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2022 Porsche 718 Boxster available for visitor self-drive hire on the Kuala Lumpur to the Melaka Coast route in Malaysia

Route guide

Kuala Lumpur to the Melaka Coast

Melaka is the most photogenic short drive from Kuala Lumpur: a UNESCO-listed port town of Peranakan shophouses, Portuguese ruins and river-front cafés, two easy hours down a motorway. Do it as a loop and come home along the water.

Distance
150 km
Drive time
2 hours down the expressway, 3 hours back along the coast
Tolls
RM 35–45 return
Effort
Easy
Cars for this drivePlan it with us

Kuala Lumpur → Melaka, then the coastal road via Port Dickson

How the drive goes

Go down on the E2. It is flat, three lanes wide and takes just under two hours from the city if you leave before the morning peak. Pay at Ayer Keroh and you are five minutes from the old town.

Park at one of the multi-storey car parks near Jalan Merdeka and do not try your luck in Jonker Street — the heritage lanes are one-way, narrow, full of trishaws and no place for a low car. From the car park everything is walkable: Christ Church and the Dutch Square, the climb to St Paul's, the river walk, and Jonker itself, which is a night market on weekends and a normal street the rest of the time.

The good part is the way home. Instead of rejoining the expressway, take the coast road north through Tanjung Bidara and Pengkalan Balak towards Port Dickson. It is a two-lane road at fifty to seventy, running past palm oil, fishing villages and long empty beaches, with the Straits on your left the whole way and container ships parked on the horizon.

Time it so you are somewhere around Port Dickson at sunset. Then it is an hour inland on the E29 and E2 back into Kuala Lumpur — dark, quick and easy.

Honest notes

  • Jonker Street closes to cars on Friday, Saturday and Sunday evenings for the night market.
  • The coast road has speed bumps through every village — dozens of them, some unmarked. A low supercar will scrape.
  • Melaka parking on a weekend is genuinely difficult after 11am. Go early or go midweek.

Best time to go

Year round. Sunsets are best April to September

The right car

What to drive on the the Melaka Coast run

Take the roof off. The expressway down is quick and dull, but the coastal road back through Port Dickson is flat, open, low-speed and runs beside the Straits of Melaka for forty-odd kilometres. A convertible turns the boring half into the point of the trip.

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