The best things to do in Miri are mostly outside Miri. Niah National Park, with its ancient burial caves and the site of the oldest modern human remains in island Southeast Asia, sits about two hours south. Lambir Hills National Park, a wall of rainforest with swimmable waterfalls, is half an hour the other way. In town you have the Grand Old Lady, Malaysia’s first oil well, and the Petroleum Museum beside it on Canada Hill, plus Coco Cabana for sunset and the markets at Saberkas. Miri is also the air gateway to two of Sarawak’s hardest-to-reach places, Mulu and the Kelabit Highlands.
I live in Kuching and route a lot of Borneo trips through Miri, because the planes to Mulu and Bario take off from here. After enough of those trips I’ve come to treat it as a comfortable, well-stocked base camp rather than a destination in its own right, and a couple of Miri friends tell me that’s roughly how they see their own town. That framing saved me a lot of disappointment, and it is the honest place to start.
Key Takeaways
- Miri is Sarawak’s northern oil city, near the Brunei border, and the air gateway to Mulu and Bario.
- Niah National Park (about 110km south) holds the Great Cave, the Painted Cave, and the spot where a 40,000-year-old human skull was found.
- Lambir Hills National Park (about 30km south) has several waterfalls and short jungle trails, with a popular swimming pool at Latak Falls.
- The Grand Old Lady on Canada Hill was Malaysia’s first oil well, drilled in 1910; the Petroleum Museum next to it is free.
- Coco Cabana is the seafront spot for sunset; Luak Bay and the city beaches are average by Malaysian standards.
- AirBorneo Twin Otters to Bario leave from Miri and are weather-dependent, so build in a buffer day.
What is Miri famous for?
Miri is famous for oil. This is where Malaysia’s petroleum industry started in 1910, when the first well was drilled on the hill that now overlooks the town, and the city grew up around that industry rather than around tourism. You feel it the moment you arrive: Miri is a working modern town of shopping malls, wide roads, and seafood restaurants, prosperous and easy to spend a comfortable night in.
What Miri lacks is old-town character. There is no equivalent of Kuching’s riverfront shophouses or carpenter-street temples here, no historic core to wander. The interesting things are spread out and most of them are a drive away, which is why I’ve ended up using the city for sleeping and resupplying and saving the parks for the daytime.
What are the best things to do in Miri itself?
In the city, start on Canada Hill at the Grand Old Lady, the rusted derrick of Malaysia’s first oil well. Next to it the Petroleum Museum is free and air-conditioned, which counts for a lot at midday, and it lays out the whole story of how oil made this town. The hill also gives you the clearest view back over Miri and the coast.
For the evening, Coco Cabana is the seafront promenade locals head to for sunset, with cafes and a shark-fin-shaped sculpture that everyone photographs. Earlier in the day, the Saberkas Weekend Market and the handicraft centre are where you pick up Kelabit highland rice, pineapples, and Orang Ulu beadwork. For seafood, the restaurants out toward Luak Bay are the ones residents actually drive to.
Should you visit Niah Caves from Miri?
Yes, and for a lot of visitors Niah is the reason to base yourself in Miri at all. Niah National Park sits about 110km south, roughly a two-hour drive on the main road, and protects a limestone massif riddled with caves that double as an archaeological site. A 40,000-year-old human skull, the “Deep Skull,” was found in the Great Cave here, which reframed how early humans are understood to have lived in this part of the world.
The visit itself is a proper outing, not a quick photo stop. From the park you take a short boat across the river, then walk a plankwalk of around 3km through rainforest to reach the Great Cave, a vast dark chamber where collectors still harvest edible birds’ nests from bamboo poles. Beyond it lies the Painted Cave, with faint red rock art and the remains of “death ships,” boat-shaped coffins. Bring a torch, because stretches inside are genuinely dark, and check current park fees and opening hours with Sarawak Forestry before you go.
What about Lambir Hills and the waterfalls?
Lambir Hills National Park is the easy one, about 30km south of Miri and reachable in half an hour. It is known for its waterfalls and for the density of its forest, the kind of place where researchers count hundreds of tree species in a single small plot. For a casual visitor that translates to shaded, well-marked trails under genuinely old forest.
The headline walk is the short trail to Latak Waterfall, where there is a pool you can swim in and a picnic area that fills up with local families at weekends. Longer, steeper trails climb to other falls for those who want a half-day of it. It makes a clean morning trip from the city: drive out early, swim before the heat peaks, and be back for lunch. As with Niah, confirm fees and trail conditions with Sarawak Forestry first.
Are Miri’s beaches worth it?
Here is the part Miri’s own tourism material tends to skip: the beaches are average. The city has a coastline, and Luak Bay and Tanjung Lobang give you sand, casuarina trees, and a sunset, but the water is often murky and brown from river silt and the offshore oil activity, and the sand is coarse rather than the postcard white you get on islands further east. They are pleasant enough for an evening stroll and a coconut. They are not a reason to fly to Miri, and if pristine beaches are what you want, Sarawak as a whole is the wrong coast and you would do better in Sabah.
What the coast does do well is sunset. The flat western horizon means Miri gets long, uninterrupted sunsets over the South China Sea, and Coco Cabana exists precisely to sell you a drink while you watch one.
Is Miri the gateway to Mulu and Bario?
Yes, and this is Miri’s real job in a Borneo itinerary. The town is the main air hub for the northern interior, and several places you cannot drive to are reached on small planes from Miri Airport. Mulu’s UNESCO caves are a short AirBorneo hop away, and the Kelabit Highlands village of Bario is served by AirBorneo Twin Otter flights from here.
| From Miri | How | Roughly |
|---|---|---|
| Niah National Park | Car / van south | About 2 hours |
| Lambir Hills National Park | Car / van south | 30 minutes |
| Mulu (caves) | AirBorneo flight | About 30 minutes |
| Bario (Kelabit Highlands) | AirBorneo Twin Otter | About 1 hour |
One honest warning about the small flights, especially to Bario: they are weather-dependent and they do get cancelled, sometimes for a day or more, because the highland airstrip needs decent visibility and the Twin Otters will not fly blind. Do not book a Bario or Mulu flight with a tight onward connection the same day. Give yourself a buffer night in Miri, which is one of the few good reasons to be glad the town is so comfortable. If the highlands are your goal, our guide to visiting Bario and the Kelabit Highlands covers what that trip actually involves.
How many days do you need in Miri?
Two full days covers the city and one of the parks comfortably. Spend the first on Niah, which eats most of a day once you count the drive and the plankwalk, and the second on Lambir’s waterfalls in the morning with Canada Hill and Coco Cabana to round it off. If you are using Miri purely as a launchpad for Mulu or Bario, treat it as a one-night staging post on the way in and, ideally, build a second buffer night on the way out in case the weather grounds your flight.
For where Miri fits in a wider Borneo loop, our overview of discovering Sarawak maps out how the northern parks connect with the rest of the state.
So, is Miri worth a trip?
Go to Miri for what surrounds it: the ancient caves at Niah, the waterfalls at Lambir, and the flights into Mulu and the highlands that leave from nowhere else nearby. Treat the town itself as a base, eat well, watch a sunset at Coco Cabana, and do not expect it to charm you the way Kuching does, because it will not.
One practical last note from someone who keeps doing this: fill up your fuel, your cash, and your snacks in Miri before you head for the parks or the airstrip. The first time I didn’t, the rest of the trip felt proper mithered, as we’d say in Manchester, meaning fretful and on edge about running short. It is the last properly stocked town before the interior, and the further you go from it, the more you appreciate that Miri is exactly the boring, well-equipped base camp the highlands need it to be.
Keep exploring Kuching Insider: How to visit the Mulu caves, visiting Bario and the Kelabit Highlands, and discovering Sarawak.
Last updated: June 2026. Park fees, flight schedules, and opening hours change; confirm current details with Sarawak Forestry before you travel.