Getting Around Kuala Lumpur by Driving

Let me put it this way: I wouldn't want to drive in Kuala Lumpur unless I absolutely have to. The roads are so often jammed and you spend much of your time in stressful, unproductive congestion. If you are coming to KL, I would advise you to take the taxi, or the train, even the bus - take anything but your car. However, if your trip to Kuala Lumpur requires you to drive, here are some tips. No, better to say, here are some warnings.

First of all, get to know where you are going before you start your journey. Get hold of the most recent maps of Kuala Lumpur - I recommend those published by World Express Mapping. Find out what are the landmarks that will aid you in navigating to your destination. Find out where you can park safely without bursting a hole in your pocket.

Signages are notoriously inaccurate, non-existent, and if they do appear at all, they are fond of appearing right at the junction where you are supposed to turn, giving you little opportunity to make the turning. And if you miss the turn, you have to go a long way before you get the chance to double back. I also find drivers in Kuala Lumpur rude; they jump queues, they drive on the emergency road shoulder, they switch lanes without warnings, they overtake on the left, they chat on their cellphone while hogging the express lane, in general, they make good drivers miserable. In many places, cars are double-parked like it's the most fashionable thing to do. Being the good guy, you often find your car trapped by a callous driver who simply leaves his vehicle in the middle of the road to go do his whatever business somewhere. The roads are so confusing that even locals get lost. And you still want to drive?

Beware of rush hour. That's between 7:00 am and 10:00 am in the morning, and between 4:30 pm and 7:30 pm in the evening. Places such as Bukit Bintang are often reduced to a crawl even at 10:00 pm at night. If you are going to a shopping mall, be sure to get there early in the day. In spite of the many levels of parking lots, these quickly fill up after office hours and on weekends, that you will waste a lot of time looking for a parking space. Within the city centre itself, any piece of unused land is quickly turned into a makeshift carpark.

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About this website

Dear visitor, thank you so much for reading this page. My name is Timothy Tye and my hobby is to find out about places, write about them and share the information with you on this website. I have been writing this site since 5 January 2003. Originally (from 2003 until 2009, the site was called AsiaExplorers. I changed the name to Penang Travel Tips in 2009, even though I describe more than just Penang but everywhere I go (I often need to tell people that "Penang Travel Tips" is not just information about Penang, but information written in Penang), especially places in Malaysia and Singapore, and in all the years since 2003, I have described over 20,000 places.

While I try my best to provide you information as accurate as I can get it to be, I do apologize for any errors and for outdated information which I am unaware. Nevertheless, I hope that what I have described here will be useful to you.