Penang With Kids: Georgetown’s Streets, Murals and the Best Food in Asia

Penang is an island off the west coast of Malaysia, and Georgetown, its old capital, is a walkable grid of Chinese shophouses, mosques, temples and food stalls that UNESCO protected and families love. Four nights is right. The kids will ask for five.

Start with the street art. A Lithuanian artist painted murals of children on the walls of Georgetown a decade ago, kids on a bicycle, a boy reaching for a window, and finding them all is a treasure hunt through the old town. Get the map from the hotel, rent bikes or walk, and let the children lead.

Penang Hill by funicular, one of the steepest in the world, to the top where it is cool and there is a view of the whole island and the bridge. The Habitat walkway through the canopy is up there too. Go in the morning before the clouds.

Jetties, temples, the beach

The clan jetties are wooden villages on stilts over the harbor, each one a different Chinese clan, and Chew Jetty is the one to walk. Kek Lok Si is the biggest Buddhist temple in the country, with a giant statue and a turtle pond. The Khoo Kongsi clan house is carved gold and the kids will stand under the roof looking up.

Batu Ferringhi is the beach on the north coast, thirty minutes away, with resorts and a night market. It is fine. It is not the reason to come. Georgetown is.

Then the food, which gets its own post, because it is the reason Malaysians fly here for a weekend and the reason I put Penang before Kuala Lumpur on every family route.

Planning Malaysia with kids? Start with the full Malaysia family travel guide, or send me the ages and the dates and I will come back with what is really available.