It’s a city, but also a nation. It’s the only country with a hybrid flower as its national symbol. And it’s one of the wealthiest and most high-tech cities in the world. 

Singapore is one of the more interesting places I have visited in the last few years. When you walk around this city, you see the future of architecture blending nature and cities together. People, buildings and nature seem to converge together in a harmonious design you will not see anywhere else in the world. From an indoor waterfall and nature dome at Changi International Airport to the largest infinity pool in the world on top of the Marina Bay Sands hotel overlooking the bay, Singapore dares to be different. A walk around the lights of the Marina Bay nature paths at night immerses you into the future of what a sustainable city looks like.

It is all bizarrely beautiful, which also gives the city its own unique identity. An evening stroll through Gardens by the Bay will make you feel like you have fallen into a weird and incredible dream. Entering the garden feels like you have passed into the film Avatar as your peer up at the Supertrees, 18 tree-like structures between 80 feet (25 meters) and 160 feet (50 meters), towering above. Lights dance around you to soft music in a show appropriately called the Garden Rhapsody. Flowing from the sides of the Supertrees are exotic ferns, orchids and vines, all lit with different lights that change colors. You can even walk above it all on an aerial walkway, a bit like one of the forests in a Star Wars movie.

For one moment in Singapore, I felt like I was strolling through a futuristic city of a distant world.