Singapore: My First Solo Trip Abroad

I decided to go to Singapore because I had always wanted to travel abroad.

That was the simple reason.

Singapore felt like the perfect first step. It was close. It was small. It felt manageable. And most importantly, it was affordable.

Cost was a major factor. I remember checking flights and seeing a round trip for around Rs 18,000. That felt like a bargain. It was almost the same as paying Rs 8,000 to Rs 9,000 one way. For a first international trip, that made the decision easier than I expected.

But the day before I left, the confidence disappeared.

I was nervous.

Very nervous.

It was my first solo trip. It was abroad. I did not know what to expect, and I had almost no real plan. Usually that sounds irresponsible, but looking back, maybe that was the best decision I made. Some of the best moments I had in Singapore happened because there was no plan to protect me from them.

I was in Singapore for around three to four days, but the first day alone felt like a full trip.

I left Bangalore around 11 PM and landed in Singapore around 4:30 or 5 in the morning.

During the flight, I met someone from Gujarat. We started talking, and somehow we kept talking for the entire flight. Later I found out he was a director at Eli Lilly, which surprised me because I did not expect someone in that position to talk to me like an old friend.

After we landed, he bought me breakfast because he felt I had not slept properly.

That was my first small lesson of the trip.

Sometimes strangers are not strangers for very long.

The Smoothest Immigration I Have Ever Seen

Singapore immigration amazed me.

Before traveling, you have to register on a portal a few days earlier. Once you land, you just insert your passport into a machine, follow the process, and you are through.

No drama.

No long queue.

No human involvement.

From landing to exiting immigration and reaching the gate, it probably took five to ten minutes. The actual passport scan felt like one minute.

I was standing there thinking, how is this so smooth?

It felt like the country had quietly removed every unnecessary step from the experience. For someone traveling alone for the first time, that mattered. I did not have to figure out too much. I did not have to ask too many people. I just followed the system, and the system worked.

Now I was officially in Singapore.

And I had no idea what to do.

My hotel check-in was at 2 PM.

I landed at 5 AM.

I do not know who decided that hotel check-in should be at 2 PM and check-out should be at 10 AM, but I have questions. Serious questions.

First Train, First Tap

I took the metro from the airport to Bencoolen Street with the friend I had just made on the flight. That is an important detail because this was still a solo trip. I had not traveled with him. I had not planned anything with him. We just met on the flight, spoke for hours, landed in the same country, and somehow the first morning of my solo trip already had company.

He had booked a hostel a few blocks away from Bencoolen, and I had booked a hotel.

The first thing that stood out was how easy public transport was.

In many places, you have to buy tickets, understand zones, recharge some card, or stand at a counter and ask someone what to do. In Singapore, if you have a Visa or Mastercard, you just tap and go.

Debit card. Credit card. Anything that supports tap.

That is it.

I was a tourist from another country, and I did not need to buy a separate pass or talk to anyone. I used my HDFC card, tapped it, and the gate opened.

And it was not just the metro. The same tap-and-go system worked on buses too. Even vending machines felt simple in that same way. You keep expecting a tourist problem to appear somewhere, but Singapore keeps removing those small frictions before they become problems.

That kind of integration is underrated. It makes the city easier for locals, but it also makes it less intimidating for someone like me, landing alone, half asleep, and trying to figure out a new country from scratch.

Day One: Pulau Ubin

For the first day, we decided to go to Pulau Ubin for cycling and exploring.

The problem was luggage.

We needed clean clothes. We needed a place to keep our bags. My hotel check-in was still far away, and carrying luggage around the whole day made no sense. The locker was around Rs 2,000 per day, which did not feel worth it. So we went to his hostel, kept the luggage there, used whatever locker option we could, found a random bathroom, took a bath, refreshed ourselves, and left for Pulau Ubin.

That sentence sounds slightly chaotic because the whole morning was slightly chaotic.

But that is also what made it fun.

Pulau Ubin was beautiful in a very different way from the city. Singapore in my head was clean trains, tall buildings, glass, lights, and everything working perfectly. Pulau Ubin felt slower. Greener. A little rougher around the edges.

We rented cycles and rode around the island. I think we covered around 15 to 20 km. There was something freeing about it. No heavy itinerary. No pressure to see everything. Just cycling, sweating, stopping, drinking water, laughing, and moving again.

We had lunch there and returned later.

A lot happened on that first day, but what I remember most is the feeling of being tired in a good way. The kind of tiredness that comes from actually living the day instead of just passing through it.

After Pulau Ubin, the trip became less like a checklist and more like a series of small decisions.

The Following Days

The next few days were not planned like a proper itinerary.

I would wake up, look at the map, decide one area, and leave. Sometimes I would go because the place was famous. Sometimes because it was nearby. Sometimes because I was bored and the train made it easy to go anywhere.

I kept one of the following days mostly for Sentosa. I visited Universal Studios first, with all its proper tourist energy: families, photos, attractions, people walking around with plans.

Later in Sentosa, I also tried the giant swing and bungee jump.

Exhilarating is the polite word.

The adrenaline was too much, but in the best way. For a few seconds, there was no thought, no plan, no travel philosophy, only gravity and regret arriving together.

Sadly, I do not have photos from it because the photos cost around Rs 15,000.

At that price, I decided the memory can stay in 4K inside my brain only.

Moving Through The City

That is one thing I liked about Singapore. The country is small, but it does not feel empty. You can move from one kind of place to another very quickly. One moment you are around clean station exits and office buildings. Then you are near the water. Then you are inside a mall. Then you are walking somewhere that feels built only for tourists. Then you take a train again and the city changes mood.

I also spent a lot of time just moving through the city. Bencoolen, Bugis, waterfront areas, malls, train stations, random streets. I do not remember every name properly now, but I remember the feeling of the city being extremely easy to move through.

That helped because I was alone.

When you are alone in a new country, small difficulties become bigger in your head. Where do I go? How do I pay? What if I miss the stop? What if I cannot find food? Singapore reduced a lot of that stress. The city did not make me feel brave. It made it easier to try.

The only big thing I skipped was the zoo.

Maybe the zoo can stay as an excuse to go again.

Vegetarian Problems In A Very Efficient Country

Food was slightly hard for me because I am vegetarian.

Singapore has a lot of food, but finding vegetarian food without thinking too much was not always easy.

At one point, I went to McDonald's and asked what vegetarian options they had.

They said coffee.

Coffee.

That was the vegetarian option.

I did not know whether to laugh or file a complaint on behalf of all vegetarians.

But there were also good food moments. I visited Five Guys for the first time, and the quantity of fries genuinely surprised me. The taste was excellent too. I had heard about it before, but eating it after walking around all day made it hit differently.

Sometimes travel memories are not monuments.

Sometimes they are just fries.

Kopi And Kannada

One day I went to get coffee. I do not remember the place name now, but I remember the moment clearly.

I was standing in line, looking at the menu, completely clueless.

Singapore has its own coffee culture. Kopi, kopi-c, kopi-o, kopi-m, and many more variations. I was trying to understand what any of it meant, and my face probably showed that I was lost.

So I asked the person in front of me.

He looked at me and asked where I was from.

I said Bangalore.

The moment I said that, he got excited and started speaking in Kannada.

That is one of the strangest and nicest feelings when you are outside India. You are standing in another country, confused about coffee, and suddenly your language finds you.

He told me to sit. He said it was his treat. He bought me kopi and an omelette, and we spoke for around 30 to 35 minutes.

Later I found out he was a Senior VP at JPMC.

Again, I was surprised.

Not because of the title alone, but because of how normal the conversation felt. No performance. No ego. Just two people talking over coffee because one person looked confused and the other decided to help.

Streets, Photos, And The Fear Of Asking

But solo travel teaches you one very specific skill.

You have to get over the fear of asking strangers to take your photo.

There is no other option.

Unless you have a tripod, you either take selfies forever or you ask someone. I must have asked at least 10 to 15 people to take my photos during the trip.

And God bless them, most of them took good photos.

At first it felt awkward.

You look at someone, calculate whether they seem approachable, rehearse the sentence in your head, and then ask, "Can you take one picture?"

After a few times, it becomes normal. You stop treating it like a big thing. You realize most people are fine with it. Some even put effort into it. They step back, adjust the angle, take two or three photos, and suddenly a stranger has become part of your trip for 20 seconds.

Singapore Drink, Couple At The Bar

One evening, I wanted to try the Singapore Sling. I went to the place that was famous for it, and before going in, I asked a couple to take my photo. I think they were from the subcontinent, and they gladly took it.

Then they started talking to me.

Where are you from?

Are you alone?

How is Singapore?

We started chatting, and somehow we hit it off immediately. When we went inside the bar, they asked me to sit with them.

We spoke for more than 30 to 40 minutes.

About life. About work. About travel. About whatever strangers talk about when there is no pressure to meet again.

I think they were from America. The man was a director at Bank of America, and his wife was a senior vice president at Morgan Stanley.

At this point, I had stopped being shocked by the titles.

The trip had already taught me that you meet all kinds of people when you are alone. Maybe because you are more open. Maybe because people are kinder than we assume. Maybe because when you do not travel inside a group, the world gets more chances to enter.

I think that is what made the solo trip worth it.

Not only Singapore.

The conversations.

Clarke Quay At 11 PM

I passed through Clarke Quay more than once, but the night I remember most was the second night.

On the second night, I got bored around 11 PM.

I could have slept.

That would have been the responsible thing to do.

Instead, I woke up, went to Clarke Quay, entered some random pub, and danced my ass off.

It was fun.

That is the whole explanation.

Sometimes the memory does not need a lesson attached to it.

It was just fun.

What I Took Back

Every day in Singapore, I met someone new.

Someone on a flight.

Someone in a coffee line.

Someone outside a bar.

Someone who took a photo.

Someone who treated me like I was not alone, even though technically I was.

Before this trip, solo travel sounded like doing everything by yourself.

After Singapore, I think solo travel is something else.

It is traveling without a fixed circle around you.

It is giving the world more openings.

You notice more. You ask more. You get lost more. You talk to people you would never have spoken to if you had gone with a group. And because nobody already knows you there, you also get to meet a version of yourself without the usual context.

Singapore was my first solo trip abroad.

I went with no proper plan.

I came back with stories I could not have planned even if I tried.

And honestly, I would do it again.