The Jewel in the crown of Singapore Airport – ver. 2025.

Airports around the world come in all shapes and sizes. Some are huge, some are tiny; some are packed with folks, others are roomy and almost empty. Some are efficient and some – not so much. But the brightest, cleanest, most comfortable, and most luxurious airport in the world is the one in Singapore: Changi Airport.

Everything moves real fast here – even though the airport itself is gigantic. It’s spacious, comfy, and not crowded – even though it’s one of the top-20 busiest airports on the planet.

And it’s just plain beautiful:

(You can find tons more pics online)

And that’s exactly how it should be – for first impressions matter. Airports are the “front door” to a country. And Singapore clearly gets this perfectly: the welcome couldn’t be warmer, and when it’s time to leave – you don’t really want to.

You can tell the economy’s doing just fine here. Singapore is tiny – about three times smaller than Moscow, or around half the size of London or Rome (more details here), with a population of approximately just six million. Yet it proudly ranks… No.1 in the world (!) on GDP (PPP) per capita!

But back to Changi Airport…

In short: it’s simply magical. And the most mind-blowing part? The Jewel entertainment and retail complex, which just happens to reside right in the middle of the airport (I told you it’s enormous:). It’s a massive oval-shaped building (about 200×150 meters), with stores and restaurants around the edges and a huge waterfall in the middle – all surrounded by lush tropical greenery:

I’ve posted about this place before – at night when they light up the waterfall and there are all sorts of light shows. Today we were viewing it by day. Btw, here it is on the map:

A bit closer:

It’s outside the secure flyers-only area, so anyone can walk in from the street without going through security – but it’s still connected to the airport. They even have a mono-rail that runs between terminals, which goes right by the waterfall:

When the train passes the waterfall, it slows down so you can snap some good pics!

You could easily spend hours wandering around Jewel, even without getting sidetracked by the shops and restaurants. But if you’ve got time before your flight, why not get sidetracked? You can also stroll up to the top levels and then down to the very bottom. At the top there’s a really cool bridge – and the view over the whole place is amazing ->

// Heads up: you have to pay to get onto the bridge. But trust me – it’s worth it.

Looking the other way and down:

Oh, and the bridge platform is made of glass! ->

It comes as a bit of a shock at first:

Another shuttle slowing down for the view of the waterfall:

The abundance of greenery here is just mind-blowing. Who’d have thought it: a jungle in an airport!…

Every now and then they release mist over the bridge; they really have thought of everything! ->

The lush greenery everywhere makes you feel like you’re strolling through a tropical greenhouse:

There are also flower gardens – although there’s a fee to enter those too. Totally worth it, but we were running out of time. Next time, I’m definitely arriving at the airport even earlier – if you’re gonna wander, might as well do it properly!

The lowest level…

There are some pretty cool sights from down there too:

At one point, they turned off the waterfall and turned on… clouds! ->

Apparently, this switch happens on a regular basis – but honestly, we didn’t have the time (or the patience) to figure out the schedule…

And there’s the glass bridge we just walked across:

So yeah, this place is like nothing else. A shopping/entertainment/jungle combo with a waterfall – plus an airport! Some folks are shopping, others are eating, kids are bouncing around on trampolines, and yoga classes are taking place downstairs. Some of the passers-by have luggage – others don’t. Such an unusual airport! Meanwhile, we’re heading toward our gate…

A shot from the plane window – and we were off!

The best high-res photos from Singapore are here.