Updated June 2026
I first wrote this post when I was ten, in the kind of deranged excitement that only a ten-year-old can achieve about an airport. I have since grown several sizes and developed opinions about coffee and whether films need subtitles, but my position on Changi has not shifted one millimetre. It is the greatest airport on earth.
What has changed is that I’ve now spent the better part of a decade visiting Singapore or transiting through Changi on the way to everywhere else, and my assessment remains the same as it was when I was little. It is the best airport on earth, and it isn’t close. Every time I come back, something new has appeared, something old has quietly disappeared (RIP Hello Kitty café, you were a bit cutesy for me, but my sister loved you), and the list of reasons to arrive early or engineer a long layover keeps growing. Changi and I keep evolving, and so does this list.
Here are my top 22 activities for kids at Singapore Changi Airport
1. You can fly before you take off
The best thing about Changi is you don’t even need to check-in before you can start flying. In Changi’s Terminal 3 there’s a twisty, turny insane 12-metre high slide in the public area. You can zoom down the slide at super speeds of up to six metres per second and there’s a shorter, slower route for little kids, like my sister. Me? I’m going all the way.
2. You can find the secret rainforest
The Tropical Rainforest Vivarium near the Skytrain to Terminal 2 is Changi’s first paludarium, a contained environment of tropical plants, flowing water and small forest stream fish built right into the wall. It’s easy to walk straight past without noticing, which means most people do. Don’t be most people.
3. You can explore an enchanted Techno garden
The Enchanted Garden in Terminal 2 has four giant glass bouquet sculptures decorated with mosaics and filled with flowers and ferns. Plus there are fibre-optic lights and LEDs that sparkle to life with light and sound. Cool!
4. You can flutter by
I love Changi’s butterfly garden in Terminal 3. The world’s first butterfly garden in an airport, there’s a tropical garden with waterfalls and ponds and more than 1000 brightly coloured butterflies. But as well as being able see loads of neon winged fluttering insects, the garden is educational, and we were able to learn all about their life cycle at the garden’s educational stations.
5. There’s a cool screen scene
The free movie theatres in Terminals 2 and 3 are still one of Changi’s best-kept secrets, screening movies all day and all night at no charge. Terminal 3’s ST3PS has levelled up since we last visited with beanbag screenings, live sports broadcasts of the EPL and Grand Prix, and on weekends there are magic shows on Saturdays and fitness sessions on Sundays. Free entertainment in an airport is a winner.
6. You can get decked
The Entertainment Deck in Terminal 2 has movies, retro arcade machines, PlayStations and computers, and an awesome Xbox Kinect gaming experience that allows you to play a variety of sports on screen. You know where to find me.
7. And it was all yellow
This place in Terminal 2 has nothing to with a Coldplay song. Instead it’s an unexpected field of hundreds of bright yellow sunflowers on the roof of Terminal 2. It is the last thing I’d ever expect to find in an airport, but Changi is no ordinary airport.
8.You can get a little zen
There’s a Water Lily Garden in Terminal 1. It’s a really chilled place where you can relax alongside giant Amazonian Water Lilies and sacred lotus flowers. Namaste.
9. You can be quite crafty
My sister loves craft, and she really liked the art rubbing stations located in each terminal at Changi. There were loads of supplied crayons to make art imprints of Singaporean icons like the Merlion, and she got to make a pretty cool picture to take home.
10. You can take a dip
At the Aerotel Airport Transit Hotel in Terminal 1, you can enjoy a swim and a splash between flights in the rooftop pool, watching planes take off from the runway below. It’s free for hotel guests, but if you’re not staying you can access the pool for a fee. Check the Aerotel website for current pricing.
11. You can channel your inner Tarzan in the Discovery Garden
When you want to get your Tarzan on, Terminal 1’s Discovery Garden (formerly the Sculptural Tree Garden) is the place to go. You can’t actually swing on the vines, but you can run around the raised walkways between vine-covered sculptural trees.
12. You can slide, slide, climb and play
In each terminal you’ll find free, air-conditioned play areas to suit kids of all ages. The pick of the bunch is the playground near Terminal 1’s departure gates, built around a giant bird-themed structure with slides and a steel net bridge for climbing. Good for burning off the specific brand of chaotic energy that builds up when you’ve been on a plane and are about to board another one.
13. You can partake in prickly pastimes
There are more than 100 species of cacti and arid plants from Africa and the Americas in the cool cactus garden in Terminal 1. It is a bit smoky though as it’s a designated smoking area.
14. You can go full adventure at Kiztopia
Inside the Toys “R” Us at Jewel there’s a Kiztopia Club, a 4,500 square foot adventure zone with a funnel slide into an ocean ball pit, interactive ball-shooting walls, trampolines and climbing obstacles, plus an aircraft structure and a plane cabin for photos. Ticketed — check the Jewel website for current sessions and pricing.
15. You can get super social
In Terminal 1, the Social Tree looks like a shrunken version of Gardens by The Bay. It’s a super cool interactive installation, meaning more screen time. The Social Tree lets you snap and store photo and video memories of Changi instantly. You can dress your image in costumes and share them on social media or send them around the world on the massive 260-degree digital screens that sit on top of the Social Tree. You can also challenge other visitors to games using your avatars. We’ve even been able to retrieve our old images when we’ve come back to the airport on other trips.
16. You can walk with the dinosaurs
The Jurassic Mile is a 1km outdoor park connector starting from Terminal 2, lined with more than 20 life-size dinosaur displays — a towering brontosaurus, velociraptors frolicking in the grass, a T-Rex ripping through a fence. It’s open 24 hours and completely different after dark when the displays are lit up. You can hire bikes from GoCycling at the Hub & Spoke café at Terminal 2 and cycle the whole thing. I would recommend this to absolutely anyone.
17. You can fill up on street eats
Singapore Food Street in the Changi Airport Terminal 3 Transit area is a proper hawker market serving all my favourite Singaporean street eats including Laksa, Sambal Squid, Hainanese Chicken Rice, Bak Kut The (pork rib in broth) and more! I could happily spend a few hours here scoffing absolutely everything between flights.
18. You can let your parents get pampered
Get your toes nibbled at the Fish Spa in Terminal 2’s Wellness Oasis. Let your mum and dad grab a massage at Be Relax in Terminal 3. Or send mum for a fancy schmancy pampering facial at SK-11 Pitera Lounge followed by a makeover at Dior. Not that my mama needs it, she’s already perfect! (Of course I want something!)
19. You can experience an alien invasion (not really)
I love orchid flowers, because they look like weird bird aliens. They have 700 orchids and 30 species of orchids here so you can enjoy a close encounter with them at the Orchid Garden & Koi Pond in Terminal 2. They also have ponds full of orange, gold and white Koi fish blowing bubbles at passers-by.
20. You can run your own airport
The Changi Experience Studio on Level 4 of Jewel has more than 20 interactive stations across 10 zones where kids can have a go at actually running an airportfrom air traffic control, baggage handling, the lot.
21. You can search for treasure in a Jewel
OMG. We visited Jewel just days after it officially opened, and years later it just keeps getting better. It’s a multi-storey food, shopping and entertainment complex attached to the terminals and it is anchored by the HSBC Rain Vortex, the world’s tallest indoor waterfall, which is thunderously loud and genuinely jaw-dropping. There’s also a nightly light and sound show that uses the waterfall as its screen at 8pm and 9pm daily, with an extra 10pm session on weekends and public holidays. The Shiseido Forest Valley inside is lush, green and walkable. My sister still goes nuts every time we come back. I maintain it is worth arriving at the airport early just for this.
22. You can bounce your way to the clouds
Canopy Park on Level 5 of Jewel is where the climbing nets are and they are spectacular. The Manulife Sky Nets are bouncing nets suspended high in the air with a view straight down to the Rain Vortex below, which I found exhilarating and my sister found terrifying until she got the hang of it, at which point she refused to come down. There’s also the Foggy Bowls, where you play among actual clouds, a Mirror Maze and the Discovery Slides. Canopy Park is ticketed and worth it — check the Jewel website for current rates and book ahead at busy times.
The boy in BoyEatsWorld, Raff is an experienced travel television presenter, published travel writer, and an award winning public speaker who is as obsessed with eating as he is with travel. 