Every balloon ride worth setting an alarm for. Priced, timed, reviewed.
What a Cappadocia sunrise slot really costs, which Luxor operator picks you up from the hotel, whether the Teotihuacan flight includes the cave breakfast. Reviews of balloon flights in 44 countries, with the cancellation rules spelled out.
Four valleys that made people book a balloon in the first place.
The flights that fill first in Cappadocia, Luxor, Marrakech and the Valley of Mexico. What each one costs and what lands in the basket with you.
- 01The rock-cone sunriseGoreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at SunriseUp at 04:30, airborne by six, a hundred envelopes rising out of the same valley around you. The flight the whole activity is famous for.
02Over the west bankHot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers IncludedTombs, the Colossi and the green strip of the Nile, all from a thousand feet before the heat arrives. Transfers from the Luxor hotels are included.
03Palm groves and AtlasBalloon Flight, Berber Breakfast & CertificateOff the ground outside Marrakech with the High Atlas snowline on one side, then a Berber breakfast under canvas and a certificate you will keep.
04Pyramids from aboveBalloon flight + pick up in CDMX + Breakfast in Cave + PyramidsA pickup in Mexico City at four in the morning buys the Pyramid of the Sun from the air and breakfast in a lava cave afterwards.
Six places where a balloon flies almost every clear morning.
Rock cones in central Anatolia, the Theban west bank, the Valley of Mexico, the palm groves behind Marrakech, the Dubai dune belt and the Nile at Aswan. Each one has a launch field, a season and a going rate.
Cappadocia sells four different mornings. Only one of them is the flight you pictured.
Every operator over Goreme flies the same valley at the same hour. What separates them is the basket size, whether the hotel pickup is real, and what happens on the ground afterwards. Here is what each kind costs.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon
The sunrise slotLift-off before the sun clears the ridge, an hour in the air over Love Valley.
With hotel pickupA minibus at your cave hotel door at half four, and a lift back after landing.
The two-day packageFlight, a night carved into the rock and the Goreme valleys on foot.
Watching from the groundThe same sky from a ridge with a flask, for a tenth of the price.
All 199 Cappadocia flights →
In Egypt the balloon goes up before the tour bus leaves the hotel.
Luxor flies more baskets than anywhere outside Anatolia. You cross the Nile in the dark, lift off beside the Colossi of Memnon and come down among the sugar cane while the Valley of the Kings is still shut. Aswan and the Nile cruise packages work the same hour.
The balloon flights more travellers book than any others.
The full flight list →Nine listings between them carry tens of thousands of traveller reviews. This is what that demand actually buys you, flight by flight.
1
Balloon Flight, Berber Breakfast & Certificate
Start before dawn with hotel pickup, coffee, pastries, and a 40 to 50-minute balloon flight over desert valleys near Marrakech. Pilots such as Noor, Reda, Yannis, and Lina help make the ride calm and enjoyable. After landing, sit in a Berber tent for cornbread, pancakes, eggs, fruit, olives, and mint tea.
From · $113
Read our review →
2
Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon
from $133
3
Early Morning 40-Minute Balloon Flight
from $123
4
Balloon flight + Breakfast in cave + Pyramids + Pick up CDMX.
from $172
5
Balloon flight + pick up in CDMX + Breakfast in Cave + Pyramids
from $169
6
Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at Sunrise
from $142
7
Balloon Flight + Cave Breakfast + Pick Up from CDMX or We Fly
from $166
8
Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor Egypt with Transfers Included
from $75
An hour in the air is an hour. The differences are all on the ground.
Breakfast in a cave or a Berber tent, a glass poured at the landing site, a driver who is actually waiting outside your hotel at half four. These are the add-ons that change the price, and they are what most travellers end up paying for.
Teotihuacan is the one flight that lands next to breakfast in a lava cave.
The pickups leave Mexico City around four. You are over the Avenue of the Dead as the light hits it, down by eight, and eating inside a volcanic cave by nine. Nothing else in the catalogue runs quite this sequence.
Every Mexico City flight →
What an hour in a balloon basket actually costs.
Every flight on the site, grouped by price. Anatolia and Egypt sit at the bottom of the range; Australia, Napa and the Serengeti sit at the top, and the gap is larger than most people expect.
Luxor, Goreme and the Mexican pickups, plus the ground-level watching tours that cost less than breakfast.
The standard shared basket almost everywhere else: Marrakech, Dubai, Spain, Tuscany, most of Australia.
Small baskets, private flights, Serengeti safaris and the multi-day Nile packages that carry a flight inside them.
Balloons fly at dawn, in still air, with a weight limit. Plan around all three.
Wind is the whole business. Pilots make the call at first light and cancel whole mornings, so leave a spare day at the end of a trip rather than flying the morning before your flight home. Expect a 04:00 pickup, expect to be weighed at check-in, and read the refund line before you pay: most operators rebook, and only some refund. A ground-level watching tour is the answer on the day it blows.
Three landscapes that were built to be seen from a basket.
Plenty of places will sell you an hour in the air. In these three the ground underneath is the whole reason the industry grew there.
The rock cones of Goreme
Soft volcanic tuff, cut by rain into cones and ridges, with pigeon houses and whole churches hollowed out of it. Pilots drop into the valleys and climb back out of them, so the flight is vertical as much as horizontal. Roughly a hundred envelopes launch on a good morning, which is why the photographs look the way they do.
- 1Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride / Royal Balloon★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 6,829 reviews
- 2Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at Sunrise★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 4,924 reviews
- 3Cappadocia Hot Air Balloon Ride/ Turquaz Balloons★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,330 reviews
Over the Valley of the Kings
The strip of green ends abruptly at the desert, and everything pharaonic sits in the last hundred metres of it: Hatshepsut cut into the cliff, the Colossi standing in a field, the tomb valley behind the ridge. From the ground you see one site at a time. From a basket at six in the morning you see how they were laid out.
- 1Hot Air Balloon Ride over the Valley of the Kings★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 250 reviews
- 2Hot Air Balloon Ride Over Temple of Hatshepsut★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 185 reviews
- 3West Bank Hot Air Balloon Ride with Hotel Pickup★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 169 reviews
The Avenue of the Dead
Teotihuacan is a grid two kilometres long, and its geometry only resolves from the air. The Pyramid of the Sun sits on one axis, the Moon closes the avenue at the north end, and the whole plan runs fifteen degrees off true north for reasons nobody has settled. Flights lift off from the fields either side of it just after dawn.
- 1Teotihuacan Hot Air Balloon Flight from Mexico City / Volare★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3,262 reviews
- 2Balloon flight + pick up in CDMX + Breakfast in Cave + Teotihuacan★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,905 reviews
- 3Balloon Flight with Breakfast in Cave and Pyramids of Teotihuacan★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 1,498 reviews
Four balloon bookings that will not wait for your arrival.
Most of a trip can be arranged the night before. Balloons cannot. Baskets hold a fixed number of people, the weather takes whole mornings out of the calendar, and the good operators sell out first in every one of these places.
- 01Goreme Hot Air Balloon Flight at SunriseGoreme is capped: the civil aviation authority limits how many balloons may fly each morning, and the popular operators sell those slots weeks out.
- 024-Days Nile Cruise From Aswan To Luxor including Abu Simbel and Hot Air BalloonLuxor flies one window a day, at dawn. Miss it and the next attempt is tomorrow, which only works if you are still in town.
- 03Teotihuacan Hot Air Balloon Flight from Mexico City / VolareThe Mexico City pickups run on a single pre-dawn circuit around the hotels. Booking on the day means no seat on the van, flight or no flight.
- 04Serengeti Balloon Safari and authentic bush breakfastOne or two baskets go up over the Serengeti each morning in the whole park. Camps book them out for their own guests months ahead.
By place — the launch fields
By kind of flight — the hour, the basket, the breakfast
Goreme, Luxor, Teotihuacan, Marrakech, the Serengeti, Napa.
Teotihuacan
Serengeti
NapaBalloons that joined the list this week.
Older balloon mornings, same list →
PRIVATE HOT AIR BALLOON IN LUXOR RIDE IN SMALL LUXURY GROUP FLIGHT up to 12
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Luxor Tours: City Tour,Hot Air Balloon,Kings Valley,Sailing Felucca,Camel Ride
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Luxury Sunrise Hot Air Balloon ride luxor with pick up & drop off
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Sunrise Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor, Egypt – VIP
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Sunrise Hot Air Balloon with Full Day Tour to the East and West Bank of Luxor
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One Package Sunrise Hot Air Balloon Ride in Luxor and West Bank Private Tour
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Hot air balloon ride in Luxor with hotel delivery service
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