With the Year of the Horse in full swing, it's time to start booking your ferry, hotel or resort for one or more of the bumper number of long travel weekends 2026 offers. Play your leave days card right and you can actually spend 6 long weekends of fun in the sun this year.
Singapore will have six official long weekends in 2026, thanks to holidays falling on Fridays (Good Friday, Labour Day, Christmas) or Sundays (Vesak Day, National Day, Deepavali, with the next day off), creating extra long breaks like a 10-day Christmas-New Year period and extended weekends for Chinese New Year and Hari Raya Puasa, offering great opportunities for travel or rest.
Here's a breakdown of the key 2026 long weekends:
3-Day Weekends (Fri-Sun)
- Hari Raya Puasa: March 21 (Sat) - Holiday on Saturday, making a long weekend.
- Good Friday: April 3 (Fri).
- Labour Day: May 1 (Fri).
- National Day: August 9 (Sun) - Monday, August 10, is the holiday in lieu.
4-Day Weekends
Chinese New Year: February 17 (Tue) & 18 (Wed) - With strategic leave, this can become a 5-day break.
Extended Weekends (5+ Days)
- Hari Raya Haji: May 27 (Wed) - Can be extended with leave.
- Vesak Day: May 31 (Sun) - Monday, June 1, is the holiday, creating a 4-day break.
- Deepavali: November 8 (Sun) - Monday, November 9, is the holiday in lieu, making a 4-day break.
- Christmas & New Year's: Christmas Day (Dec 25, Fri) combined with New Year's Day (Jan 1, 2027, Thurs) can form a 10-day festive break with leave.
Lastly, one final point to note if you're going to Tioman by ferry. Nowadays, given the ever-increasing numbers of accommodations on the island, it's advisable to keep in mind that there now are more rooms available in Tioman than there are ferry seats to Tioman. This discrepancy goes up on days the ferry is limited, due to winds and tides. So it's not that the ferry can do more frequent crossings but won't. Instead, it's because the ferry is physically unable to pass in and out of the Mersing harbour during low tide and/or periods of high winds and waves.
In view of this, we wish to stress the importance of booking the ferry early, as well as arriving at Mersing Harbour Centre with adequate time to spare. Better safe than sorry. There's nothing worse than being stranded in Mersing Harbour Centre with a hotel room booking in hand but no ferry seat to take you to that room.
Book your ferry tickets now.
