Where to stay in Singapore

The colonial centre between the river and Marina Bay: the National Gallery in the old Supreme Court and City Hall, the Asian Civilisations Museum on the water, the Padang, Raffles Hotel at the top of the road, and Boat Quay and Clarke Quay along the river with the city's outdoor drinking on them. Two MRT interchanges sit under it, Marina Bay is ten minutes on foot and Chinatown fifteen. What you give up is a neighbourhood: this is museums, hotels and offices, and it does not feed you the way the quarters either side of it do.

The bay itself: the hotel on stilts with the ship across its towers, Gardens by the Bay behind it, the ArtScience museum on the water and the financial district's skyline across the basin. It is the newest ground in a city that rebuilds constantly, entirely planned, and the version of Singapore that appears on every cover. What it is not is a street — the distances run over bridges, podiums and underpasses, they walk longer than they look, and the eating is indoors and priced for the address.

Shophouses in a tight grid south-west of the river: the Buddha Tooth temple, the Maxwell and Chinatown Complex hawker centres, the restored terraces of Tanjong Pagar and the financial district's southern edge above them. It is where the eating this city is famous for actually happens, and the grid is finer and denser than anything the colonial centre has. It is also the least restful address in the centre — the streets work late and the traffic never stops.

The Malay-Arab quarter around the Sultan Mosque: Arab Street's textile shops, Haji Lane's bars and Bussorah Street's restaurants, with Bugis's markets and malls immediately south. Compact, low-rise and awake in the evening, it is the most atmospheric ground in the city centre and the one that most rewards being on foot. The cost is written into the same sentence: it is small, and it is loud until late.

Serangoon Road and the streets either side: temples, gold shops, the Mustafa Centre open through the night, and food that is the best value in Singapore. It is the loudest, most crowded and least tidy area on this list, which is exactly why some travellers prefer it and others should not book it. It is a working quarter, and it is busiest when the rest of the city has stopped.

Two kilometres of malls along one road, with the hotels between them and the Botanic Gardens at the western end. It is the least Singaporean area on this list and the most comfortable: air-conditioned, predictable, connected, and almost entirely without street life. What it has that no other area does is the widest choice of large hotels in the city, and a covered walk to the MRT from most of them, which one degree north of the equator is worth more than it sounds.

The Peranakan east, twenty-five minutes out: terraced shophouses in colours the centre has lost, laksa that people cross the island for, and a park running along the sea to the airport. It is where Singaporeans live, and the only area on this list where a visitor is the exception. Changi is along the same coast, which makes it the easiest place in the city to leave from and the hardest to see the city from.