Australians know FIFO. Not the holiday kind – the real kind. The 6 am Qantas shuttle from Sydney to Melbourne with a cabin full of sleepy fellow corporates off to a business meeting at their second HQ. The Perth mining crowd in hi-vis vests who treat a flight to Karratha the way the rest of us treat catching a bus. Fly in, do the job, fly out, repeat until your body forgets what a Tuesday feels like.
I’ve decided to apply the same logic to a holiday. Fly into Singapore, extract 24 hours of maximum city, fly home. No hotel loyalty points earned, no jet lag sympathy owed. Just one very long day sandwiched between two very direct flights, run with the same grim efficiency as a shift change at a Pilbara mine site.
Singapore is the only city generous enough to make this plan look sensible. And this particular week, the flight there made it look almost fun.
Departure: Enter the Spider
Scoot has been flying a Spider-Man: Brand New Day-themed aircraft on select routes, Singapore–Sydney included, and if you’re squeezing a whole city into one day on limited hours of sleep, a superhero soundtrack overhead doesn’t hurt. Spidey headrest covers on every seat. A safety announcement that leans hard into “with great power comes great responsibility,” delivered by a pilot who sounds like they’ve been waiting their whole career to say it. Squishies hidden under random seats for the taking, and I will admit to elbowing a fellow passenger out of the way for mine without a shred of guilt.
None of this fixes the actual problem with economy seating on an eight-hour flight. The seat pitch is what it’s always been, and your carry-on will still lose the fight with the overhead locker. But it turns the flying part – normally just dead time you sit through to get to the good bit- into the start of the trip instead of the toll you pay for it. On a day with this little slack in it, that’s worth something.
Hour 1-4: Touchdown and Immediate Feeding
Land at Changi, and skip the temptation to camp out in the butterfly garden and snap the flowing fountain at The Jewel (for now). You’ve got a city to get through.
Instead, head straight to Chinatown Complex and order Lia Chan Hainanese chicken rice because there’s no version of this trip where you tuck into the signature dish of the first hawker stall in the world to win a Michelin star. A kopi on top, strong enough that it counts as the day’s first decision made for you. Stock up on your souvenirs here. Because did you even Singapore if you didn’t head home with $10 keyrings for $10?
Hour 5–9: The Postcard Shift
Walk through the Marina Bay Sands lobby to feel briefly richer than you are. Stroll through the Gardens by the Bay’s Supertree Grove before the humidity really sets in. Stop at the Merlion Park for the photo, because everyone takes it and you’re not above everyone.
Hour 10–14: Rooftop, Then Street Level
Come dinner and a hawker centre – with plastic chairs and no pretensions, where you can sit outside with a cold Tiger, eating at 9pm in thirty-degree heat because your body has stopped keeping track of what time it thinks it is – is your best option for eats that hit the sweet spot between authentic and affordable.
Whether you go for Singapore crab at Maxwell, fried carrot cake at Newton Food Centre or every edible incarnation of satay skewers at Lau Pa Sat, you won’t leave hungry. Or broke.
Follow with a sunset drink at one of the Marina Bay Sands rooftop bars, like Ce La Vie. Or head to Lavo for their famous 20-layer chocolate cake running through rich layers of peanut butter and mascarpone, and arriving at the table with the structural presence of a small building. One slice runs about SGD 34 and is genuinely too much cake for fewer than three people, so bring reinforcements, or make peace with the fact your macros are also in FIFO mode.
Hour 15–18: Last Lap, Long Way Home
Head back to Changi earlier than strictly necessary, and do your best to avoid The Jewel’s very convincing argument for missing your flight on purpose. Here, retail therapy reigns; food vendors satisfy any last-minute cravings for laksa and the Rain Vortex does its thing every half hour – with 40 metres of waterfall crashing down through the middle of a building that also happens to contain a five-storey indoor forest, which is an odd thing to encounter after a day spent sweating through Chinatown, but not an unwelcome one.
Loop the Canopy Park if you’ve still got the legs for it – the mist swings and hedge maze are pure filler, in the best way, exactly the kind of aimless wandering a day this tightly scheduled has had no room for until now. Otherwise, find a spot on one of the walkways overlooking the Vortex, get a last coffee, and let the vertigo of the last 18 hours settle.
Hour 19–24: The Part That Isn’t Optional
Sleep, however you can get it. Our pick is a bed at Yotel. Literally located on the top floor of Changi Airport’s Jewel. Compact. Yes. But quick enough to allow you access to customs in a less-than- four-minute walk. Skip this, and you’ll pay for it at immigration on the way home, looking like something the mines spat out.
Twenty-four hours is not enough time in Singapore. It was never going to be. But it’s enough to remind you why people keep going bac. And, apparently, enough for an airline to convince you that even the getting-there part can be worth turning up for.
Scoot’s Spider-Man: Brand New Day themed aircraft is flying select routes, including Singapore–Sydney, until 13 September 2026.
