Crazy crazy adrenaline junkie adventures!
This week is all about adrenaline. No, I’m not a junkie, but I do love to jump, fall, climb and dive the most iconic places in the world. Over the years, I’ve chosen something crazy to do, picked the coolest place to do it, then held that thought in my mind until it became a reality. This week, we’re going for a ride! Paragliding in Chamonix, Bungee Jumping in Zambia and Sky Diving in New Zealand.
Travel Insurance (you need this!)
If you’d like to support The Abundant Traveler, and you are considering any of these adventures, you need travel insurance! Check out my resources page at The Abundant Traveler and purchase World Nomads insurance.
Bungee Jumping
Along my travels, someone told me to bungee jump, but I needed to do it from the highest bridge jump in the world over the Zambezi River, (which is full of zambezi sharks, by the way.) Ok, that sounds like a wonderful idea. Let’s do it! So, in 2005, I spent a month in Southern Africa visiting South Africa, Botswana and Zambia. I was traveling alone, but met up with an incredible English couple who were immigrating to New Zealand (more on that later). While staying in Victoria Falls, I took the leap off the Zambezi bridge 420ft down to the sharks. I was so scared, I couldn’t speak, and didn’t utter a word when I jumped. Sheer terror! I think bungee jumping is psychologically harder than sky diving because you have to will yourself to jump off a bridge. The world is SO much closer, and your brain recognizes what’s happening. Supposedly from a plane, your brain can’t even register what you are doing. Well, let’s find out… 6 months later I went sky diving.
Sky Diving
One of the coolest places to sky dive is Queenstown, New Zealand. Located on the South Island, and where they filmed a large portion of the Hobbit Trilogy, Queenstown has the best snow skiing in New Zealand. I went to Queenstown 14 years ago to visit the girlfriend who wouldn’t bungee with me in Zambia. She promised that she would bungee with me if I showed up to her new home in Queenstown….Well guess who came knocking. 🙂 This story isn’t about bungee though, it’s about Skydiving. I decided to take the leap with NZone, a famous outfitter, and boy was it an adrenaline rush. We jumped from 12,000ft, and my teacher told me to do 2 things as I jumped out of the plane:
- Make a banana with my body
- Smile
Honestly? I didn’t love sky diving – falling at 70 miles per hour hurt my ears. But what a thrill it was to feel like you were flying! You’ve got to try it just once; you might like it.
Paragliding
And now for my most recent adventure. If you don’t know by now, I love adventure and I really get a thrill doing crazy things in exotic locations. I’d heard that paragliding was one of the most iconic things to do in Chamonix, so of course I had to jump off of a mountain and try it. Having three of the best girlfriends by my side made it all the more enjoyable. If you’re headed to Chamonix, make sure to paraglide with Fly Chamonix.
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