Things To Do In Kota Kinabalu – Budget Travel In Malaysia

Visit Kota Kinabalu in Borneo, the third biggest island in the world. Borneo is known for its huge, ancient rain forests, beaches and diverse wildlife. With thousands of square miles of rain forest, it really is a jungle out there!

Kota Kinabalu is a busy but welcoming city thanks to its friendly locals. It is a great choice for travellers seeking stunning sunsets and great food. It is a city that combines 21st century skyscrapes with historical markets and mosques.

Plan Ahead

On our Southeast Asia adventure, we planned our route as we travelled. This worked well for us as it meant we could always change direction at any time. Arriving in Borneo, we began to think this was one part of the adventure that could have benefited from some advance planning.

Once we looked into things to do in Borneo, we realised that some activities require pre-booking (such as climbing Mount Kinabalu).

We decided to begin our journey in Kota Kinabalu (as our flight landed there) and move across the island to Sandakan, passing Mount Kinabalu on our way.

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Things To Do In Kota Kinabalu

Kota Kinabalu was different to other places we have visited in that there are not tour operators on every street, meaning you can quite easily miss some of the attractions. Things we missed were white water rafting and a ride on the old steam train. Here are the things we got up to:

Gaya Street Sunday Market

The signs on the street said that Gaya Street is also host to a Saturday night market but I couldn’t find any report of this online so I am not sure if it is still a thing. The Sunday market is definitely a thing. The whole street is taken over by vendors selling clothes, fruit, souvenirs, fruit and veg, shoes and just about everything you can imagine. And frog purses. It is lively without being too overcrowded and seemed to be more of a local market than a tourist one. Map.

Gaya Street Sunday Market Opening Times: 6.30 am – 1 pm.

Masjid Bandaraya Mosque

‘Masjid Bandaraya’ is a mosque partially surrounded by water. We decided to take the hour long coastal walk to get here, passing street art and a small park along the way. The mosque is very pretty, especially when you also see the reflection on the water. We did the tour which was less impressive. The inside of the mosque is nowhere near as pretty and contains a cash machine and some shops selling souvenirs. Women need to pay to borrow covering clothes.

Masjid Bandaraya Mosque Opening Times For Tourists: 8.00 am – 12.00 am, 1.00 am – 3.00 pm, 4.00 pm – 4.30 pm.
Masjid Bandaraya Mosque Entrance Fee: 5 MYR.

Pillars Of Sabah

City-centre exhibition in which 30 local artists create pieces to represent 30 endangered animals found in Sabah. We stumbled across this by accident. It is free to explore. Map.

Sabah State Mosque

We walked from the city centre to visit this mosque. We were only able to view from the outside, unlike the ‘Masjid Bandaraya’. Whilst in this area, we also came across an interesting food market and saw some of the houses on stilts. Map.

Signal Hill Observatory Tower

A nice place to watch the Kota Kinabalu sunset behind Gaya Island. You can reach it by taxi or bike but we chose to walk up the trail which took around 10 minutes. You can pay to watch the sunset from the actual tower or sit next to the tower for an exact same view. Map.

Signal Hill Observatory Tower Opening Times: 9 am – 11 pm.

Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park

The ‘Tunku Abdul Rahman Marine Park’ is a group of 5 islands located just off the coast from Kota Kinabula. You can visit as many as you like in one day by buying boat tickets from Jesselton Point (map).

Inside, there are a number of operators all trying to get you to choose them. It doesn’t matter who you choose; they all offer the same thing at the same price. It costs 23 MYR to visit one island, plus an extra 7 MYR terminal fee. If you want to visit another island, it is an extra 10 MYR for each island you add. There is also a 10 MYR conservation fee when you reach the island (keep your ticket if you are visiting more than 1 island). Snorkeling masks cost 10 MYR to hire. We chose to visit two islands.

Once we had bought our tickets, we went and waited for the boat. Boats generally leave when they are full but ours left when it was barely half full. It took us around 15 minutes to reach our first island, Manukan.

Manukan is the most popular of the islands and has a restaurant and other facilities. We had some lunch then hit the beach, then the sea. The water was warm and crystal clear. There were some schools of fish near the pier, and the odd lone tropical species, but nothing spectacular. After a couple of hours, we were moving on to the next island, Sapi.

Sapi Island

Before we settled on the beach, we noticed there was a trail that would take us around the whole island. The island is very small so the trail only takes around half an hour. We set off and immediately spotted a big lizard!

We carried on walking and then suddenly almost jumped out of our skin as we were right next to these two beasts and we had not noticed them!

The rest of the trail was less eventful and within half an hour we had found our spot on the beach. We both went snorkeling and there was more tropical fish here. What was more impressive was that there was some great coral reef to explore. We even saw at least 3 very scary and very large sea urchins.

After just under three hours we were picked up by our boat. We were the only passengers and he went at lightning speed!

It was a great day away from the city. It felt like a long time since we’d been at the beach (though it wasn’t that long really!)

Waterfront Markets

At night time, expect to see seafood restaurants. During the day, there are many markets: a handicraft market, wet market, fruit market, etc. It’s a lively place though you might have to hold your nose in places!

Is Kota Kinabalu Worth Visiting?

I wasn’t sure what to expect when we arrived on the island of Borneo, but it probably wasn’t Kota Kinabalu. It is actually quite a chilled-out city and we enjoyed taking it slow here. It won’t be on our top ten list, but it did have plenty to offer to keep us happy for four nights. Our next stop would be the actual Mount Kinabalu itself where I imagined things would get a whole lot more ‘Borneo’.