Dear Atlas is Atlas Obscura’s travel advice column, answering the questions you won’t find in traditional guidebooks. Have a question for our experts? Submit it here.
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Dear Atlas,
If I’m gonna take a long-haul trip, I want to make the most out of the actual journey. Are there any major international airport hubs that have fun activities outside of the fancy business lounges?
Maybe it’s just us, but we at Atlas Obscura enjoy the idea of riding a 39-foot-tall slide to our departure gate. We just weren’t built for gray walls and fluorescent lighting. Luckily, some airports go above and beyond to entertain people waiting to board. Because even though many terminals are starting to look more like malls, some are mercifully saving those of us who don’t need to eat a meal or shop for clothes. After all, wouldn’t you rather walk between the trees of a jungle, skate on ice and roller rinks, or play with a pig?
Nature Spots
Easily the most entertaining airport in the world has to be Changi in Singapore. Find your way through mazes made of mirrors or hedges, admire a shapeshifting rain sculpture, ride down the slide that spans four stories, or watch planes take off while floating in a rooftop pool that includes a jacuzzi, bar, and shower. If you want to forget you’re in an airport at all, head to Terminal 3 for a garden full of 1,000 butterflies fluttering past spiky Powderpuff flowers and a 20-foot waterfall.
Living, breathing indoor gardens have sprung up at a few airports around the world. At the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport in Honolulu, a Japanese forest of pine trees, stone lanterns, and pagodas connects to Chinese wilderness full of bamboo, koi fish, and a red pavilion, which eventually leads to a Hawaiian haven with Luau torches, a waterfall flowing down lava rocks, plus bananas and coconuts. In Malaysia, you can smell the humid soil on the jungle boardwalk in Kuala Lumpur International Airport, which has endemic rainforest species and trees nearly outgrowing the ceiling. Or you can even admire swiss chard and bell peppers growing in Chicago O’Hare’s vertical vegetable farm.
For more animal life, you could become mesmerised by aquariums in airports like Orlando International or Amsterdam Airport Schiphol, but the most impressive ones are in Canada and Saudi Arabia. King Abdul Aziz International airport in Jeddah has the largest aquatic tank. Meanwhile the aquarium in Vancouver feels like it flows through the entire airport, since it has tidal pools, streams, and tanks in different terminals holding jellyfish, armored sea cucumber, and purple sea urchins.
Active Options
A few airports such as London Heathrow, Dubai International, and Zurich International have public-accessible hotel gyms for a long wait. But you can get more unique exercise at JFK in New York by roller skating at the Runway Rink of the TWA airport hotel, which sits in front of an old 1958 airplane turned into a cocktail bar. Or try the wintery option at Incheon Airport in South Korea, which offers a year-round ice-skating rink.
Much like the Frankfurt, Dallas, and Delhi airports, San Francisco’s airport offers a yoga studio. But SFO enhances their meditative offerings with therapy dogs and the world’s first-ever therapy pig, which sometimes wears tutus or aviator goggles.
Cultural Offerings
If you’ve arrived particularly early or have a long layover, watch a short film or entire movie at Minneapolis−Saint Paul International, which has a small theater in Terminal 3 near Gate 18. Portland’s airport has a 1920s-style microcinema that only seats 22 people, showing short films and documentaries created by local filmmakers on topics such as bigfoot and Portland donuts. And of course Singapore’s Changi Airport has two free theaters open 24 hours a day.
For an older cultural immersion, a number of airports have museums on the premises. If you’re lucky enough to fly to Athens, head to the museum in the Eleftherios Venizelos International, which houses 172 artifacts dug up during construction, including Byzantine coins, tiles, beads, and terracotta pots from as far back as the 3rd millennium BC.
Nearby in Turkey, the Istanbul airport displays 316 items from 29 museums, such as a head of Medusa sculpture and the first peace treaty in the world from 1259 BC between the Egyptians and Hittites. In the U.S., Atlanta’s Hartsfield-Jackson Airport shows its history and involvement in the Civil Rights Movement in a permanent exhibit in the hallway between Terminals B and C. And Mumbai’s Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport is home to the Artbeat of New India museum, which showcases artifacts and art from all over India.
Unusual Art
Spend your time admiring stranger art at Denver International, where a seemingly demonic mural and blue horse with red eyes have caused all kinds of conspiracy theories. In fact, several curious artworks are spread across U.S. airports, like the space cow in Houston, magic illusion in Seattle-Tacoma International, robot repair shop display in Pittsburgh, tunnel of changing LED lights in Detroit, and enormous flamingo in Tampa. Abroad, giant kangaroos adorn Australia’s Canberra Airport, a 23-foot yellow teddy bear oversees the foyer in Hamad International in Qatar, and Gallery Toto in Japan’s Narita Airport is like a love letter to high-tech toilets.
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Danielle Hallock is a former senior editor at Atlas Obscura, Thrillist, and Culture Trip, as well as a writer for National Geographic, Well+Good, and Time Out. She’s been working in travel since 2018, after four years as a managing editor at Penguin Random House. As a Chilean-American, crossing cultures and mountains is in her nature, and she continues to grow her collection of books, bagged summits, and passport stamps. Though she has a hard time sitting still, Brooklyn has become her base camp.
