MacRitchie Reservoir Park, Singapore

Getty Images/Flickr Open

MacRitchie Reservoir

Top choice in Singapore


MacRitchie Reservoir makes for a calming, evocative jungle escape. Walking trails skirt the water's edge and snake through the mature secondary rainforest spotted with long-tailed macaques and huge monitor lizards. You can rent kayaks at the Paddle Lodge, but the highlight is the excellent 11km walking trail and its various well-signposted offshoots. Aim for the TreeTop Walk, the highlight of which is traversing a 250m-long suspension bridge, perched 25m up in the forest canopy.

Trails then continue through the forest and around the reservoir, sometimes on dirt tracks, sometimes on wooden boardwalks. It takes three to four hours to complete the main circuit. From the service centre (which has changing facilities and a small cafe), near where the bus drops you off, start walking off to your right (anticlockwise around the lake) and you'll soon reach the Paddle Lodge. TreeTop Walk is around 3.5km beyond this.