By Lisa Simundson
If your travels take you and your group to or through any of the following venues, it’ll make the voyage even more memorable.
You’ll be keeping your fingers crossed for a layover at Jewel Changi Airport, a veritable playground of attractions including a suspended “walking net” (and a bouncy net for kids); two walk-through mazes—mirror and hedge; a canopy bridge suspended above lush plants and trees; and the magnificent Shiseido Forest Valley, where visitors stroll through a real forested garden. Jewel’s centerpiece feature is an indoor waterfall, cascading down seven stories, catching sunlight by day and surrounded by lights and music by night.
Small wonder the Jewel Changi Airport has a corporate events department, offering such venues as the Changi Experience Studio, available for corporate team building, conferences and networking events. Another event space features a 40-foot-long balcony offering unblocked views of the HSBC Rain Vortex. Other function space includes an elegant suite for private events.
Dubbed as the fifth most extreme airport in the world by The History Channel, Gibraltar International Airport actually crosses one of the main roads into the city—Winston Churchill Avenue—where motorists have to wait at traffic lights for planes to land. Overlooking the sea and the famous Rock of Gibraltar in the British Overseas Territory of the same name, the airport has attracted international attention for its unconventional design.
Gibraltar International’s storied history includes an incident in 2017 when a vehicle from the Royal Gibraltar Police drove onto the runway to block a flight carrying a criminal who was trying to escape. The standoff caused a two-hour delay for anyone needing to cross the runway on Winston Churchill Avenue.
While once thought of as an inconvenience, officials have embraced the unusual runway as a tourist attraction, with the airport’s website stating that visitors to Gibraltar deliberately use that road to get into the city. However, they have issued a warning to those seeking a photo-op. An airport statement says: “Naturally the spot near Air Traffic Control is an epic selfie and photo opportunity, but we must remember the area is an active runway.”
You know how some airport hotels can be kind of…meh? Not in Stockholm, where the Arlanda Airport boasts JumboStay, a hotel built inside a converted 747 with a cafe, conference rooms and guestrooms accommodating up to three adults. Some rooms have a private bath, but—as on a real plane—you might have to share facilities. They also offer a quad dormitory bed option as well as aluxury suite in the converted cockpit with a panoramic view of the airport.
Acknowledged as being the shortest commercial runway in the world, the Dutch Caribbean island of Saba—known for its mountainous terrain and sea cliffs—has placed the Juancho E. Yrausquin Airport on the island’s only bit of flat land.
With a strip of asphalt just 1,300 ft long—with only 900 ft of usable space—the runway is not much longer than an aircraft carrier. Needless to say, flying into Saba isn’t for the faint of heart, although thrill seekers might like to know there are sheer drops into the sea at either end of the runway. Maybe opt for the ferry?
A rainforest in the middle of the desert? It isn’t a mirage. The Orchard at Hamad International Airport in Doha is home to more than 300 trees and 25,000 plants and shrubs, selected and brought to the airport from sustainable forests in Malaysia, Thailand, Singapore and elsewhere. Sheltering this indoor tropical rainforest is a column-free canopy of high-performance glass designed to filter and control light to facilitate the plants’ growth and health.
But Hamad International doesn’t stop there. Placed throughout the concourses are gigantic art installations, including the famed Lamp Bear—which is exactly what it sounds like, a monumental (23 ft tall) bronze teddy bear sitting inside a lamp, created by Swiss artist Urs Fisher. If you’re expecting a long layover, Hamad offers a 30-minute tour of all the installations. But save some time for browsing a shopping promenade of more than 90 shops and boutiques.