The first thing to remember is to make sure that your passport is valid for at least six (6) months before its expiration date. Next is to look for seat sales or budget flights. To easily compare prices, visit online travel agents like Traveloka Philippines, which allows you to search and book cheap flights all at the same time.

Finding an affordable hotel located in a safe and strategic area in Singapore is also easy. I’d recommend Fragrance Hotel as it is not only budget-friendly but cozy as well. Ideally, you would need to book your hotel at least a month before your trip. You can also try staying at a hostel. It will be a lot cheaper. Plus, it's another way of making friends with backpackers around the world. Usually, hostels cost around SGD20 (P700) per night.

Don't forget to pack light.

From Changi Airport, we took the MRT, located at Terminal 2, to get to the city center. Taking the train is the fastest and cheapest way to reach central Singapore. We only paid SGD2.10 (P74)/per person for our 30-minute ride from the airport to Aljunied MRT Station, which is only 10 minutes walk from Fragrance Hotel, our home for the next three days. We checked in by simply showing the front desk our hotel voucher on our Traveloka App. Booking our hotel via the Traveloka App was one of the smartest decisions we made. It saved us from the hassle of printing our hotel voucher, not to mention the probability of misplacing or losing it. The Traveloka App stores your hotel voucher soon as your booking has been confirmed. So you can just open the app and present it at your hotel. It works even without internet connection. Easy-peasy, and environment-friendly, too!

We started our tour the next day. Our first stop was Somerset, a business district and shopping center in Singapore. It is also a stone's throw away from Orchard Road, a popular shopping street for luxury brands in Singapore. The Scape Skate Park, located at Somerset Skate Park, is hailed as one of the best skate parks in Singapore. Skateboarding enthusiasts, like us, will find the 3000-sqm place the perfect playground thanks to the array of ramps and boxes available there. Those who love wall art will be happy to discover Instagram-worthy graffiti in almost available space in that side of the park. To get to Somerset from the hotel, we took the MRT from Aljunied station for only SGD1.70 (P60)/per person. The skate park itself is only five minutes away from the Somerset station. We stayed there for about four hours, testing our skateboarding skills, before heading to another popular tourist spot, the Merlion Park. The Merlion Park is one of the great spots to take in all of the famous landmarks of Singapore. Here, you can see the Singapore Flyer, The Esplanade, Art Science Museum, and the imposing Marina Bay Sands.

For our last day in Singapore, we decided to just chill and enjoy the hotel before checking out at noon. We took a red-eye flight, so the plan was to spend the rest of the day exploring more of Singapore before heading to the airport. We stopped by Sentosa Island just to check out the popular Universal Studios. Mind you, we didn't go inside as the entrance ticket is quite outside our budget. Taking photos and walking around the island were enough for us to enjoy the place. For souvenirs and pasalubong, we bought them at Hershey's Chocolate World. To get to Sentosa Island, we took a 30-minute MRT ride from Aljunied station to Harbourfront for SGD2 (P70)/per person. At Harbourfront, we bought a round trip ticket for the Sentosa Express at SGD4 (P140)/person. Our next stop was the Marina Bay Sands, the first integrated resort in Singapore which boasts a luxury hotel, casino, office buildings, museum, and the world’s longest elevated swimming pool found at the Sky Park. Later, we went to Gardens by the Bay, considered Singapore's premier urban outdoor recreation space and a national icon. After taking some photos, we finally decided to go to the airport and have dinner there while waiting for our flight home.

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Contributor Writer Busyra Oryza is a Communications Executive for Traveloka, one of the leading travel booking app for domestic and international destinations in Southeast Asia. He’s currently in pursuit of happiness one travel experience at a time.