How To Find The Explorers Of Sentosa – Thomas Dambo’s Trolls In Singapore

On our way back from our anniversary trip to the Maldives, we had a long layover in Singapore. To take advantage of the time there, we headed out into Singapore to do a little bit of exploring, with one of our main activities being a hunt for the Explorers of Sentosa.

The Explorers of Sentosa is an art installation by Danish sculptor Thomas Dambo. He’s created more than 150 troll sculptures all around the world using reclaimed wood to highlight the importance of recycling. We’ve seen tons of his trolls and always take advantage of any opportunity to find them as we love them so much.

The Explorers of Sentosa is a collection of four of these trolls that can be found on Palawan Beach on Sentosa island – an island off the south end of Singapore. They were built in 2022 to celebrate Sentosa’s Golden Jubilee.

To get there we took a Grab (an Uber equivalent) from the airport and got dropped off near the first troll – Reef The Chief.

Map Of The Explorers Of Sentosa

To make it easier to find each of the trolls in Singapore, here’s a map with the locations pinned on there.

1) Reef The Chief

First up was Reef The Chief who’s on the south end of Palawan Beach, set back just a little bit from the sand.

Next to each of the trolls are signs giving more information about the installation, as well as each troll’s story. Here’s the background of Reef the Chief:

Reef the Chief leads the other Explorers. He is a craftsman who takes plastic trash and recycles it into beautiful treasures. As recycling uses less energy and produces less pollution, Reef encourages us to be more aware of our carbon footprint and reduce it one small step at a time.

2) Curious Sue

After meeting Reef the Chief, we headed north up the beach to Curious Sue who’s in the middle of the beach and so is hard to miss.

As you can see, she’s laying there with a shipping container. Her story explains why:

As the youngest of the giants, Curious Sue has adventure in her heart and joyfully searches for hidden treasures in the sand. A cargo container is one of the biggest she’s found so far, a representation of the marine litter that can come from both the cargo ships seen from Sentosa and from us as island visitors. Sue reminds us to be more conscious of our consumption and to keep the beaches beautiful and clean.

3) Dreamer Dee

The third of the Explorers of Sentosa that we found was Dreamer Dee. He’s a fun one to find because you have to cross over a rope bridge on to Palawan Island.

On the other side we discovered that Sentosa is the southernmost point of continental Asia. This year has been a series of location extremes because we started the year visiting Key West – the southernmost point of the continental US.  This summer we flew up to Utqiagvik, Alaska which is the northernmost city in the US. We then unintentionally added this southernmost point of continental Asia to the list.

As you can see, Sentosa is on the southern end of Singapore, connected by a bridge. Singapore in turn is connected to Malaysia, with the rest of continental Asia stretching north from there. Although there’s more of Asia south of Singapore (such as Indonesia), those islands aren’t connected to the main land mass of Asia.

On the other side of Palawan Island we could see all the cargo ships in the Singapore Strait waiting to come in or leave.

Dreamer Dee is on the southeastern tip of Palawan Island. As we walked down to find him, we walked past a large rock formation in the middle of the trail. Upon closer inspection, we noticed that it has ‘Sentosa’ carved into it:

We soon found Dreamer Dee, but unfortunately only from a distance as the route to him had been blocked off.

However, there was a frame through which to view him:

Here’s Dreamer Dee’s story:

Dreamer Dee is a lover of nature, which is why he surrounds himself with it! He is an optimist, ever hopeful for a sustainable future preserved by tourists today. Dee inspires us to think about the potential of what is waste today and to be mindful of what we leave behind.

On our way back to find the fourth and final troll that’s part of the Explorers of Sentosa collection, we saw some additional wild creatures wandering around – some monitor lizards and some peacocks.

4) Little Lyn

The last of Thomas Dambo’s trolls to find that day was Little Lyn. She’s on the northwest end of Palawan Beach; similar to Reef the Chief, she’s set back a little bit from the beach, hidden behind some trees.

Each of the Explorers of Sentosa have some kind of accessory or toy and Little Lyn is no exception. In her hands is a large ball made of recycled plastic bottles.

Her background story is as follows; as you’ll see, the ball is a snack, not a toy!

The rich resources of nature are what Little Lyn forages responsibly and eats for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Lyn nudges us to pause and appreciate the thriving biodiversity that can be found all around us, as it serves as a reminder of how important it is to preserve the delicate ecosystem of nature.

And with that we’d finished exploring Sentosa for the Explorers of Sentosa. It was fun getting to find these sculptures; check out all our other posts about Thomas Dambo’s trolls here.