I arrived in Singapore expecting a shopping mall with an airport attached, and I left a week later with sore legs, a notebook full of hawker stall numbers and a roll of film that was mostly trees. The city is famous for its glass towers and its rules, but what stays with me is how much of it is still forest, how many temples stand side by side on a single street, and how seriously everyone takes lunch. It rewards walking, even in the heat, as long as you start early and duck into the cool when the sun is high.
These twenty routes are how I learned the island: neighbourhood walks, food trails, rainforest loops, boat rides to small islands and a couple of trips across the water to Malaysia and Indonesia. Most need only half a day and an MRT card. Leave space for the afternoon thunderstorms; they pass, and the evenings are long and warm.
