A few days in Penang for George Town and beautiful beaches
Summary
Penang is definitely worth a visit as it has one of the best combinations of Chinese, Indian and Western legacies in the world. If you throw in the cute UNESCO World Heritage listed Old Town of George Town and the beautiful beaches along the north of the island, you’ve got a great mini break and worth the inclusion on a South East Asian travel itinerary (see here for the full-blown 8 week itinerary – 7/8 week itinerary for the highlights of South East Asia)
On a personal level, I wish I’d given Penang’s National Park more time to explore their jungle walks as they looked cool
highlights
#1 Wandering through the slightly rustic, but nonetheless characterful Old Town of George Town
#2 Enjoying the beautiful beaches all along the north of Penang Island
#3 The jungle all around you in this mini tropical beach paradise
Experiences nearby
The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences
Other small Island Experiences
Score Detail
Background - how many times have you asked someone what a travel experience was like and the response was "amazing" or "awesome"? That response is nice to know, but it makes it hard to differentiate that experience compared to others. That is exactly what these scores are trying to do - differentiate the experience by giving a score out of 10 based on 6 categories and then giving an overall experience score
This overall experience score is calculated by: take the highest of the "Culture" or "Nature" score (1-10) + "Fun factor" (1-10) + "Avoiding the crowds" (1-10) + highest of the "Unique" or "World Famous score" (1-10). Then convert into a score out of 100
Extra detail - the logic being that I find all of the 6 individual scores important, but I don't want to mark an experience down just because it doesn't cover both "Culture" and "Nature", or because it isn't both "World Famous" and "Unique". Take the examples of Safari in The Serengeti and walking through Rome - they both appeal at opposite ends of the nature / culture spectrum, and you can have a fantastic time without needing to appeal to both sides. So, their overall scores aren't penalized for their lack of one or the other, and I've done the same for "World Famous" vs "Unique". But . . . I do think that the "Fun factor" of an experience is important, irrelevant of other factors, and so is "Avoiding the Crowds" (or where there are crowds that add to the experience). So, both of these scores are standalone