The Singapore Botanic Gardens is an amazing expanses of more than 200 acres that includes over 10,000 species of plants. It was so massive that we walked for two or three hours and only covered half the park. It's over 165 years old and has been honored as an UNESCO World Heritage Site - it's the only tropical garden to have that designation. Entry tickets are less than ten dollars (free for Singapore residents), totally worth it in my opinion! Here are some of the best sights in the Singapore Botanic Gardens that you don't want to miss.
1/ Canopy Boardwalks
We did two walks that are up in the treetops, and they both had some cool views. There was a section for kids called the Learning Forest with netting so you could see below, and the canopy walk included a bridge over Swan Lake, which had nice views.
2/ Shaw Foundation Symphony Stage
One really cool area of the park is a concert venue with plenty of seating on an inclined grassy hill and a lily-pad-filled moat around the stage. And look at how big some of these lily pads are! The biggest were more than a foot in diameter.
3/ The Singapore National Orchid Garden
There are two different orchid gardens, and you don't even need to go in to see some gorgeous orchids. There are tons of orchids planted all around the garden, and some of them were interesting species I'd never seen before.
4/ Lizards!
The Singapore Botanical Garden is full of lizards, and some of them are massive. They're all over the park, as long as you keep your eyes peeled along the The first one I saw was this little guy who snuck right past me on a railing during our walk:
We ended up spotting five more, and the rest were a lot bigger. They weren't afraid of us at all. They walked slowly across the path, next to us, or just hung out and stared as we walked by. The biggest (left) was maybe four or five feet long, including its tail.
Bonus wildlife spotting: there were a lot of bodies of water in the park, rivers and ponds. We saw a turtle swimming along, as well as some cool birds flitting through the many trees.
5/ Banyan Trees:
I always love seeing banyan trees. They're so unique and look otherworldly. If you don't know, Banyan trees drop roots from their branches and when they find soil, they grow as accessory trunks. Banyan trees can expand indefinitely in this way and grow a wildly large footprint if left to their own devices.
Extras:
I loved how absolutely massive some of the leaves were. The tropical weather really suited these plants! The middle photo on the bottom is called a cannonball tree - I'd never seen one before so that stood out to me. There was so much to see in the Singapore Botanic Gardens I could have stayed all day!
