Best Day Trips in Penang
Part of the Penang travel guide — see every topic in All Penang Guides.
Penang island is small — about twenty-five by fifteen kilometres — so a day trip either means the far corners of the island itself or crossing to the mainland, which two bridges and a ferry make easy. The best options are genuinely different from George Town: a car-free fishing island, a hill station in the interior, the mainland food towns, and one of Malaysia's great colonial-era hill retreats a few hours south.
Pulau Aman and the mainland islands
Pulau Aman is a small fishing island off the mainland coast, reached by a ten-minute boat from Batu Musang jetty. There are no cars, a few hundred residents, a single loop path, a couple of seafood restaurants known for their prawn noodles, and almost no tourism. It is a half-day and one of the more genuinely relaxing things to do near Penang. Nearby Pulau Betong on Penang island itself has a working fish market and a beach with almost nobody on it.
The island's far side
The southern and western parts of Penang island are rural and see few visitors: Balik Pulau, a small town of Hakka and Malay villages surrounded by durian orchards, nutmeg and paddy, with a good local food scene and a cycling route through the countryside. Teluk Bahang and the national park at the north-west tip. The Tropical Spice Garden, the Escape adventure park and the Entopia butterfly farm are strung along the north coast road and work well as a family day.
Across the bridges
Butterworth, on the mainland, is fifteen minutes by ferry and is the transport interchange rather than a destination, but it opens up the mainland: Bukit Mertajam for food, Kepala Batas, and the coastal road north towards Kedah. The two bridges — the 13.5-kilometre Penang Bridge from 1985 and the 24-kilometre Sultan Abdul Halim Muadzam Shah Bridge from 2014, the longest in South-East Asia — are themselves worth crossing once for the view.
Further afield
Ipoh is two hours south by train or car: a former tin-mining boom town with excellent food, limestone cave temples, colonial architecture and its own white coffee. Taiping, ninety minutes south, has the oldest lake gardens in Malaysia and Bukit Larut, the least-developed hill station in the country. Langkawi is a ninety-minute ferry or a short flight north. And Kuala Lumpur is four hours by the ETS train from Butterworth, which is a comfortable and scenic journey.
Best Day Trips at a glance
| Car-free island | Pulau Aman — 10-minute boat, seafood, no tourism |
|---|---|
| Rural Penang | Balik Pulau — durian orchards, villages, cycling |
| North coast | Tropical Spice Garden, Entopia, Escape park |
| Bridges | Penang Bridge 13.5 km (1985); the second 24 km (2014) |
| Best full day | Ipoh — 2 hours south, food and cave temples |
| Onward | ETS train from Butterworth to KL, ~4 hours |