For my son's high school graduation, he wants to go to Asia. This would be our first trip to Asia. I'm a widowed mother and travel with my two teens a lot so they are experienced travelers and don't mind museums and walking all day. It will be me and my children, who are 16 and 17, girl and boy. We are thinking Indonesia, Malaysia, and Singapore. We are flexible with time but are thinking about 3 weeks. We are coming from Florida in the US so we don't have to spend time at the beach but rather do cultural and adventurous things, although a little splash in the summer is never unwelcomed. I would love help planning this trip as I have no idea what cities to do or how much time I need in each. I'm looking forward to doing temples and cities and really experiencing the Asian culture. We are extremely excited about this experience.

I'm sure you will have a wonderful trip! IME, 3 weeks will pass very quickly, so I encourage you to get some good guidebooks and think through your priorities. In the meantime, if you haven't already seen it, you might find some useful information in my trip report:
A Memorable Solo Month in Singapore, Java, and Bali

Hope that helps!

What a wonderful opportunity for you and your kids! Three weeks sounds like a long time, but it will fly by. One thing to consider is that Indonesia and Malaysia are moderately priced, Singapore is the most expensive place in Asia for hotels.

For Indonesia, I'd recommend Bali and/or Java. For Malaysia, consider Malaysian Borneo, specifically Kuching. Or if you prefer peninsular Malaysia, Georgetown, Penang is a good option.

Have a wonderful trip!

With only three weeks, I would select Malaysia OR Indonesia, but not both. I have not been to Singapore, but you could possibly stop there for a couple of days if the flight routing works out. I found Eastern Malaysia (the Borneo part) to be utterly fascinating in terms of wildlife and beautiful hiking. I spent three weeks there, followed by a couple of days in Kuala Lumpur. My favorite parts of the trip were Bario in the Kelabit Highlands, and Sandakan. The food is unusual in Malaysia, and quite enjoyable, and the people are super-friendly.

I am headed to Indonesia for three weeks in September, I am spending two nights in Munduk, Bali, as a hiking stopover, followed by eight days in Sulawesi to see the funerals, and the remainder of the time in Java. I used kja's superb trip report as inspiration for the Java portion of the trip. It seems that Java has quite an abundance of ancient sites and temples.

Whatever you decide, try not to do too much. Enjoy.

@ CaliforniaLady: Thanks! To give credit where credit is due, I based my plans for Java largely on excellent reports by Kathie and Crellston.

Kja is spot on when she says that 3 weeks will fly by so you do need to be very selective about where to go and what to do. Malaysia has a well developed transport infrastructure and is pretty easy to get around. Indonesia is more challenging but a lot of fun. You could easily spend the whole three weeks in either country and still only scratch the surface.

As CaliforniaLady suggests East Malaysia is terrific for wildlife and another vote for the Kelabit Highlands around Bario. Sandakan, Mount Kinabalu NP, Mulu are all great for nature and Kuching is a very pleasant small city.

Peninsula Malaysia has some interesting places. From KL it is relatively easy to combine Ipoh (cave temples) Penang (colonial architecture) and the Cameron Highlands (tea plantations) .

In Indonesia I would probably focus on Java - Yogyakarta, Borobudur, Bromo and Mt Ijen . We travelled through the island mostly by train which was both easy and fun. Sulawesi was amazing and I would highly recommend spending up to a week visiting Tana Toraja for the funerals ( depending on the time of year) and include Lake Tempe and Raman Ramang on the way there or back to the capital Makassar. We used a great fixer, to sort out our trip there "Dodo the Penman" I can look out his contact details if you are interested.

For some more info and a lot of photos of our time in these places here is a link to our blog of our time there https://accidentalnomads.com just click on the appropriate country.

There are a lot of options for your trip and it is always tempting to try and pack in too much. Try to avoid that temptation as travel can be time consuming in Asia and you could end up spending a lot of your time in transit if not careful.

You should be aware that the major Islamic holidays that follow Ramadan will start around June 15 and continue for about 10 days. This is not a good time to travel in Java. I believe the same would apply to parts of Malaysia as well.

I would consider Tanah Toraja to be one of the most beautiful and fascinating parts of Asia, but if that's more adventurous then you are up for then I would concentrate on Java and Bali. From Singapore you could fly into Yogyakarta and spend a few days in Yogya and around Borobudur temple. Then you could fly to Surabaya for a few days in the Mt. Bromo area. From Bromo you could either return to Surabaya and fly to south Bali or you could travel overland to Ijen, then take the ferry to north Bali.

In Bali I would concentrate on the Ubud area for culture and nature. If you want to spend a few days on the beach I'd recommend the Petitenget area of north Seminyak or Batu Bolong in Canggu.

I'm not that keen on West Malaysia. East Malaysia/Borneo is wonderful for adventure travel. I'd also consider adding the Angkor Temples in Siem Reap Cambodia. Of course, you'd have to eliminate something else if you were to include Angkor.

I think when planning it's better to think in terms of destinations (e.g., airports, cities, islands, regions) rather than countries. The geographic spread of Malaysia and Indonesia is huge, so you need to narrow your focus to 5 or 6 places. Flights within Southeast Asia are plentiful and cheap (especially on AirAsia) but getting from place to place is still a time eater.

Thank you so much for all the input. I'm loving it. My plan is to spend one week in Indonesia (probably Bali and Java), about one and a half week in Malaysia (georgetown is always been on my list, but now I want to add eastern part due to all your comments) and only 2-3 days in Singapore (probably right before I flight back to the states. We're coming from Florida so no interest to spend days at the beach. also my kids may want to hike some but they wont spend a whole week hiking . We as travelers have a very short attention span and usually get a lot done in a short time. people usually ask us how we got so much done but truly it is because we get bored quickly. also, we can always come back to an area if we really like it but truly I have so many places that I want to see in the world and since I started traveling at 40 can't spend three weeks in any one country (maybe one day when I retire I can). Also, I travel with a nice budget so I can hire a driver to take us around Bali island or fly somewhere for a faster route. I just want to make sure that I cover the most important areas and get a well balanced experience (city, cultural/historical/architectural areas, adventure/nature). Dont' know if I'm interested in the funerals since we lost my husband/kids father and we may not feel like spending days thinking about death no matter how cultural. Again, thank you so much for all the input. I'm loving this community and will continue to use it in the planning process and hopefully make some decisions soon before everything gets too expensive. and thanks for the religious holidays, I could go at the end of june instead.