You get about ten seconds before the wind holds you. Here is where to spend them.
Which drop zones land you on a beach. What a tandem costs in Queenstown against Interlaken. Whether the wind tunnel is worth doing first. Reviews of the jumps you can actually book, from the tunnel floor to eighteen thousand feet.
Four skydives that answer four different questions.
A first tandem, an alpine exit, a beach landing and an hour in the tunnel. What each one costs, and what the people who jumped say about it.
01The first oneSkydive AucklandThe busiest drop zone in New Zealand, twenty minutes north of the city. Loads run all day, so a weather hold usually costs you an afternoon, not the trip.- 02The alpine exitAirplane Skydiving over the Swiss AlpsOut over the Jungfrau with the lake on one side. The scenery does the work here; the freefall is almost a side effect.
03The beach landingGold Coast Tandem SkydiveForty kilometres of surf on one side, the towers on the other, and sand under the canopy at the end of it.
04No plane involvedBasingstoke iFLY Indoor Skydiving Experience – 2 Flights & CertificateTwo flights in a vertical wind tunnel, about a minute each. Flies in any weather, takes children, costs a fifth of a jump.
Australia and New Zealand run the drop zones everyone else measures against.
Reef islands and a forty-kilometre beach strip in Australia. Glaciers and a lake between two mountain ranges in New Zealand. Wind tunnels across the States, cheap exits over the Algarve, and the one on the Palm that everybody has seen. Six places to start, and the best jump in each.
In Australia the skydive ends on sand, on a reef island or over a skyline.
Five drop zones, five very different ninety seconds under canopy. Where each one puts you down, and what it costs to get in the plane.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · Tandem Skydive over the Whitsundays
CairnsReef on one side, rainforest on the other, the airfield underneath.
Gold CoastSurfers Paradise towers, then forty kilometres of open beach.
Rottnest IslandA short flight from Perth onto a car-free island airstrip.
SydneyWollongong sand with the escarpment behind you and the harbour on the horizon.
All 35 Australian jumps →
The skydives that finish on sand instead of a paddock.
A coastal drop zone gives you water the whole way down and a landing you can walk off barefoot. Whitsunday cays, the Gold Coast strip, Rottnest, and the fronds of the Palm coming up under your feet.
The skydives more people book than any others.
See every jump →The drop zones with a queue in the morning, and what earns each one the slot.
1
Skydive Auckland
Take a tandem skydive from 9,000, 13,000, 18,000, or possibly 20,000 feet above Parakai. You will freefall with an instructor for up to 75 seconds, with views toward Auckland’s east and west coasts, Waiheke Island, Piha Beach, Great Barrier Island, and Mt. Ruapehu.
From · $214
Read our review →
2
Skydive at The Palm with Photos, Video & Yacht Tour
from $680
3
NZONE Skydive Queenstown
from $222
4
Skydive Zanzibar | Tandem Skydive
from $545
5
Tandem Skydive over the Whitsundays
from $218
6
Tandem Skydive Experience
from $214
7
Gold Coast Tandem Skydive
from $355
8
Basingstoke iFLY Indoor Skydiving Experience – 2 Flights & Certificate
from $110
A tandem skydive is sixty seconds of somebody else doing the thinking.
Strapped to an instructor, out of the door at twelve or fifteen thousand feet, roughly forty-five seconds of freefall and five minutes under canopy. No training day, no licence, nothing to remember except to breathe and keep your head back.
- 1Skydive at The Palm with Photos, Video & Yacht Tourfrom $680
- 2Skydive Zanzibar | Tandem Skydivefrom $545
- 3Tandem Skydive over the Whitsundaysfrom $218
In New Zealand the freefall happens over a mountain range.
Queenstown drops you between the Remarkables and the lake. Franz Josef opens the door at eighteen thousand feet above two glaciers running down to the Tasman. Taupo is the high, cheap, friendly one, and it flies all day.
- 1Skydive Aucklandfrom $214
- 2NZONE Skydive Queenstownfrom $222
- 3Tandem Skydive Experiencefrom $214
Indoor skydiving is not a rehearsal. It is the thing itself, minus the plane.
A vertical wind tunnel holds you at terminal velocity a metre above the net for two flights of about a minute each, which is more flying time than a tandem gives you. It runs whatever the sky is doing, it takes children from about four years old, and it costs a fifth of a jump.
Every tunnel →
What a skydive actually costs, from the tunnel floor to the glacier.
Every jump on the site, grouped by what it costs. Tunnels and the European drop zones sit at the bottom. Altitude, glaciers and a cameraman flying alongside you sit at the top.
Wind tunnel flights, the British and Iberian drop zones, and the Nepal jumps off the hill above Pokhara.
The standard tandem almost everywhere: Australia, New Zealand, Portugal, Prague, most exits between twelve and fifteen thousand feet.
- 1Skydive Aucklandfrom $214
- 2NZONE Skydive Queenstownfrom $222
- 3Tandem Skydive over the Whitsundaysfrom $218
Eighteen thousand feet on oxygen, glacier flights, the Palm at Dubai, and the packages that put a camera flyer in the air with you.
- 1Skydive at The Palm with Photos, Video & Yacht Tourfrom $680
- 2Skydive Zanzibar | Tandem Skydivefrom $545
- 3Gold Coast Tandem Skydivefrom $355
Three skydives you cannot do anywhere else.
Freefall feels the same everywhere on earth. What is laid out underneath it does not.
The Palm from thirteen thousand feet
The drop zone sits on the trunk of Palm Jumeirah, so the whole island lies under you for the entire freefall like a diagram of itself. It is the most photographed jump in the world and the price says so. Take an early load: by mid-morning the haze comes off the Gulf and the fronds go soft.
- 1Dubai Skydive Tandem Over The Palm including Transfers★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 9 reviews
- 2Tandem Skydive experience in Dubai★★★★★★★★★★ 4.0 · 7 reviews
- 32 indoor skydiving flights★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 3 reviews
Two glaciers and an oxygen mask
The plane climbs up the valley with ice on one side and the Tasman Sea on the other, and Franz Josef is one of the few commercial drop zones on earth that opens the door at eighteen thousand feet, which buys around seventy-five seconds of freefall and an oxygen line on the way up. It also cancels for cloud more often than it flies. Give it two days.
- 1Tandem Skydive 18,000ft from Franz Josef★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 29 reviews
- 2Tandem Skydive 16,500ft from Franz Josef★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 19 reviews
- 3Tandem Skydive 13,000ft from Franz Josef★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 16 reviews
A landing strip on a car-free island
Rottnest is a half-hour flight from Perth and the drop zone is the island airstrip, ringed by low bush and water that reads three separate blues from altitude. You land, you walk to the bakery, you get the ferry back to Fremantle. Nothing else in Australia finishes quite like that.
- 1Rottnest Island Tandem Skydive★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 258 reviews
- 2Tandem Skydive★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 90 reviews
- 3Fremantle: Rottnest Island Skydive and Ferry Package★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 54 reviews
Four skydives that will not wait for you.
Most drop zones will fit you in tomorrow morning. These four run on load times, glacier weather and a calendar that fills months out.
- 0113,000ft, 16,500ft or 18,000ft SkydiveThe West Coast grounds loads for cloud more days than it flies them. Book the first slot of your first day and keep the second morning free.
- 02Skydive at The Palm with Photos, Video & Yacht TourThe Palm runs fixed loads and sells out weeks ahead through the cool season, which is the only season worth standing in that heat for.
- 03Airplane Skydiving over the Swiss AlpsAlpine jumping stops when the cloud drops onto the lake, and the whole valley rebooks onto the next clear morning at the same time.
- 0418,000ft Tandem Skydive over Abel TasmanEighteen thousand feet needs oxygen on board, so only some loads climb that high and they are scheduled rather than on demand.
What stops a skydive: a weight limit, an age limit and a cloud base.
Most drop zones cap tandem passengers somewhere around a hundred kilos and want you over twelve, sometimes sixteen. Wind, cloud base and rain all ground a load, and the standard remedy is a rebooking rather than a refund, so keep a spare morning at the end of the trip. The tunnel flies regardless.
Tunnel, tandem, altitude, glacier: the order most people do it in.
The tunnel
First tandem
Beach landing
Fifteen thousand
Glacier exit
Combo dayBy country
Fresh off the drop zone: the newest reviews.
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Adelaide: Tandem Skydiving Adventure over Goolwa
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Dropzone Tandem Skydive Experience with Ocean Views
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10,000ft Skydive over Abel Tasman with NZ’s Most Epic Scenery
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Dubai Skydive Tandem Over The Palm including Transfers
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Private Skydive at the Palm Dubai Experience with Transfer Option
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Extreme 12000ft Tandem Jump (45 seconds free fall)
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