I’m Wei Lin Tan.
This is my home you’re visiting.

I grew up in a shophouse on Lebuh Armenian — the same street tourists now photograph for its iron-rod caricatures and faded Chinese signboards. My grandmother sold kuih from a folding table on the five-foot way. My father ran a small hardware store next door. I used to think every city in the world smelled like incense and char kway teow in the morning.

After studying architectural conservation at USM, I spent eight years as a heritage conservation officer with George Town World Heritage Incorporated (GTWHI), the body responsible for maintaining UNESCO World Heritage Site status for the inner city. That job taught me something most guidebooks never capture: Penang is not a museum. It is a living, breathing, constantly-evolving place where Hokkien aunties, Malay fishermen, Tamil flower sellers, and Peranakan families have been negotiating shared space for over two hundred years.

Why I Started Writing

In 2013, a friend visiting from KL asked me to plan three days for her. I sent a handwritten list — timings, walking routes, the exact stall number for the best assam laksa at Gurney Drive Hawker Centre (it’s stall 27, by the way). She told me it was the best trip she’d ever taken in Malaysia.

I kept making those lists. For colleagues, for cousins, for friends-of-friends who messaged me on WhatsApp asking “Wei Lin, where should we eat?” Eventually I realised I was rewriting the same itinerary every few weeks, and every published guide I checked online was either hopelessly outdated (recommending stalls that closed in 2019) or written by someone who spent three days on the island and called themselves an expert.

Penang Itinerary exists because I got tired of seeing my home described by people who don’t live here. Every itinerary on this site is a route I’ve personally walked, every restaurant is a place I actually eat at, and every timing is based on real traffic patterns — not Google Maps estimates made from a hotel room in Bangkok.

What Makes This Site Different

I don’t scrape TripAdvisor reviews. I don’t compile “Top 10” lists from other blogs. Here is what I actually do:

The Penang I Want You to See

Most visitors see the UNESCO zone, eat char kway teow, take a street art photo, and leave. That’s fine — it’s a perfectly good day. But Penang has layers that take years to uncover.

I want you to notice the Hokkien couplets above shophouse doors. I want you to understand why the Teochew temple on Lebuh Armenian faces the harbour — and why the Indian Muslim mosque is right next door. I want you to taste the difference between a char kway teow made on charcoal versus gas, and know why it matters.

I want you to sit in a kopitiam at 7am and watch the neighbourhood wake up: the man who sweeps the five-foot way at dawn, the roti canai seller who has been flipping dough in the same spot since 1987, the aunty who brings her own tiffin carrier to buy curry. That rhythm is what makes Penang worth visiting — and worth protecting.

A Note on Heritage

George Town received UNESCO World Heritage status in 2008. As a former conservation officer, I’ve seen firsthand how tourism can both preserve and erode a living heritage site. Gentrification has displaced long-standing residents from the core zone. Traditional trades are disappearing. Rents on Armenian Street have tripled in the last decade.

I write these itineraries with that tension in mind. When I recommend a shop, I prioritise family-run businesses that have been here for generations. When I suggest a walking route, I include the working neighbourhoods alongside the photogenic ones. I believe the best way to honour a place is to see it honestly — not just the parts that look good on Instagram.

Get in Touch

I genuinely love hearing from people who have used these itineraries. If you found a stall that’s closed, a timing that’s off, or a hidden spot I should know about, please reach out. This site gets better every time a reader writes in.