TRAVEL: ADVENTURE
Adventure travel has become increasingly popular and below takes a look at the most common adventure travel activities to help you with some ideas for your next vacation.
Abseiling
Abseiling can be a great and fun adventure for all to enjoy. Abseiling involves a double rope being tied around the body, and the rope is hoisted from the top level or start point. Then the adventurer begins a descent down a vertical surface. Abseiling should always be performed in the presence of trained and experienced people. Usually on a vaction, these would be the tour guides responsible for the excursion.
Required for abseiling are an anchor, buckles or bolt belays, carabiner, the device which gets rigged for the descending, a helmet, gloves and appropriate climbing shoes. If you work through a tour guide, you’ll only need to take along your snickers as they provide the rest for you.
Bungee Jumping
This adventure sport is one of the most fun sports around and involves a great adrenaline rush. It involves being safely tied to a bungee cord, which is normally a very thick elastic cord and it is tied to the waist and to your ankles and the other point is attached to the jumping point. Jumping is done off bridges mostly. It is advisable to arrange your excursion with tour operators as they are trained and experienced for the sport and hence you are in safe hands.
The best part of bungee jumping is it’s the best way to see the world “upside down” while you get an unexplainable adrenaline rush. If you’ve ever wanted to experience this adventure sport, take the plunge!
Canopying
Canopying is a relatively new type of adventure sport to the world. Canopying involves “flying” through the tree tops of the rain forests. The tree tops are referred to as canopies and hence the name of the sport. It is similar to abseiling in that, safety harnesses and rope need to be used to take you from one point to the next.
What makes this adventure sport exciting is that when swinging from tree to tree you get upclose with the inhabitants of the canopies in the rainforest. These are ofcourse the monkeys found in the rainforest tree tops. This adventure sport has become increasingly popular in Central America, South America and the Caribbean.
Paragliding
This adventure sport is a recreational sport that allows you to see the world from a bird’s eye view. When paragliding, the ‘pilot’ sits in a harness that is suspended from a wing of fabric which has vents, allowing air through and thus allows the wind to carry you along. Paragliding is foot launched and the pilot operates with controls in each hand in order to control the direction in which to fly.
Tour operators offer tandem paragliding flights for those who would rather sit back and enjoy the ride without having to worry about how to operate the equipment. Paragliding is a free flying experience that is sure to take your breath away.
White Water Rafting
Now this adventure sport involves in a nutshell, trying to fight the rushing white waves of rivers while in a raft, hence the name white water. It can be an experience for the whole family as well since more and more tour operators now offer family rafting tours from ages 5 and up.
The fun is in riding the waves and getting a splash while you’re at it. You don’t have to be an expert rafter to experience the thrilling adventure of white water rafting. Normally, when you book a trip, the tour operators give you a crash course before you get out there.
You can decide to pilot your own raft, or take a trip with a guide whom is an experienced rafter. There are many great destinations worldwide for an ultimate white water rafting adventure. These range from the Grand Canyon to the mighty Zambezi river.