The Activity Holidays Guide lists a number of holiday providers who offer Hot Air Balloon flights and training, indeed, it is considered by many to be the ideal way to view South African wildlife, but with the new extreme sport of Cluster Ballooning, your on your own; more often than not, quite literally on your own.
Cluster Ballooning, involves becoming airborne with the aid of a large number of helium balloons. Typically, 165 large helium balloons will provide about 91 kg of lift. A concept which is taken to outrageous extremes in Pixar's new feature film UP.
This video clip posted by smartzmike, shows pioneering Cluster Balloonist, Kent Couch making a 193 miles flight in Oregon, USA, back in 2007. Last year, he covered covered about 235 miles in nine and a half hours.
Between Friday, March 21 and Friday April 4, the Sri Lanka skies will be filled with the spectacular sight of 22 hot air ballons. Over 72 participants, including balloonists from the UK, Ireland, Japan, and Saudi Arabia will be taking part in the Sri Lanka Balloon Festival 2008
The event encourages family participation and is regarded as an ideal family vacation, in a country that is establishing a high reputation as an Asian adventure destination. Known as the 'Pearl in the Indian Ocean', Sri Lanka is proving to be a real gem for the adventurous tourist.
For over thirty years, the first week in October brings the smell of roasting chilies and the spectacle of around 700 hot air balloons filling the big blue New Mexico sky. The extraordinary event is the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta and it is reckoned to be he largest ballooning event on earth. Visitors from all over the world travel to the huge, purpose built, Balloon Fiesta Park in Albuquerque, USA, to celebrate ballooning. This year's festival runs October 6 through 14, 2007.
British adventurer David Hempleman-Adams has claimed yet another world record by flying a conventional hot-air balloon in an open wicker basket to 32,500 ft, almost the cruising height of a jumbo jet. He was also the first person to fly a balloon over the North Pole and on September 22, 2003, became the first person to cross the Atlantic Ocean from New Brunswick, Canada, to Ireland, in an open wicker basket, hot-air balloon.
For the past twenty years, David has traveled the globe on record breaking expeditions. Witnessing at first-hand, the environmental and social destruction caused by climate change: from the melting ice-caps of Greenland, to those at the North and South Poles, to islands in the Pacific Ocean being submerged by rising sea levels and the devastation of the rain forests, he is pushing the boundaries of what is possible in order to draw attention to the climate change issue.
The extraordinary event is the 
