Ten Wild Adventure Sports You’ve Got to Try

Whether it's being the first person to summit Mt. Everest (Sir Edmund Hillary, 1953) or inventing commercial bungee jumping (A.J. Hackett, 1988), New Zealanders are true adventure pioneers. Kiwis are also behind one of the oddest extreme sports out there—Zorbing. Essentially, Zorbing entails getting strapped into a giant rubber ball and then rolling downhill at speeds of up to 30 mph. No special skills are required and it's quite safe. Zorb Limited even boasts that of the 100,000 or so people who've tried the sport, no one has ever puked inside the ball.

Luckily for us Americans, you no longer have to fly to the other side of the planet to go Zorbing. The first-ever U.S. Zorb center is due to open in a few weeks just outside Great Smoky Mountains National Park in Tennessee. Prices are still TBD, but rates at the New Zealand location start at $45 NZD per person (about $35 USD; check XE.com for the current conversion rate). Go to the Zorb website for more details.

(Photo: Zorb Limited)

Kiteboarding

A water sport rapidly growing in popularity, kiteboarding allows riders to tear across open water and perform high-flying maneuvers while being pulled by a giant kite.

Strong and steady trade winds make Cabarete on the north coast of the Dominican Republic a mecca for kiteboarders and a good place for beginners to learn, too. Numerous kite schools offer lessons in Cabarete, including multi-day courses, which are a good idea for novices. A three-day course with the Cabarete-based company Kitexcite costs $299.

(Photo: Anthony Brown, iStockPhoto.com)

Heli-skiing

As much as the big ski resorts tout their latest improvements, for many experienced skiers, nothing beats skiing virgin powder in the wilderness. In the old days that meant a long treacherous trudge up a mountain with your skis on your back, but not anymore. In 1965, Canadian Mountain Holidays founder Hans Gmoser started offering heli-sking trips for the first time, taking guests out in helicopters to ski remote slopes in the Canadian Rockies. Now, you can heli-ski in locations around the world.

While the sport is expensive and requires a certain level of expertise, it can be accessible to those of more average means and intermediate skiing abilities. Canadian Mountain Holidays, which is still the leading heli-skiing company in the world, offers a good variety of trips, including three- to 10-day excursions from nine wilderness lodges and three town-based hotels in British Columbia. Most packages include transportation from the airport in Calgary to your lodge of choice, accommodations, all meals, guides, use of heli-ski equipment, and helicopter ski runs (most trips average eight or more runs per day). Rates for three-day packages start at $2,595 per person.

(Photo: Brad White, Canadian Mountain Holidays)

Canyoneering

Canyoneering is a lot like rock climbing, except the goal is to travel down and through a canyon, not just up—and it's a lot more fun. Using technical equipment like ropes and carabineers, and your own finesse, you'll navigate your way by whatever means are safely possible. Depending on the canyon you're in, that could mean rappelling down by rope, sliding down waterfalls, wriggling your way through narrow rock spaces, and even jumping off cliffs into pools of water.

You'll find wet and dry canyoneering options all over the world, but in the U.S., the desert Southwest holds some of the best possibilities. Excursions of Escalante, a Utah-based canyoneering company, runs trips in Glen Canyon National Recreation Area and Box Death Hollow Wilderness Area. One-day beginner courses start at $135 per person.

(Photo: Index Open)

Sandboarding

While sandboarding most likely started as an amusement for dune-bound snowboarders, surfers, and other thrill-seekers, it's evolved into its own sport. You can now buy specially designed sandboards, read Sandboard Magazine, and attend sandboarding competitions.

Sandboard Magazine publishes a list of sandboarding locations around the world, including good spots in the U.S. like Jockey's Ridge State Park in North Carolina and Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado. For the most part, no extra fee other than general park admission is required. If you're new to the sport, there's no need to shell out for a sandboard, as using an old snowboard, pair or skis, or plastic sled works well too.

(Photo: Flavia Bottazzini, iStockPhoto.com)

Paragliding

A sort of hybrid between parachuting and hang gilding, paragliding involves jumping from a high point, such as a mountain slope, and then soaring through the air on thermals. Unlike parachuting, paragliding does not involve jumping out of an airplane. A paraglider can also steer, brake, and increase speed by controlling the lines that lead to the canopy.

Beginners usually start by going on a tandem flight with an instructor. The Torrey Pines Gliderport near San Diego, is the biggest and best-known paragliding facility in the U.S. Tandem flights, which soar over Torrey Pines State Reserve, cost $150 per person. Three- to five-day beginner courses start at $895 per person.

(Photo: Index Open)

White-water kayaking

Quite different from its serene cousin, sea kayaking, white-water kayaking can involve everything from riding gentle rapids to dropping down seriously steep waterfalls and paddling madly around dangerous river obstacles. The sport is a natural progression for those who've tried and enjoyed white-water rafting but want more independence, and more thrills.

Taking lessons with a trained instructor is the safest way to learn the sport. There are many facilities that offer courses in the U.S., including Otter Bar Lodge Kayak School based on Northern California's Salmon River. The school runs week-long beginner classes July through September at a cost of $2,090 per person. This price covers instruction and equipment use, all meals and accommodations, and local transportation.

(Photo: Index Open)

Skijoring

While you generally need to rank among the idle rich to take up skijöring, a sport that involves racing around a snow track on skis while being pulled by thoroughbred horses, it certainly is fun (and safer and a whole lot cheaper) to watch.

Each winter at St. Moritz, Switzerland,, the rich and famous (and ordinary people too), gather on the frozen lake of St. Mortiz for White Turf (website in German only), a sort of cold weather Kentucky Derby that culminates with skijöring races. The next event is scheduled for February 2008. Admission for the previous competition started at 16 Swiss francs (about $14; see XE.com for current exchange rates).

(Photo: Andy Mettler, White Turf)

Winter kiting

With adventure, the birth of a new sport is often the result of a simple marriage between two other sports, which is certainly the case with winter kiting, the hybrid child of windsurfing and skiing. The sport employs kites similar to those used for kite boarding on water, and skis, snowboards, and sleds may be used in contact with the snow. Skilled winter kiters have used kites to sail across Arctic icecaps, catch wind currents and be pulled up high mountains, and perform high-flying acrobatics not possible on skies or snowboards alone.

The sport is still young, so not many places offer instruction. However, the kiting company Canadian Wind Rider offers winter kiting lessons near Toronto. Three-hour intro courses cost $194 CAD (about $195; see XE.com for current exchange rates).

(Photo: Scott Heffernan, iStockPhoto.com)

Space travel

Climbed Mt. Everest? Trekked through the deepest darkest jungles of Africa? Already been to the South Pole? If you feel like you've maxed out all the possibilities for extreme adventure and happen to have $200,000 laying around, perhaps it's time for you to leave this planet and try your hand at space travel.

Virgin Galactic, a venture of billionaire adventurer Sir Richard Branson, hopes to begin offering the first commercial sub-orbital flights into space in 2008 or 2009. Tests flights on the new, specially designed SpaceShipTwo (SpaceShipOne was the first privately funded craft to reach space in 2004) are set to begin sometime this year. Once you've put down a deposit and Virgin Galactic's operations are set, you'll be scheduled for a trip. The flight will take you to a sub-orbit about 70 to 80 miles above the earth's surface, where you'll experience zero gravity and can gape in awe at the blue planet beneath you.

(Photo: Lars Lentz, iStockPhoto.com)