andthreetogo.wordpress.com
Penang is one of my other posts – I could definitely recommend that. (Penang Momma lives there so check her blog for more info. http://penangmomma.com )
I take it you don’t want to go as far afield as somewhere like Cambodia or Vietnam (now talking 2hr flights from Singapore – similar distance is Indonesia/Philippines)? Siem Reap (2hr direct flight) is set up for all types of travellers and Cambodia is one of my favourite places.
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Langkawi and Bintan are on the list just because they would be easy to get to, are relatively known and Singapore has good connections everywhere where as Finland- Vietnam/Cambodia doesn’t seem to be a main route based on the possible connections (and prices)…;) I’d be quite interested in both otherwise. Onward flights are ok as long as not too much time is consumed on those as we are not too sure how much holidays we’ll get. Penang definitively looks like something to look into, thanks! I’ll look into the Penang Momma blog too, sounds good. And I do love andthreetogo’s blog too, I guess Thailand is not out ruled yet either, it has loads to offer, but as I’ve done my months of backpacking there back in the days I’m keen on looking at other options. But thanks for this!
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Yes, you might end up having to do your own side-trip to Cambodia/Vietnam (I think that’s how we ended up doing it when we went to Cambodia from Brisbane – separate flight via Singapore with a separate airline.) AirAsia and Jetstar go to Siem Reap and can have good fares. But with somewhere like Penang you can more easily get it bundled in (say if you flew Malaysian Airlines to KL).
There are actually quite a lot of beach resorts around Malaysia. Pulau Sibu is one I’ve written about which is a three hour drive plus the ferry ride (about 4hrs total) from Singapore (door to door). Maybe check out that option, too.
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