Kota Kinabalu Hotels

Regardless if the mandate is to explore the manifold natural treasures and native culture of Sabah, visitors will inevitably spend a few days in Kota Kinabalu. Street markets, al fresco waterfront restaurants, heritage museums and landmarks all compete for space in the compact cityscape and offer the most dynamic urban action outside of the Sarawak capital of Kuching. As a result, visitors may want to make time for points of interest like the Sabah Art Gallery, Museum of Islamic Civilization, Sabah Museum and Chinese Street Market. Outside KK proper, Lok Kawi Wildlife Park and Mount Kinabalu, the most prominent summit on the island of Borneo, rightfully summon scores of daily travelers.

Kota Kinabalu’s Top 10

Kota Kinabalu Local

Kota Kinabalu is not a big metropolis by Southeast Asia’s standards (135.5 square miles) but as the primary hub of Sabah, is a vital city. The metro populace of 900,000 lives over a wide parcel of land, while the small core of the city itself is home to 620,000 people. For most visitors, the downtown and waterfront areas garner the most interest.

Kota Kinabalu proper extends from Tanjung Aru and Kepayan in the south, to Sepanggar and Telipok in the north. The towns of Donggongon and Putatan are, for all intents and purposes, part of the city’s reach as well.

Again, however, the majority of tourists seldom bother with areas just outside the central business district and the waterfront strip that faces Pulau Gaya. National parks and eco-tourism villages further out in Sabah do deserve a look of course.

Kota Kinabalu Eat & Drink

Kota Kinabalu serves up the best of Peninsular Malaysian cuisine and indigenous cuisine native to Borneo. In recent years, Western, Southeast and East Asian fare has become more widely available as the Sabah capital has grown as a multicultural hub.

Kota Kinabalu Events

Kota Kinabalu has a modest calendar of events, above and beyond the usual national, civic and Muslim holidays.

Kota Kinabalu Jazz Festival takes place over two days in mid-June at the tennis courts of Sutera Harbour Marina, Golf & Country Club.

Kaamatan is a traditional and ancient harvest festival for the Kadazan and Dusun tribes of Sabah.

Kota Kinabalu International Film Festival features a week’s worth of Southeast and East Asian cinema in June.

Kota Kinabalu Food Festival is a new arrival on the Sabah scene that draws on a vast culinary legacy to offer two weeks of delicious events in July.

When To Go

Kota Kinabalu has a tropical rainforest climate with a long monsoon season from May to November. Temperatures hover between 71°F (22°C) to 87°F (30.5°C) for the year, with little change from one month to the next in accordance with Borneo’s position on the equator.

Rain is naturally heavy in Sabah and the capital city but falls, for the most part, in predictable spurts. Still, the city experiences well over 100 in (2,700 mm) of precipitation a year. The dry months of February and March both get over 2 in alone.

What To Miss

Though some of the waterfront restaurants in Kota Kinabalu do have stellar food, know in advance that you will pay a considerable premium for the view. If the seascapes do not sufficiently impress, choose a lunch or dinner option in town, away from the water. The food will probably be just as good and, moreover, will cost much less.

The significant uptick in tourism over the last decade has led to a noticeable increase in street peddlers, opportunistic hucksters and the like. Listen to the odd sales pitch if you must but be firm and walk away if you prefer a hassle-free day out on the town.

When it comes to tours of Kinabalu National Park and other reserves in Sabah, there is a discernible lack of quality control. As the national park is a UNESCO World Heritage Site, it requires a certain level of finess and professionalism from potential guides. Make sure to do your diligence when you seek one out for a tour.

Getting Around

Kota Kinabalu International Airport is the de facto gateway to the rest of Sabah and a mere 8 km from the city proper. The hub serves a long list of destinations, such as Hong Kong, Jakarta-Soekarno–Hatta, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Perth, Seoul-Incheon, Shenzhen, Singapore, Taipei-Taoyuan and Tokyo-Haneda. In 2010 the airport hit the 5 million passenger mark for the first time. A shuttle bus provides access from the airport to the Wawasan Centre, south of downtown Kota Kinabalu.

Visitors can easily access Kota Kinabalu by ferry or bus from a wide variety of points in Sabah, Sarawak, Brunei and the rest of Borneo as well.

Within the city, even the most indolent pedestrians can walk from one end to the other in one hour. Taxis, however, do offer the most convenient transport option for short trips. Most cabs have meters and congregate at popular intersections and points of interest throughout KK. For long day trips independent of a group tour, rent a car.

Kota Kinabalu - General information

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