Malaysia is two trips in one. Book both properly.
Which Batu Caves tour leaves before the coaches. Where the Selangor fireflies actually are. What a Kinabalu climb costs once the permit is in. Every tour in the country, read before you book.
The most-reviewed days in Malaysia, from Batu Caves to the Kilim karst.
Every review →Ranked by the number of travellers who came back and rated them. Nothing here is a guess about what is popular.
1
Private Half-Day Batu Caves and Cutural Tour in Kuala Lumpur
Private half-day Kuala Lumpur tour to Batu Caves, Thean Hou Temple, Masjid Negara plus KL stops, with hotel pickup and English guide.
From · $35
Read our review →
2
Sambal Streets Kuala Lumpur Food Tour with 15+ Tastings
from $55
3
Historical Melaka Day Tour with Lunch
from $42
4
Historical Malacca Guided Day Tour (Shared Tour)
from $32
5
Sambal Street Food Tour with 15+ Tastings
from $53
6
Batu Caves Cultural Temple Tour
from $34
7
Genting Highland & Batu Cave Guided Day Tour (SIC/Shared Tour)
from $35
8
Petronas Twin Towers Entry E-Ticket
from $33
Kuala Lumpur is the base whether you planned it that way or not.
All Kuala Lumpur tours →
Half the country’s tours leave from KL, including most of the day trips people think of as separate destinations: Malacca, the Cameron tea hills, Genting, the Selangor river. Pick the base first, then the days.
Hawker stalls, sambal and fifteen tastings
Chinatown’s stalls, an Indian-Muslim mamak counter and a night market, walked with someone who orders for you. Come hungry and skip lunch.
Malacca, Cameron Highlands, Genting
The three day trips that fill a spare KL day. Malacca is river and shophouses, the Cameron Highlands are tea terraces and a three-hour climb, Genting is cloud and a cable car.
Towers, mosques and the old railway station
Merdeka Square, the Moorish-revival station, the National Mosque and the Petronas base, with the colonial and Malay layers explained rather than pointed at.
Batu Caves is a working temple with 272 steps.
The Sri Subramaniar Swamy Temple sits inside a limestone hill on the edge of Kuala Lumpur, and people climb those steps to pray, not for the view. It is the single most visited thing on this site.
- Dress
- Shoulders and knees covered. Sarongs are available at the foot of the steps for a small deposit.
- Cost
- The main cave shrine is free to enter. The Ramayana and Dark caves alongside it charge separately.
- The climb
- 272 steps, no lift, and no shade until the top. Early morning is cooler and quieter.
- The macaques
- They live on the staircase and will take food straight out of your hand. Carry nothing loose.
Thaipusam, the festival the temple is best known for, is a pilgrimage rather than an event with tickets, and nothing on this site sells access to it.
Tours that visit Batu Caves →Fireflies, karst, tea hills and hawker stalls: the Malaysian days people plan around.
A handful of days carry most itineraries here. These are the ones travellers book first, each with the full comparison behind it.
On the Selangor river, the trees light up.
An hour and a half north-west of Kuala Lumpur, the mangroves at Kampung Kuantan and Bukit Belimbing hold one of the larger firefly colonies in Asia. Boats go out after nightfall, engines off, and the bank flickers. Many of the same trips add the bioluminescent plankton locals call blue tears.
In George Town, breakfast is the itinerary.
Char kway teow before nine, a clan house at mid-morning, the funicular up Penang Hill when the heat lands. The island is small enough to eat across in a day and dense enough to need a guide who knows which stall is open which morning.
- 1Penang Plates Food Tour with 15+ Tastingsfrom $49
- 2Penang Hill Funicular Ticketfrom $15
- 3Penang Plates Food Tour with 15+ Tastingsfrom $49
Langkawi is karst, mangrove and one very long cable car.
The Kilim geoforest is limestone towers standing in green water, with eagles, bat caves and fish farms threaded between them. Offshore, the island-hopping boats run a fixed circuit. Above it all, the SkyCab climbs to a curved bridge at 700 metres.
From a $3 cable car to a two-day climb up Kinabalu.
Every published review sorted by what it actually costs, with the most-reviewed pick in each band.
Entry tickets, funiculars, cable cars and city walks — a real Malaysian day for the price of lunch.
Half-days: hawker food walks, Batu Caves runs, mangrove cruises, firefly boats.
The full-day standard — Malacca, the Cameron Highlands, island hopping with lunch.
Private guides, Borneo river lodges, diving days and the two-day mountain.
By region — peninsula and Borneo
Kuala Lumpur410 tours
Langkawi115 tours
Penang98 tours
Kota Kinabalu83 tours
Kuching21 tours
Sandakan20 tours
Johor Bahru11 tours
Ipoh12 tours- Every region →
By experience — what kind of day is it?
Sabah and Sarawak are a different country to the peninsula.
Borneo takes a separate flight and a separate week. Three things bring most people over.
The Mountain
At 4,095 metres Kinabalu is the highest thing between the Himalaya and New Guinea, and the climb is a two-day walk rather than a technical route. Sabah Parks caps permits daily, so the date is decided long before the boots are. Day visitors get the park, the hot springs and the canopy walk without the summit.
- 12D1N Mount Kinabalu Climbing★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 494 reviews
- 22d1n Mount Kinabalu Via Ferrata – Walk The Torq★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 90 reviews
- 3Kinabalu Park & Poring Hot Spring & Canopy Walk★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 80 reviews
The River City
Kuching is the quiet one: a waterfront, shophouse coffee, and Bako National Park an hour away by road and boat. Cats everywhere, in statue form. Most days out here are half-days, which is why people who allow two nights end up wishing they had allowed four.
- 1Half-Day Heritage Bike Tour in Kuching★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 162 reviews
- 2Night Froggy Adventure at Kubah National Park★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 71 reviews
- 3Semenggoh Orangutan Centre from Kuching★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 53 reviews
The Rehabilitation Centres
Sepilok and Semenggoh exist to return orphaned and rescued orangutans to the forest, not to display them. Viewing is from a boardwalk at feeding time, contact is prohibited, and the platform is often empty — a fed animal that stays in the forest is the point of the place. Book the trip for the reserve, the sun bears next door and the boardwalk, and treat an orangutan as the thing that might happen.
What a visit involves →The west coast, Kuala Lumpur to Langkawi.
Malacca
Cameron HighlandsThe Malaysian bookings that will not wait for your arrival.
Most of Malaysia can be arranged from your hotel the night before. These cannot: they run on daily permit caps, timed entry and lodges with a dozen beds.
- 012D1N Mount Kinabalu ClimbingSabah Parks caps the number of climbing permits issued each day, and peak dates go months ahead.
- 02Petronas Twin Towers Entry E-TicketEntry to the towers is by timed slot with a fixed number released per day. Same-day tickets often do not exist.
- 032-Night Danum Valley Borneo Rainforest Lodge Hiking and Wildlife AdventureThe rainforest lodges have a handful of rooms between them and no walk-up option.
- 04Borneo Wildlife Tour 3 Days 2 Nights At Tanjung Bulat Jungle Camp KinabatanganRiver lodges are small and the good months fill early; the boat schedule is built around the beds.
Malaysia rains hard, briefly, and then gets on with it.
The east coast and the Perhentian side close down for the north-east monsoon roughly from November to February. On the west coast, where almost everything on this site runs, the pattern is an afternoon thunderstorm rather than a lost week. Keep an indoor option in the back pocket and reshuffle the day.
Just reviewed in Malaysia.
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Private Kuala Lumpur Fairy Firefly And Monkey Hill Tour
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Batu Caves, Royal Selangor Pewter and Batik Factory Tour
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Private Telaga Tujuh Waterfalls and Hidden Blue Pool
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George Town Highlights & Upside Down Museum tours (4 Hours)
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Kuala Lumpur Night City Tour: Experience the Nightlife
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Nature At The Riverbank, Fireflies Watching By Row Boat (Guided)
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Klias Wildlife Safari River Cruise from Kota Kinabalu
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