Paragliding is five running steps, and then nothing under your feet.
What a tandem costs off Babadag against Interlaken. Which sites fly at dawn and shut by lunch. Weight limits, landing zones, and whether the camera package is worth the extra. Reviews of every paragliding flight you can book.
Five launches, cheapest air first
Alanyafrom $18
Pokharafrom $45
Tenerifefrom $106
Fethiyefrom $116
Interlakenfrom $233The four tandem flights that fill up before the rest.
Oludeniz, Interlaken, Cape Town, Medellin. What each costs, how long you are actually in the air, and what the people strapped in front of a pilot say afterwards.
01TurkeyParagliding Oludeniz – Fethiye, TurkeyOff Babadag at 1,960 metres and down onto the lagoon beach. The flight every other launch site gets measured against.
02SwitzerlandInterlaken: Tandem Paragliding Flight with PilotA short run off the Beatenberg slope, then twenty minutes over the lake with the Eiger sitting on your right.
03South AfricaCape Town: Tandem Paragliding AdventureSignal Hill to Sea Point, city on one side and the Atlantic on the other. Weather permitting, and often it is not.
04ColombiaMedellín: Paragliding Tour with GoPro Photos & VideosTwenty minutes over the green ridges north of Medellin, with a camera on a pole the whole way down.
Turkey flies more tandem paragliders than anywhere, and charges the least for it.
Three coasts, three prices. Babadag for the drop everyone has already seen on a phone, Alanya for a cheap first flight onto Cleopatra Beach, Antalya for the ridge above the old town.
The paragliding flights more people book than any others.
Every flight, every country →The launches with the longest queues: the lagoon at Oludeniz, the Beatenberg slope above Interlaken, Signal Hill over Cape Town.
1
Paragliding Oludeniz – Fethiye, Turkey
Fly tandem from Mt. Babadag above Butterfly Valley and Ölüdeniz with Hanuman Paragliding. Pilots such as Barış, Törehan, Nida, and Deniz guide beginners through takeoff, flight, photos, and beach landing. Pickup is available, while photos and videos cost extra.
From · $165
Read our review →
2
Interlaken: Tandem Paragliding Flight with Pilot
from $233
3
Oludeniz Paragliding Fethiye Turkey, Additional Features
from $119
4
Cape Town: Tandem Paragliding Adventure
from $109
5
Tandem Paragliding Experience from Interlaken
from $252
6
Alanya: Tandem Paragliding with Hotel Pickup
from $77
7
Medellín: Paragliding Tour with GoPro Photos & Videos
from $109
8
Marrakech: Paragliding, Camel Ride & Berber Villages Trip
from $90
Paragliding add-ons: which ones are worth paying for.
Every flight with a camera →
Nearly every operator sells the flight bare and charges separately for the camera, the minibus and the morning slot. Here is what each one actually adds, and roughly what it costs on top.
Photos and video, or your own phone
Nobody keeps hold of a phone at 1,500 metres, so the pilot’s pole camera is usually the only footage that exists. Buy it with the flight; bought on the hill it costs more.
Hotel pickup, or find the launch yourself
Launch sites sit at the top of a road no taxi wants to drive twice. Pickup usually costs a few dollars and it is also what gets you back down when the flight is scrubbed.
A private flight, or the shared minibus
Booking privately buys the early slot and a pilot who will stay up longer while the air is good. On a shared ticket you fly when the group flies, which in practice means the middle of the day.
Six countries that keep their gliders in the air most of the year.
A cheap first flight on the Turkish coast, the Alps from a thousand metres above the valley floor, a Nepali lake with the Annapurnas across it, and three more worth building a week around.
Alpine paragliding costs triple the Turkish coast and sells out anyway.
Interlaken launches off Beatenberg and lands on a lawn in the middle of town. Murren drops into the Lauterbrunnen valley past seventy waterfalls. Zermatt puts the Matterhorn on your right shoulder. None of it is cheap and none of it disappoints.
Tenerife has paragliding weather in February, which is why everyone learns there.
The island stacks a 3,700 metre volcano against the Atlantic, so there is lift most of the year and a landing beach whichever way the trade wind is blowing. Costa Adeje and Los Cristianos launch low from the south; the Teide slopes give the long high descents.
Every Tenerife flight →
Paragliding in Pokhara puts an eight-thousander across the valley from your feet.
You launch from Sarangkot at 1,600 metres, take the morning thermals over Phewa lake, and look sideways at Annapurna and Machhapuchhre the whole way down. The season runs October to April; through the monsoon the valley is shut and the pilots are in Europe.
- 1Paraglidingfrom $88
- 2Pokhara: Adventure Paragliding Trip with Photos and Videos
- 3Paragliding at Sarangkot Pokharafrom $80
Tandem, acro, paramotor: three different paragliding purchases.
A tandem is a passenger seat with a pilot behind you and a wing over both. Acro adds spirals and wingovers you will still feel an hour after landing. A paramotor carries an engine, so it lifts off flat ground the wind would never launch you from.
What a tandem paragliding flight actually costs.
Every flight on the site grouped by price. The gap between the cheap coast and the Alps is wider than anything else about them.
Short coastal hops on the Turkish shore, and the long-established Nepali and Colombian launches.
The standard tandem: fifteen to thirty minutes in the air, with the camera usually charged separately.
Alpine descents, acro rides, and the high launches that need a cable car to reach.
Three paragliding launches that exist nowhere else.
Most coastlines hand you fifteen minutes and a soft landing. A 1,960 metre mountain that finishes on a beach, a valley with seventy waterfalls in it, and a granite ramp above a city beach do not.
The Oludeniz Drop
The ramps sit at 1,700 and 1,960 metres on Babadag, above a lagoon that is a national park and closed to boats. The minibus up takes forty minutes of switchbacks, the flight down takes about thirty five, and the landing is on the promenade in front of everyone having lunch. It is the only place in the world where a tandem flight forms a queue.
- 1Paragliding Oludeniz – Fethiye, Turkey★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 2,128 reviews
- 2Oludeniz Paragliding Fethiye Turkey, Additional Features★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,813 reviews
- 3Paragliding In Fethiye Oludeniz, Turkey★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 929 reviews
Seventy Waterfalls
Murren sits on the west wall of the Lauterbrunnen valley, which has seventy-two waterfalls falling into it and rock on both sides. You launch off the meadow above the village and descend between the two walls with the Jungfrau closing the far end. Wind funnels hard down the valley by afternoon, so the morning slots go first.
- 1Interlaken: Tandem Paragliding Flight with Pilot★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 2,117 reviews
- 2Tandem Paragliding Experience from Interlaken★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,655 reviews
- 3Tandem Paragliding Experience with Transport from Interlaken★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 767 reviews
Rio by Hang Glider
Rio is the one city where hang gliding still outsells paragliding. You run off a wooden ramp on Pedra Bonita, 520 metres above the forest, and land on the sand at Sao Conrado. A hang glider has a rigid frame rather than a fabric wing, so it flies faster, turns wider, and needs the run rather than a gentle step off.
- 1Rio de Janeiro: Hang Gliding Adventure★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 760 reviews
- 2Rio de Janeiro: Hang Gliding Tandem Flight★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 426 reviews
- 3Rio de Janeiro: Hang Gliding or Paragliding Flights★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 132 reviews
Four things that decide whether your paragliding flight happens at all.
This is the one booking on a trip the weather can cancel two hours out. Read these before you pay a deposit, along with the weight limit, which is usually somewhere between 20 and 110 kg and is checked at the launch.
- 01Paragliding Oludeniz – Fethiye, TurkeyBabadag shuts when the wind turns onshore, and the season runs roughly April to November. Nothing flies off it in a Fethiye winter.
- 02Interlaken: Tandem Paragliding Flight with PilotAlpine air is smoothest before ten in the morning. Afternoon slots get moved or refunded far more often than early ones.
- 03Cape Town: Tandem Paragliding AdventureSignal Hill needs a light south-easter and Cape Town scrubs more flights than any other big site. Leave a spare morning in the week.
- 04Pokhara: Adventure Paragliding Trip with Photos and VideosNepal flies October to April. Through the monsoon the Pokhara valley is closed and there is no arguing with it.
Half the paragliding flights that get cancelled are cancelled on the hill.
Wind strength, cloudbase and the direction the slope faces decide everything, and the call usually comes an hour before takeoff. Book the first slot of the day, keep a spare morning, and pick an operator with a fallback: pickup that takes you back down, footage you keep either way, or two launches facing different ways.
Paragliding by country
Fresh off the ridge: the newest paragliding reviews.
The rest of the new flights →
Ras Al Khaimah: Scenic Microlight Adventure Over Desert
Read our review →
Private Tandem Paragliding Werfenweng Mt Bischling
Read our review →
Pattaya Microlight Flying Experience with Pickup Service
Read our review →
Paramotor Flying Experience in Pattaya by TSA Thailand
Read our review →
Pattaya: Paramotor Tour with Pickup Service by TSA Thailand
Read our review →
Fethiye/Oludeniz: Mountain Paragliding Trip with Pickup
Read our review →
Oludeniz: Blue Lagoon Paragliding Flight Fethiye
Read our review →
Ölüdeniz: Fethiye Tandem Paragliding w/ Hotel Pickup
Read our review →