Ultimate Travel Guide: 48 Hours in Cameron Highlands

Day One

Morning

With its temperate climate, Cameron Highlands is famous for its diverse and high-quality fruits and vegetables. Amongst the many farms growing spinach, cauliflower, and corn is the Big Red Strawberry Farm. Here, you can spend the morning strolling through the fields, hand-picking fresh, juicy strawberries right from the bush. If you can’t get enough of the lovely fruit, grab a cone of fresh strawberry ice-cream made in-house at the cafe.

After filling up on your morning tea, head over to the Butterfly Garden at Kea Farm. One of the Highland’s oldest attractions, visitors are surrounded by free-flying butterflies of all shapes, colours, and sizes, some of them rare and uncommon. On misty and rainy days, the cool mountain weather makes the butterflies calm and docile, allowing you to get up close to appreciate the delicate patterns on these little creatures.

Afternoon

Of course, no trip to Cameron Highlands is complete without visiting one of the many tea plantations in the area. Taking up its own isolated valley away from the main road, the Sungai Palas Tea Estate (just down the road from the bee farm) is definitely a must-see for tea lovers and Instagrammers alike! After following the windy (and bumpy) stretch to the plantations, you’ll be rewarded with a magnificent panorama of vast, rolling tea fields stretched across the slopes of the valley. Spend the afternoon here wandering the sprawling tea gardens, watching the workers process the tea, and most importantly, sampling some for yourself. As a photographer’s heaven, you won’t want to miss getting a few shots of the beautiful green hills.

Night

If you’re in town on a Friday or Saturday evening, a visit to the eye-opening local night market for dinner is a must. With the orderly-yet-messy vibe quintessential to any successful pasar malam, you’ll find yourself spoilt for choice with stall after stall of all things street food. We recommend the famous roast corn, slathered with butter, and of course, fresh strawberry fondue with local honeycomb for dessert.

Day Two

Morning

If you can manage to pull yourself out of bed early enough, a trip up to the peak of Gunung Brinchang to catch the sunrise is well worth the effort. At over two thousand metres above sea level, feeling the fresh cool wind against your face as you watch the sun bathe the extraordinary landscape in rich warm colour is the perfect start to a busy day.

Afternoon

After a relaxing morning watching the sunrise, put on your trekking boots and head over to the Mossy Forest. Occupying the ridges and valleys at elevations above 1800 metres, the forests are constantly shrouded in mist and low clouds, keeping the temperature at an invigorating 15 degrees. The cool temperature, misty atmosphere and moss-shrouded trees make for a picturesque and relaxing way to spend the afternoon.

Night

After a long afternoon trekking through the cool jungle, head to one of Cameron Highland’s many famous steamboat restaurants. The abundance of farms in the area means that the vegetables are as fresh as can be, with many restaurants even offering purely organic vegetables directly from the local farms. We recommend the popular Mountain House Charcoal Steamboat Restaurant, or if you want to splurge, try the seafood steamboat at You Hoo Seafood Restaurant.

Angela Goh

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