THE PARAGLIDING GUIDE · SEE THE WORLD FROM THE AIR
The best view of any place is from above it.
Reviews of the best places on earth to fly a tandem paraglider, country by country. The launch off Babadag over Oludeniz, the Annapurnas from Sarangkot, the Swiss Alps above Interlaken, Tenerife’s volcanic coast and the cliffs of Cape Town. We sort through the operators so you book the right pilot.
Worth the airfare
Three flights that belong to one mountain.
You can take a tandem almost anywhere now. But the run off Babadag onto the Blue Lagoon, the Annapurna wall from Sarangkot, and the drift over the city off Lion’s Head happen above these places and nowhere else on earth.
Babadag, Turkey
Off the top of Babadag at Oludeniz
The mountain road climbs to a launch ramp nearly 2,000 metres above the Turquoise Coast, and you run off it into the biggest view in the sport: the Blue Lagoon a perfect curl of turquoise directly below, the Lycian coast stretching for miles. Forty minutes of air on a good day, a beach landing right by the water. This is the flight that put tandem paragliding on the map, and nowhere else stacks the altitude, the coast and the colour quite like it.
- 1 Paragliding Oludeniz – Fethiye, Turkey
- 2 Oludeniz Paragliding Fethiye Turkey, Additional Features
- 3 Paragliding In Fethiye Oludeniz, Turkey
Sarangkot, Nepal
Flying the Annapurnas at Pokhara
You launch off Sarangkot ridge straight into the thermals that build over Phewa Lake, and on a clear morning the whole Annapurna range fills the sky in front of you, white and impossibly close. Trained hawks ride the same lift in the parahawking flights, banking inches from the wing. It is routinely called the most scenic flight on earth, and an hour spent circling that wall of Himalaya is hard to argue with.
- 1 Paragliding
- 2 Paragliding at Sarangkot Pokhara
- 3 Pokhara: Adventure Paragliding Trip with Photos and Videos
The Cape, South Africa
Off Lion's Head above Cape Town
There are not many cities you can fly directly over, and fewer still with Table Mountain on one side and the Atlantic on the other. Pilots launch off Lion's Head or Signal Hill and drift down over the bowl of the city to land on the green at Sea Point, the whole peninsula laid out below. Short, scenic and weather-dependent, it is a flight that frames a great city from the one angle most visitors never see it.
- 1 Cape Town: Tandem Paragliding Adventure
- 2 Hi5 Tandem Paragliding Cape Town
- 3 Cape Town: Tandem Paragliding with Instructor
The flight everyone books
If you only fly once.
More travellers book this one than any other on the site. A safe first tandem with a pilot who has done it ten thousand times.
The classics
The World’s Most Popular Tandem Flights
Oludeniz, Interlaken, Pokhara, Cape Town, Tenerife. The flights travellers book first, off the launches they most want under their feet.
Where to fly
Pick your sky.
The Turkish coast for the launch off Babadag. The Swiss Alps for snow peaks at eye level. Nepal for the Annapurna wall, the Canaries for year-round air, the Colombian Andes for green ridgelines, the Cape for flying over a city. Each region, with the flights it does best.
Which kind of flight
Pick how high you want to go.
The kind of flight matters as much as the place. Three ways to leave the ground, depending on your nerve and how long you want to stay up there.
Babadag & the Turquoise Coast
Turkey is where the sport grew up.
Nowhere puts more people in the air than the Turkish coast. The road climbs Babadag to launch ramps at 1,700 and 1,960 metres, and you run off into the biggest view in tandem flying: the Blue Lagoon curling turquoise below Oludeniz, the Lycian coast running to the horizon. Down the shore the long thermic glides over Alanya and Antalya stay up for half an hour at a time, warm air and warm water all summer long.
See the best flights in Turkey →Switzerland & Austria
Snow peaks at eye level.
Out of Interlaken the wing lifts off a ridge between Lake Thun and Lake Brienz, the Eiger and Jungfrau sharp on the skyline. Down the road at Zermatt, Davos and across the border into the Tyrol the launches come thick and fast: high meadows, long thermic climbs, the lakes shrinking to coins below. The Alps the way only pilots and birds get to see them, all summer and again over the winter snow.
See the best flights in Switzerland →The best part
There are three steps, then there is no ground.
It is over before you can be afraid of it. A few running steps down the slope, the wing loads above you, and the hill simply drops away. Then it is quiet, the harness takes your weight, and you are sitting in the air with the whole valley turning slowly beneath your feet. People come down changed, already asking the pilot when they can go again.
Browse every flight →The Himalaya
In Pokhara, you share the thermals with hawks.
Launch off Sarangkot ridge and the lift builds straight away over Phewa Lake, carrying you up toward a wall of 7,000- and 8,000-metre peaks that never stops being unreal. On the parahawking flights a trained bird of prey rides the same column of air, banking inches from the wing. It is routinely called the most scenic flight on earth, and from up there the claim is hard to dispute.
- 1 Paragliding
- 2 Paragliding at Sarangkot Pokhara
- 3 Pokhara: Adventure Paragliding Trip with Photos and Videos
By air time
How long do you want to stay up?
Some flights are a calm ten minutes off a coastal slope, the gentlest possible introduction. Some ride the thermals off an alpine ridge for half an hour. And some launch high above the giants for a long spiralling descent. Pick the kind of air you want, we will point you at the pilot.
Your first flight
Just step off and float.A gentle tandem with a licensed pilot doing the work: a short run off the slope, ten to fifteen calm minutes over the coast, and a soft landing on the beach. No experience, no nerve required.
A classic mountain flight
Soar the thermals over the valley.Twenty minutes or more riding the lift off an alpine ridge, snow peaks at eye level and the lakes far below. The pilot reads the air; you just look around and breathe it in.
A high-altitude descent
Climb with the hawks, then glide down.The big ones: a high launch, a long spiralling descent past 8,000-metre peaks, sometimes a trained hawk riding the same thermal beside you. The flight you plan a whole trip around.
Fly all year round
The Canaries never stop flying.
While the Alps are under snow, Tenerife, Lanzarote and Gran Canaria fly straight through winter. The trade winds hit volcanic slopes and lift cleanly off them, so you launch high over black-sand coast and blue Atlantic with the cone of Teide behind you. Reliable air, short transfers and a beach landing make the islands the off-season home of European paragliding.
See all 78 flights in Spain →By launch
Pick a launch and run.
Oludeniz for the run off Babadag onto the Blue Lagoon. Pokhara for the Annapurna wall from Sarangkot. Interlaken for the Alps between two lakes. Tenerife for year-round volcanic air. Cape Town for flying over the city. Medellin for thermals over the Andes.
By country
Every country worth the climb to launch.
From the Turquoise Coast to the Swiss Alps, the Himalaya to the Andes, the Canaries to the cliffs of the Cape. Browse by the country whose sky you want over your head.
Launch to landing
What a first flight is really like.
Never flown a tandem and not sure what you are signing up for? Here is how it goes, from the harness clip to feet back on the grass.
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