World’s 10 Best Cable Cars

Opened in May 2017, the new Loen Skylift in the heart of fjord Norway is being billed as the world’s steepest aerial tram. The cable car ascends almost completely vertically up 3,300 feet (1,011 meters) from the village of Loen and along the sheer face of Mount Hoven to the top. It’s a stunning five-minute ride. “The view is breathtaking, with beautiful fjords in all directions, spectacular mountains and the Jostedalsbreen Glacier as a backdrop,” says Kristian Jorgensen, director of Fjord Norway.

At the top: Dine at the edge of the cliff in a restaurant with floor-to-ceiling windows. At the top you can also access several miles of hiking trails that become routes for snowshoeing, cross-country skiing, and ski touring in winter. Book a guide through Loen Active and trek from the base to the top on the popular Via Ferrata Loen route, which crosses a dizzyingly high suspension bridge barely wide enough for you and your backpack.

For a wind-in-your-hair experience, head to Switzerland’s Cabrio cable car. Like a convertible car or an open-air, double-decker bus, Cabrio carries you up Mt. Stanserhorn high above the sparkling Lake Lucerne in six minutes. The roofless upper deck, with room for 30 people, is ideal for taking in the fresh mountain air and snapping photos without a glass barrier. Getting to the top is a two-step process. The journey begins with a funicular ride to Kalti, where you connect to the cable car lift to the peak. It’s an easy day trip from Lucerne.

At the top: Take a hike with a ranger who will help you identify the surrounding mountains and alpine flowers along the trail. The revolving restaurant, Rondorama, is known for its Swiss comfort food including Alplermagronen: cheese macaroni with apple sauce served in an Edelweiss pot. Here you can also book a candlelight dinner.

For more than 100 years, cable cars have toted locals and visitors to the top of Sugarloaf Mountain, Rio’s landmark granite monolith that rises straight out of the Atlantic Ocean. The Sugarloaf Mountain Bondinho runs a 4,600-foot (1,400-meter) route from Morro da Urca to the top of Sugarloaf, overlooking the beaches of Ipanema and Copacabana, the Corcovado mountains, and downtown. On a clear day you can see airplane after airplane bank and circle below you for the final approach into the city airport.

At the top: Hikers occasionally see monkeys and toucans among the palm trees and orchids in the tropical forest. The 700-seat sky-high amphitheater has been a popular concert venue since the 1970s. Learn more about the cable car history at a free outdoor exhibit. On Morro da Urca you’ll find several shops and restaurants as well as a plaza with the first two generations of funiculars on display.

To save time at the massive two-peaked Whistler Blackcomb resort, skiers and snowboarders used to have to pick either Whistler Mountain or Blackcomb Mountain for the day and stick to it. Then came the Peak 2 Peak Gondola in 2008, cable cars that connect the two peaks with an 11-minute ride. The 2.7-mile (4.4-kilometer) cable car is the world’s longest unsupported span for a lift of this kind. Dangling, you feel like you’re flying through the clouds. From both regular and glass-bottom cabins, sightseers look onto coastal rainforests, glaciers, blooming wildflowers, and the occasional bear munching on berries.

At the top: “Treat yourself to a lunch at Christine's at top of Blackcomb, a rare place where the food is as spectacular as the views,” says Hana Lynn, lead concierge at Four Seasons Resort and Residences Whistler. Also try the wine bar’s winemaker dinner series or the summer barbecues with music atop Whistler Mountain.

This steep gondola climbs 1,476 feet (450 meters) above Queenstown and Lake Wakatipu to the top of Bob’s Peak. The views of surrounding mountains are spectacular, but looking down on the city of Queenstown is the biggest surprise. Ride the Skyline Gondola at sunset and you’ll see the twinkling lights of the city flicker on as the light fades.

At the top: There’s plenty of entertainment for families, including a luge track, Maori cultural performances, and a mountain bike park with nearly 100 miles (30 kilometers) of trails through the pine forest of the Ben Lomond Reserve. Enjoy a meal at Stratosfare Restaurant & Bar and take a hike, following the signs toward the paragliding area to see beautiful views and paragliders at the jumping-off point. Above the gondola station, high-powered telescopes give stargazers a glimpse of the Southern Cross, planets, and other galaxies.

The plan to build a tramway in the California desert was hatched in 1935 when a young electrical engineer wiped the sweat from his brow, looked up to Mount San Jacinto’s snow-capped peak, and longed to “go up there where it’s nice and cool.” Since the Palm Springs Aerial Tramway opened in 1963, nearly 18 million people have escaped the desert heat on this 10-minute, 2.5-mile ride. The large rotating cars whisk passengers above the Chino Canyon cliffs to the top of Mt. San Jacinto, where it’s about 30 degrees cooler at 8,516 feet (2,595 meters) elevation.

At the top: Hiking the 14,000-acre wilderness of Mt. San Jacinto State Park is a memorable experience. In winter you can rent snowshoes and cross-country skis. At the mountain station you’ll also find restaurants, two documentary theatres, and a natural history museum.

See a handful of China’s iconic scenes all in one ride on the 3.5-mile (5.7-kilometer) Ngong Ping 360 cable car route. The 25-minute lift from Tung Chung to the Ngong Ping Plateau on Lantau Island offers views of the South China Sea, rolling grassland slopes, mountainous terrain, the busy city, and the massive Tian Tan Buddha statue. It’s close enough to the airport that you can see the runways and what look like toy planes landing one after the other.

At the top: You can hike up then take the gondola down or vice versa, stopping at the Buddha statue and Po Lin Monastery en route. At the top, Ngong Ping Village includes several stores, restaurants, shops, and the Linong Teahouse where you can see a demonstration and learn about Chinese tea culture. Among the family-friendly attractions are a virtual reality experience and a stage with stuntmen performing action scenes Bruce Lee-style.

Traffic jams are awful in downtown La Paz, a city with about the same population as San Francisco. But every hour thousands of locals cut their commute time from an hour to 10 minutes by hopping on the Mi Teleferico cable car network. Because the funiculars are part of the public transit system, the fares are cheap, an anomaly among scenic cable cars around the world. The Mi Teleferico is one of the world’s highest and longest urban gondolas, which also makes it one of the most affordable ways to see the city, deep canyons, and the Andes Mountains all at the same time.

At the top: On the network you can easily get to top attractions in several parts of the city. The red line runs between La Paz and the suburb of El Alto with one of the country’s largest open-air markets. Take the yellow to green line to get to the Zona Sur from El Alto.

Thanks to Table Mountain Aerial Cableway, built in 1929, millions of people have been to the top of South Africa’s most photographed landmark, the 3,573-foot-tall (1,089-meter-tall) Table Mountain. The cableway’s rotating cars ensure that every passenger gets equal time during the five-minute ascent to take in views in every direction: the sheer cliff face of Table Mountain, the city, and Table Bay below.

At the top: Follow one of the hiking trails starting at the station and explore Table Mountain National Park, watching for lizards and the guinea-pig like dassies in rock crevices. Guided walks and audio tours with narrated stories and legends of the mountain are also available. Thrill seekers can rappel down the mountainside with Abseil Africa. Before you return to the base, watch the sunset and enjoy a meal at an outdoor table at the cafe.

Off the northwest coast of Malaysia at the Thailand border is a gorgeous archipelago of 104 islands. Langkawi SkyCab on Langkawi Island lifts you to dreamlike views over these emerald islets on a 15-minute ride up Machinchang Mountain to 2,323 feet (708 meters). Along the way you’ll see isolated pinnacles, deep chasms, white-sand beaches, rice paddy fields, and lush mangroves. If you’re celebrating a special occasion or planning a proposal, upgrade to a glass-bottomed gondola or VIP gondola with music and food.

At the top: A Malaysian landmark, the pedestrian SkyBridge swoops over the untouched jungle and ranks among the world’s longest curved suspension bridges. Families enjoy the virtual reality and simulator rides, a 3-D movie theater with sensory effects, and an adventure park where you can rent bikes or kids’ ATVs.