Lauterbrunnen Paragliding: 8 Tandem Flights, and Only Two Cross the Valley

See it before you pay for it

What the Mürren side and the Interlaken side actually look like

Three recordings made by people who were not selling anything, because the difference between these two launches is obvious in about ten seconds of footage and hard to describe in a paragraph. From above Mürren the ground drops away into a trench with walls on both sides and white threads of water down them. From Interlaken you get a town, two lakes and a long horizon of peaks — a wider picture, and a different one. The third clip is the part nobody films on purpose: the run down the slope before the wing lifts, which is when the pilot decides whether the air is worth using. That is the honest shape of Lauterbrunnen paragliding, and no listing here says what the sky will be doing during your slot — read the conditions note on the one you book.

Side by side

From above Mürren, or from Interlaken

Here is the map of the page, because Lauterbrunnen paragliding is sold as one product and is really two, with almost the same words on both halves. Type tandem paragliding Lauterbrunnen into any search box and you get both groups back in one list, priced within a few dollars of each other, which is exactly how people end up booking the wrong one. The first group is two listings that go up to the shelf above Mürren and fly the trench itself: the walls are close on both sides, the Staubbach falls are somewhere under the wing, and the village roofs of the valley floor are what you look down at. The second group is six listings from Interlaken, and they are not a worse version of the first — they are a different view, wider and greener, with Lake Thun on one side and Lake Brienz on the other and the north faces on the horizon. They also hold the weight of the reviews: 2,580 people have rated one single Interlaken listing, against 367 on the better-reviewed of the two valley flights. So pick the picture you actually want first, and the price second. Everything on this page is a tandem seat with a pilot; nothing here is a course, and nothing here is a solo flight.

Before you book

What the price covers, and what the weather decides

On all eight Lauterbrunnen paragliding listings the price covers the wing, the pilot, the equipment and the transfer up to the launch point named in the listing, and the booking lasts between one hour and a whole day — the minutes in the air are a small part of it. Two operators put their own numbers on that: one describes a take-off at 1,300 m with about 800 m of height down to the landing field, and between 10 and 20 minutes of airtime; the Mürren cliff flight says up to 20 minutes above the village. What no operator sells is the air itself. A tandem wing needs usable wind, and the pilot on the day decides whether to launch, move the slot or send you back with a refund or a new date — each listing spells out its own rule, and that is the paragraph to read twice rather than the marketing above it. Photos and video are offered on some listings and are usually paid for on the spot; where a listing offers Free cancellation, the card says so.

What people said afterwards

4,930 reviews across the Lauterbrunnen paragliding listings

These are the operators’ own numbers on GetYourGuide, shown as published. All eight listings carry a rating and they hold 4,930 reviews between them, which is unusual for a niche this small. The record is not spread evenly. One Interlaken tandem has 2,580 reviews at 4.9 — more than every other listing here put together — and a second has 976 at 4.9. Our top pick, the plain Interlaken tandem flight, has 655 at 5.0, the strongest rating on the page with real weight behind it. On the valley side the Mürren cliff flight has 367 at 5.0 and the two-hour panorama 194 at 4.9, so both listings that actually fly the valley are well rated on shorter records. The higher launch at Interlaken has 73 at 4.7, the day out of Zurich 83 at 4.7, and the day from Geneva sits at 5.0 on 2 reviews — a fine score on a record too short to lean on, and we say so rather than letting it look like the rest. We do not write reviews and we do not average other people’s into a score of our own.

What it really costs

From $209 to $460, and what moves the number

Three things move the price of Lauterbrunnen paragliding, and the minutes in the air are the smallest of them. The first is how much of your day the booking takes: $209 buys the one-hour flight over the valley from above Mürren, $234 buys two hours on the same side with the longer panorama, and the Interlaken tandems sit between $222 and $234 for an hour and a half. The second is the launch height: the higher Interlaken start is $259, and it is the one listing that charges for altitude rather than for time. The third is travel, and it is the only thing on this page that really changes the number: $394 for a ten-hour day out of Zurich and $460 for thirteen hours out of Geneva, where the flight is one item on a long itinerary and the rest is coach, train and lakes. Six of the eight listings sit between $209 and $259, and that is where most people end up.

The honest answer

Which of the eight is worth your money?

Our pick is the $234 Interlaken tandem, and for one reason: it is the most expensive listing that still carries a record this large, 655 reviews at 5.0, and it bundles nothing you did not ask for. But if the valley is the reason you are on this page, the honest answer inside Lauterbrunnen paragliding is the $209 flight from above Mürren: it is the cheapest listing here, it is one of only two that cross the valley, and 367 people rated it 5.0. Want longer over the same ground? The $234 panorama is two hours instead of one, at the same price as our top pick. Want the biggest written record in the niche rather than the best view of the valley? That is the $222 tandem with 2,580 reviews. The two day trips, at $394 and $460, are worth it only if you are starting from Zurich or Geneva without a plan for the rest of the day — you are paying for the travel, not for more time in the air. We are paid the same whichever one you book.

What it is really like

Two flights go up from Mürren and cross this valley; the other six launch at Interlaken, over the ground between the lakes

Eight listings, two launch points

Two flights cross this valley from Mürren; six go up at Interlaken, over the ground between the lakes

Every listing below is a tandem flight with a pilot, and after that they split in two. Two of them launch from Mürren, the village on the shelf above the valley, and their own wording names the waterfalls and the walls you look down on. The other six start at Interlaken, about 20 km north between Thun and Brienz, where the view underneath is lakes and green hillsides with the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau standing behind it. The fares overlap almost exactly, so this is a choice about the landscape rather than about the money.

Practical

Plan the flight

Four decisions, in this order. First, the ground you want under the wing: the valley from above Mürren, or the lakes from Interlaken — that is the real fork in Lauterbrunnen paragliding, and the prices barely follow it. Second, how much of the day you are giving up: one hour, an hour and a half, two hours, or ten to thirteen for the listings that start in Zurich and Geneva. Third, where you are sleeping: the valley flights are easy if you are staying in the valley or on the Mürren shelf, and awkward as a day trip from a city. Fourth, when to book: a few weeks ahead for the well-reviewed listings, and a date early in your trip rather than the last morning, because a slot moved for wind needs somewhere to move to. Two notes on wording, because the search box mixes products together. A Lauterbrunnen tour usually means a coach, a village stop and a photo of the falls, not a seat under a wing; and the words Lauterbrunnen bike tour, e bike tour Lauterbrunnen or Lauterbrunnen walking tour bring back ground-level days on the valley floor, which are good things to do and are not what these eight listings are.

Best time

When these flights run

Tandem paragliding is sold by the date and flown by the air, so the only honest calendar is the one on the listing itself: open dates mean the operator is selling that day, and nothing more than that. What we can tell you about Lauterbrunnen paragliding is how the year feels around it. Daylight is the first thing: a slot that exists in June does not exist in December, and a morning slot moved by a few hours still has somewhere to go in summer and does not in midwinter. The second is the crowd: the Interlaken listings with thousands of reviews fill up in the high season, while the two Mürren flights are small operations with fewer slots to begin with. Pick the season below for the practical side, then open the listing and read its own conditions and cancellation rule before you pay.

Worth knowing

Six things the eight listings do not spell out

Common questions

Which valley, how long the slot is, what the wind decides — and what it costs

Why trust this page

How we put this together