Lazarus Island – Stay the Night

Need to find somewhere quiet to spend your weekend? Here’s how you can get away from the hustle and bustle without leaving Singapore or buying an expensive plane ticket. And you still get to enjoy some sand, sun and sea while you are at it.

I’m referring to the southern islands that form part of Singapore. I did visit them during the Covid lockdowns when international travel was restricted. You can read about my visit here. Back then it was just a day trip and hopping from island to island.

You could always stay or camp at St John’s and Lazarus Islands since my schooldays. Lodgings were rudimentary with no frills chalets and campsites mostly catering to students and people looking to rough it out. However, recent developments to turn these islands into an eco-tourism destination meant that better lodgings are now available along with a host of other infrastructure improvements.

Since April of 2023, you can now stay at 5 eco friendly cabin houses available for booking on Lazarus Island, with a couple of them also being pet friendly. So you can also bring your pets along for the stay. These cabins are under the Tinyhouse brand and they also have similar setups in Australia and New Zealand.

The cabins are all designed with sustainability in mind with solar panels and a battery for electrical power. There is even a bio-digester for food waste, although I never used it. Each cabin is air-conditioned with a small but functional bathroom and toilet, a Nespresso machine, hot water kettle, bread toaster and a mini fridge filled with drinks and beer. There is even a TV and wifi, but the wifi is extremely slow and you are better off using your mobile data from the local telco. There’s a basket filled with snacks and cup noodles which is really important. At the moment there are no shops on the island and you have to bring your own food and drinks, otherwise, you could try fishing for your dinner or depend on the small supply of snacks.

Activities that you could while on the island are to go for a picnic, hiking, fishing, swimming at the lagoon and although its mentioned that sea sports like kayaking and stand up paddling will be available, I did not see any of these while I was there. There’s a bicycle rental station on St John’s Island.

You may be wondering why Kias Island exists and how it came to be. From what I could find out (thanks to the internet, nothing stays forgotten), in 2000 there were plans to turn the Southern Islands into a Mediterranean like resort akin to Capri in Italy, with plans for high end hotels, waterfront housing and even a casino. Reefs and surrounding islands were reclaimed and causeways built to connect the various islands. But these plans seemed to have been abandoned soon after the building of the integrated resorts at Sentosa and Marina Bay along with the luxury waterfront enclave at Sentosa Cove. I’d say that its fortunate that those plans never came to be. Instead the Southern Islands including the nearby Sisters Islands are now being turned into a marine conservation area.

Here are some tips based on my stay

Check-in is quite late at 3.30pm. If you booked the ferry service provided by Tinyhouse, you will need to be at Marina South Pier by 3.00pm to collect your ferry tickets. The ferry ride is around 20 minutes. After you arrived, you have only a few hours before it gets dark. Besides the area around the cabins, there are no street lights on the island. So wandering around the island at night might be a scary proposal.

If you want to spend more time exploring around including St John’s Island, you could take the public ferry instead which leaves at scheduled times. Then walk over to Tinyhouse at 3.30pm to check-in. Do take note that the public ferry docks at St John’s Island instead of Lazarus Island.

I had booked a one night stay, but if you want to stay longer, you will have to think about bringing enough food as there is no way to buy food on the island, unless you are thinking of living off the land and sea.

Weekend stays are also more expensive. I booked my check-in on a Sunday and check-out on Monday to get a weekday rate. While you may want to get away from the crowd by coming here, weekends is when the crowd comes here anyway, although in lesser numbers than in Sentosa. Weekday stays would be the best if you want to feel like you are the only person on the island, and its cheaper too. You can book directly with Tinyhouse here.