2018 Public Holidays in Singapore (When & Where to Travel to Maximise Your Annual Leave)

The Ministry of Manpower of Singapore just released the list of public holidays for 2018. With more than eight months to go until we ring in a new year, it is never too early to plan for your holidays for the year ahead. Essentially here are some notable points about 2018’s public holidays:

• 4 of them will occur either on a Monday or Friday – giving rise to 4 straightforward long weekends
• Another 5 will occur on a Tuesday or Thursday – in which case there are opportunities for self-imposed long weekends entailing only 1 day of annual leave each
• 1 public holiday will fall on a Saturday, in which case employees will be able to get an extra day’s leave

 

Straightforward Long Weekends

New Year’s Day – 1st January 2018 (Monday)

+ 30 and 31st December 2017 (Saturday + Sunday)

Chinese New Year – 16 and 17 February 2018 (Friday and Saturday)

+ 18 February (Sunday)

Good Friday – 30 March 2018 (Friday)

+ 31st March and 1st April (Saturday + Sunday)

Hari Raya Puasa – 15 June 2018 (Friday)

+ 16 and 17 June (Saturday + Sunday)

Potential Self-Imposed Long Weekends

Labour Day – 1st May 2018 (Tuesday)

+ 1 day of leave on 30th April + 28 and 29th April (Saturday + Sunday)

Vesak Day – 29th May 2018 (Tuesday)

+ 1 day of leave on 28th April + 26 and 27th April (Saturday + Sunday)

National Day – 9th August 2018 (Thursday)

+ 1 day of leave on 10th August + 11 and 12th August (Saturday + Sunday)

Deepavali – 6 November 2018 (Tuesday)

+ 1 day of leave on 5th November (Monday) + 3 and 4 November ( Saturday + Sunday)

Christmas Day – 25 December 2018 (Tuesday)

+ 1 day of leave on 24 December (Monday) + 22 and 23 December (Saturday + Sunday)

Total Number of Leaves Spent: 5

Where to go during the long weekends?

The bulk of the public holidays in 2018 will fall around the same months as with 2017’s. I had previously published a number of trip ideas that correspond to the month of the public holiday. These are based on seasonality so you can apply the same places to the same months for this year.

When to go for that annual one-week or two-week break?

You won’t go wrong taking your long break on any of the long weekend opportunities identified above (just take an extra 4 days leave and spend the rest of the week off/for two week trip, take an extra 8 days off). But if you’re all for optimizing all public holidays for travel, the only one next year that falls right smack in the middle of the week is Hari Raya Haji (22 August 2018, Wednesday) so you might choose to take your long break around this time.

Now August isn’t exactly the best time to go to any of the nearby destinations with the exception of Indonesia so a possible trip idea would be to take a week-long trip around Java, Bali and Lombok or perhaps you might just want to spend an entire week lounging around in some villa in Bali.

Alternatively, you can choose to spend that long trip in August on places that have a very limited summer season. Countries such as Mongolia, Canada and Iceland immediately come to mind.