Where to stay and how to get around for a three day trip to Sabah

May 30, 2015 12:31 PM

At the tail end of our trip to Thailand we are planning to do a three day excursion to Sabah. I'd like to go to these areas: Mt. Kinabalu(not climb it, just hike around the base), the Danum Valley Conservation area, Sungai Kinabatagan and the Semporna Archipelago. Is this overly ambitious? Should we have a home base hotel in Kota Kinabalu or is there a better alternative? Should we rent a car? How easy is it to get shuttles or other transport to these areas? Any advice is appreciated thank you!
posted by abirdinthehand to Travel & Transportation around Malaysia (4 answers total)

I haven't been to Sabah in ages so I'm not too sure about transportation. I would expect to need hiring a taxi or a personal vehicle through the hostel (call ahead to get suggestions and book transportation to make your life easier), unless you pretty much can converse in Malay and are okay with maybe compromising/missing activities due to public transportation being unpredictable.

If you don't intend to do much hiking around the mountain, your list seems fairly reasonable as they're not too physically taxing. Without taking into account the time costs of getting from one of these spots to another, I would allocate one day for the mountain, squeeze Danum and Kinabatangan into one day, and allocate one day for the Archipelago. I would also spread your activities out according to how physically intensive you expect them to be (will you be diving in Semporna?). If you expect to be tired arriving in Sabah from Thailand, perhaps chill out at the river first, otherwise put it on Day 2 as a breather as it is definitely the least taxing.


Source: I've apparently at some point cut a lot of vegetation in the Danum valley, and a ton of my friends have climbed Mt.Kinabalu.
posted by kinoeye at 3:23 PM on May 30, 2015

Not an expert by any means, but went to Borneo last October for three weeks and over it. Suggest you are taking on too much for three days, travel will consume too much time. Rental taxis for the day are probably more the done thing, and easy to arrange.
posted by wilful at 6:45 AM on May 31, 2015

I do think this is hectic for three days, and yes, consider car rental or hired private transport/taxi. the roads are good in that part of Sabah if you want to drive but getting directions once you're well on your way can be challenging (but I've gotten around with a Gmaps), but I'm not sure about getting to Semporna myself.
posted by cendawanita at 9:10 AM on May 31, 2015

Response by poster: Thanks for the advice. Yes I think it would have been impossible/painful to try to do all that on my trip. We hired a taxi for a day, it cost 400 ringgits- roughly $100USD. This allowed us to easily stop along with way to our destinations.

Since there was an earthquake! just before we arrived, our hotel near Mt Kinabalu was closed and we stayed in Kota Kinabalu. It was two hours or so to Mt. Kinabalu- so Danum Valley, Sungai Kinabatangan were really too much of a time commitment.
posted by abirdinthehand at 4:22 PM on July 15, 2015