Singapore

A fishing settlement until Raffles arrived in 1819, Singapore became a British trading post and then, after 1965, built itself from a struggling island into one of the wealthiest cities on earth within a single generation. That compressed history is visible in a few square kilometres: colonial shophouses, Chinatown, Little India, Kampong Glam and the Sultan Mosque, then Gardens by the Bay and Marina Bay Sands. Everything is walkable or reachable by immaculate metro, which makes it unusually easy with children or elderly parents. Most Pakistani travellers pair it with Malaysia, since the two sit a short hop apart.