Flight Experiences in May

Cappadocia is the most concentrated and well-organized balloon experience in the world. On a calm morning, 80 to 150 balloons rise together over the Goreme valley and the fairy chimney formations of the Rose and Red Valleys, creating a spectacle that is genuinely unlike anything else. Individual flights last 60-90 minutes and lift off before sunrise, drifting at treetop level through the valleys before climbing for views of the wider plateau. The combination of the landscape, the scale of the balloon operation, and the light at that hour makes this a stand-alone reason to come to Turkey.

Talkeetna is the center of Alaskan bush plane culture, and the gateway to the most dramatic glacier flying in North America. Flights from Talkeetna land on glaciers within Denali National Park at elevations between 2,000m and 4,000m, putting passengers on the upper flanks of the Alaska Range in country that is otherwise accessible only to expedition mountaineers. Operators offer everything from 30-minute flightseeing loops to full glacier landings with time to walk the ice. On clear days, Denali's south face fills the windshield. The skill and local knowledge of the pilots, who navigate glacial terrain daily, is itself part of the experience.