George Town
Malaysia
Shophouses, street art and the food capital of Malaysia
Photo by Sandip Roy on Unsplash
Photos by Hakkan Lye, nik radzi, Steve Douglas and Kelvin Zyteng on Unsplash
Best time to visit all of Malaysia
December to March
Climate month by month
The next sixteen daysOpen-Meteo
Average high and low · °C
Rainfall · mm per month
Best months to visit This month · wettest 362mm in Oct
Where it is
5.41°N, 100.34°E Open in Google Maps
Things to do
A week easily- Walk the shophouse quarter and find the street art
- Ride the Penang Hill funicular at sunset
- Eat assam laksa at a hawker centre
- Visit Kek Lok Si, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia
- Tour the Khoo Kongsi clan house
- Take a cooking class in the old town
George Town travel tipsthe general rules
Currency budget Malaysia
Good valueThe changers on Lebuh Pantai in the old town give the best rates on the island and are used to travellers.
ATMs & cards
Around 10-15 MYR per foreign withdrawal. Machines are everywhere in the old town; the hawker stalls take cash only.
Avoid these
- hotel exchange desks
Use these instead
- Maybank
- CIMB
- Public Bank
The money changers on Lebuh Pantai give the best rates in the city. Hawker stalls are cash only and that is where you will be eating.
Wherever you are: if the machine offers to charge you in your home currency, decline. That is dynamic currency conversion and the rate is set by the ATM's operator, not your bank.
Safety all of Malaysia
SafeVery safe, including at night in the old town. The traffic is the hazard — pavements vanish without warning and scooters use them. Watch for open monsoon drains, which are deep and unlit.
Where to walk, and where to pay attention (6 areas)
Comfortable, including after dark
Worth more attention
- Bag snatching from motorcycles on the narrow heritage streets
- Batu Ferringhi — jet-ski and parasail operators, and the damage claims
Our own assessment, not a sourced index.
Entry & visa Malaysia visa rules
No visa neededup to 90 days
One of the more generous allowances in the region. You may be asked to show onward travel and a hotel booking.
Other passports
No visa neededup to 30 days
Visa required in advance
How to get it: No visa to arrange, but almost every visitor must file the Malaysia Digital Arrival Card online in the three days before arriving. It is free — sites charging for it are not official.
Entry rules change often and depend on your passport, not where you live — the official page above is the authority, and the airline checks before you board.
Before you fly: the arrival card
Malaysia Digital Arrival Card (MDAC)Required
In the three days before you arrive.
Have these in front of you before you start:
- passport
- flight number
- the full address of your first night
- your onward or return flight date
Use the official link above. Sites that charge a "service fee" to submit one of these for you are not the government, and they want the same passport details the real form does.
Health & emergencies all of Malaysia
Good and affordableRequired to enter
No vaccinations are required for entry from Europe or North America.
Jabs worth having, and what happens if you need a doctor
Worth having
- Hepatitis A
- Typhoid
- Tetanus up to date
- Rabies if you will be near animals or staying a while
- Japanese encephalitis for long rural or Borneo stays
Getting treated
Kuala Lumpur and Penang have excellent private hospitals — Malaysia is a medical tourism destination in its own right, and standards and English are both high at a fraction of Western cost. Care thins out quickly in the interior of Borneo, where a serious case means a flight to the coast.
Dengue is endemic and Malaysia has large outbreaks; there is no prophylaxis, so repellent and covered arms at dusk are the whole defence. Rabies is present — any bite or scratch from a dog or monkey means a clinic the same day.
Orientation, not medical advice — entry rules change and what you need depends on your own history. Check with a travel clinic four to six weeks before you go.
Food tip
OutstandingMalaysians argue about a lot, but most agree Penang wins on food. Assam laksa, char kway teow at Siam Road, cendol at Penang Road, and the Chulia Street night stalls. Gurney Drive is famous and touristy; New Lane is where locals go.
Nightlife
Heritage shophouse bars, street art and a food scene that is the real reason to be out after dark.
- Love Lane — and Chulia Street, for the bars
- Hin Bus Depot — the arts crowd, and the Sunday market
- Gurney Drive — the hawker centre, which is the point
Closing: 01:00–02:00.
A beer in a bar: RM 15–25
Getting around
Easy- GrabWorks here
- inDriveWorks here
- MaximWorks here
- UberNot here
- BoltNot here
- Against a taxi
- Cheaper than the metered taxis, which are thin on the ground now.
Time zone and your working day
Asia/Kuala Lumpur — 12 hours ahead of you
0 hours of overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are — — your time, — theirs.
No overlap with a 09:00–17:00 day where you are. Working from here means one of you keeps odd hours — their day starts at 21:00 on your clock.
office hours both at once night
Their 09:00–17:00 is 21:00–05:00 on yours.
Friday afternoon is quiet — offices close early for prayers and many reopen after.
The difference from the UK, Europe, the US and ten more
Worked out against America/New York, which is where this request looks like it came from.
Internet speedall of Malaysia
Why these are Malaysia's numbers and not George Town's
Home broadband — Fast. Several people on calls at once, large uploads, 4K. Broadband here runs at 1.4× the global median of 130 Mbps.
Mobile data — Fast. Enough to work from a cafe or a beach on a hotspot all day. Mobile runs at 1.5× the global median of 109 Mbps.
Ookla publishes no separate figure for George Town, so these are medians for all of Malaysia. Cities usually beat the national number and remote islands and national parks fall well below it — treat this as the country's shape, not as a measurement of the street you will be staying on.
A median is the middle of every connection tested there, old copper and new fibre together — so in a country part-way through laying fibre it sits well below what a fibre line actually delivers, and a rental on one can run several times this number. Half of the connections are slower; a fibre flat is rarely one of them. It says what a place can do, not what your rental does, so every listing on Holistay carries its own measured speed and the date it was tested.
Getting online: Airalo or Holafly — a data eSIM for Malaysia, installed before you fly and working the moment you land.
Source: Ookla Speedtest Global Index · measured June 2026
Must-see
Nearby day trips
Say a few words
Malay
- HelloSelamat pagi / petangse-LA-mat PA-gi / pe-TANG
- Thank youTerima kasihte-REE-ma KA-see
- You’re welcomeSama-samaSA-ma SA-ma
- Yes / NoYa / Tidakya / TEE-dak
5 more phrases
- Excuse meMaafma-AF
- How much?Berapa harga?be-RA-pa HAR-ga
- DeliciousSedapse-DAP
- No spice, pleaseTak pedastak pe-DAS
- GoodbyeSelamat tinggalse-LA-mat TING-gal
Bahasa Malaysia is the national language and English is spoken widely enough that no visitor needs it — but Malaysia is Malay, Chinese and Tamil at once, and the greeting you choose is noticed. Malay is close to Indonesian without being the same: terima kasih works in both, but a Malaysian will hear an Indonesian accent immediately.
Religion
Sunni Muslim, officially
Islam is the religion of the federation and about 63% of people are Muslim, but Malaysia is genuinely plural: roughly 19% Buddhist, 9% Christian and 6% Hindu, largely along ethnic Chinese and Indian lines. Muslims are subject to sharia courts in personal matters, non-Muslims are not. In practice this means mosque etiquette matters, alcohol is available but not everywhere, and the conservative states of Kelantan and Terengganu are noticeably stricter than Kuala Lumpur or Penang.
Do's and don'ts
Do
- Use your right hand to eat, to give and to receive — the left is for the bathroom
- Remove your shoes before entering a home, a mosque or most temples
- Point with your thumb over a closed fist; an index finger is rude here
- Dress modestly away from the beach, and cover your head and arms at a mosque — they lend robes at the door
Don't
- Do not offer alcohol to a Malay Muslim, and do not assume a restaurant serves it
- Do not eat or drink in public during daylight in Ramadan, out of ordinary courtesy
- Do not touch anyone of the opposite sex in greeting unless they offer a hand first
- Do not show affection in public — it draws real disapproval, and in the conservative north it can draw the authorities
Where to stay in George Town
No Holistay rentals in George Town yet — the platform is just opening up. Every listing here will have a video tour and the option to negotiate the nightly price directly with the host.
In the meantime, here is George Town on the sites that do have the inventory — each search is already filled in:
- Booking.com hotels, guesthouses and apartments — the widest coverage almost everywhere
- Airbnb whole homes and apartments, and the better option for a week or more
How to get there
Fly into Penang PEN
30 minfrom the airport· 14 km as the crow flies
30 min to the old town.
Google Flights · Rome2Rio for the trains, buses and ferries as well as the flights
