Rise Above the Masses With Flight Tours

Hang Gliding

If the relatively solid footing allowed to you by a balloon gondola is too encumbering, why not fly free as the proverbial bird, your arms outstretched, your body dangling from the wings of a glider, held in by a harness. Tandem hang-gliding is a way to try the sport without any previous training, and companies like the San Francisco Hang Gliding Center offer special two-person gliders for these types of flights.

Tandem gliding is super-popular in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with a wealth of companies offering the opportunity to see the Sugar Loaf mountain and Christ on Corcovado from the sky. Check in with your hotel concierge if you make it to the Cidade Maravilhosa, and he or she can set you up with an accredited pilot.

Skydiving

Still feel tied down by your harness? Then the ultimate flying experience might just be to go ahead and jump out of a plane. Like in hang gliding, tandem jumps are offered without prior training, as you jump strapped to the back of your expert diver. Feel the rush of standing out on the wing, and then, as you freefall for 30 seconds, dropping to Earth at speeds up to 120 miles per hour, a freefall that feels more like flying than plummeting.

Eventually, you'll be forced to pull the rip cord, so why not jump in exotic locales like Cape Town, South Africa, where the Table Mountain dominates the landscape from the air, the more than 3,000-feet-high plateau surrounded by vertical cliffs Devil's Peak and Lion's Head. You'll jump aside the nearby Atlantic Ocean.

Or land along the North Shore of the island of Oahu, in Hawaii, where white sandy beaches and white-capped surf dots the setting below you.

But no matter where you go, just make sure you get the video and photos done for an extra fee, as they always make for impressive party conversation.