Step by step
Nobody books a paragliding flight without quietly wondering what the next two hours will look like. This page walks through the order of it: what you are told before the day, where you meet, how you get up to the launch slope, what the run off the edge is, what the harness feels like once the ground drops away, and how a landing on a meadow works. The eight listings gathered on this site sell slots of 60 minutes to 13 hours, from $209 to $460, and the length of the slot is the clearest clue to how much of that sequence you are paying for. One thing no page can tell you is whether the air will work on your date — that call belongs to the pilot and the wind, and every listing here is written on that understanding.
Quick answer
The short answer. A tandem paragliding flight here is a booking window, not a flight time. You meet at an address, you are taken up to a launch slope, the pilot clips you into a harness in front of him, you run a few steps downhill and the ground stops being under your feet. Then you sit in the harness and look, and then you touch down on a meadow, usually on your feet. The shortest window on this site is 60 minutes — $209 from below Mürren — and the most common is 90 minutes, which is what $234, our top pick at 5.0 from 655 reviews, books you for.
Before the day
A paragliding flight is booked for a slot, and the slot is the operator holding a place for you and a pilot. Everything on this site is a tandem listing, which means a qualified pilot flies and you are attached to him in a second harness. That is worth saying plainly, because it settles the largest worry people bring to this page: the decisions in the air are not yours to make.
The confirmation is where the real detail lives. The listing pages carry the meeting point, the reporting time and what to bring. Nothing on a comparison page replaces that, and the eight listings here do not use the same addresses: two meet on the Mürren side of the valley and six on the Interlaken side, roughly 20 km north. Reading the address twice is the cheapest mistake-prevention available.
Why the wind gets the last word. A wing needs air moving the way it needs to move. When it does not, pilots wait, and when waiting does not help, the day gets rearranged. This is normal in the sport and it is the reason every listing here shows Free cancellation and the reason the longer windows exist at all. A two-hour booking such as $234 gives a pilot more room to wait for a workable moment than a one-hour booking does.
What to wear. Shoes you can run five steps downhill in, and layers, because the air at launch height is colder than the air in the village. Nothing on these listings asks for equipment: the wing, the harnesses and the helmet come with the flight. What the listings do ask for is that you arrive able to walk on a slope.
Eating, and not eating too much. There is no rule on any of the eight listings about food, and people differ. A light meal an hour or two before is the common advice in the sport; a large one immediately before a first flight is how people find out they are more sensitive to movement than they thought.
Every trip, current fare
Sorted by the length of the booking window, from a 60-minute slot to a 13-hour day. The window is not time in the air: it covers meeting, getting up to the launch, waiting on conditions, the flight and the way back. Only one listing on this site publishes minutes aloft.
| Flight | Length | Price | What is included | Cost per hour | Rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mürren: Paragliding over Lauterbrunnen Cliffs and WaterfallsStraight over the Lauterbrunnen cliffs | 60 min | $209 | Straight over the Lauterbrunnen cliffs | $209.00 | 5.0 · 367 |
| Interlaken: Paragliding Tandem High Flight InterlakenHigher launch, longer glide | 60 min | $259 | Higher launch, longer glide | $259.00 | 4.7 · 73 |
| Interlaken: Tandem Paragliding Flight with PilotThe most booked flight in the region | 90 min | $222 | The most booked flight in the region | $148.00 | 4.9 · 2,580 |
| Paragliding Tandem Flight in InterlakenTandem over the two lakes | 90 min | $223 | Tandem over the two lakes | $148.67 | 4.9 · 976 |
| Interlaken: Tandem Paragliding FlightThe classic Interlaken launch | 90 min | $234 | The classic Interlaken launch | $156.00 | 5.0 · 655 |
| Mürren: Paragliding Panorama Tandem Flight Full ExperienceTwo hours, the full panorama | 2 h | $234 | Two hours, the full panorama | $117.00 | 4.9 · 194 |
| Zurich: Day trip to Interlaken incl. tandem paraglidingA day from Zurich with the flight | 10 h | $394 | A day from Zurich with the flight | $39.40 | 4.7 · 83 |
| From Geneva: Paragliding and Interlaken TripA day from Geneva with the flight | 13 h | $460 | A day from Geneva with the flight | $35.38 | 5.0 · 2 |
Arrival
Every paragliding flight here begins in a car park or outside an office rather than on a mountain. You give a name, you sign what the operator asks you to sign, and you are weighed or asked your weight so the pilot can pick a wing. None of the eight listings publishes a weight limit, which is exactly why the question comes up at the desk: ask it before you pay, not when you are standing there.
On the Mürren side. Mürren sits on a shelf high above the valley floor, and it is reached from the valley rather than driven into. That makes the journey up part of the appointment. Both listings from this side — $209 for 60 minutes and $234 for two hours — name their meeting arrangement on the listing page, and the shorter of the two leaves you very little slack if the way up takes longer than you planned.
On the Interlaken side. The town has a station and the operators have offices, so the meeting is a town meeting: you turn up, you are checked in with a group and then driven up to a launch site above the town. The three 90-minute listings — $222, $223 and $234 — are built around that rhythm, which is part of why 90 minutes is the standard window here.
If your booking is a whole day. $394 at ten hours and $460 at thirteen start where you are staying, not in the mountains. The travelling is the bulk of the booking and the flight is one act inside it. That changes the shape of the day completely: you are not managing your own transport, and you are also not deciding when anything happens.
The waiting is not wasted. Between check-in and launch there is usually a pause while a pilot reads the air. It is the least photogenic part of a paragliding flight and the most professional one. A pilot who is willing to stand and wait is doing the job you paid for.
Up to the launch
No paragliding flight starts at the bottom of a valley. The wing needs height and a slope facing the right way, so between the meeting point and the flight there is always a transfer upwards. What it looks like depends on which side you booked.
From below Mürren. The launch is on the shelf above the Lauterbrunnen floor, so the height is already there once you are in the village. That is the structural advantage of this side and the reason two listings can sell a 60-minute and a two-hour window respectively while still putting you over the walls of the valley.
From Interlaken. The town sits on flat ground between lake Thun and lake Brienz, so the transfer up is a real part of the window. This is the plainest reason a 90-minute slot is normal there and a 60-minute slot is the exception: $259 books an hour and calls itself the highest launch in the town, which is a combination worth asking about on the listing page.
What you carry. Nothing heavy. Pilots pack the wing and the harnesses; your job is a jacket and whatever fits in a pocket. Loose items are a nuisance on a launch slope where a wing is being laid out into the wind, and a pilot will ask you to stow anything swinging.
The briefing. At the top the wing goes out on the grass uphill of you, the harnesses are clipped, the helmet goes on and the pilot explains the only three things you have to do: walk forward when told, keep walking, and do not sit down until you are asked to. On a tandem paragliding flight that is the whole of your job description.
Inside the window
Read this against the cost-per-hour column in the table above. It explains why an hour-long window and a two-hour window can sell for fares this close together.
| Part of the window | What is happening | Roughly how much of it |
|---|---|---|
| Check-inname, weight, paperwork, wing chosen | At an office or car park on the valley side or in the town | The first stretch of the window |
| Transfer upvan, lift or both, depending on the side | Shorter from the Mürren shelf, longer from the flat ground by the lakes | Often the single largest part |
| Waiting on the airthe part nobody photographs | The pilot reads the wind and decides; a longer window buys more of this | Unpredictable by definition |
| Launchwing out, harnesses clipped, a few steps downhill | Your part of the job lasts seconds | Seconds to a minute |
| In the airthe only published figure here is 10 to 20 min | $234 names it; the others publish the window only | The shortest part of the window |
| Landing and backa meadow, then the ride down | Usually on your feet, on flat grass chosen in advance | The tail of the window |
The run and the air
This is the part people replay afterwards. The wing is spread behind and above you, the pilot says walk, and you walk downhill. After a few steps the lines come tight, the wing takes the weight, and the slope stops mattering. There is no jump and no drop: on a well-run paragliding flight the ground simply stops being involved.
Sitting back. Once you are up, the pilot tells you to sit, and the harness turns into a seat. People expect this to be the frightening moment and it is usually the opposite: the seat is solid, your legs hang, and the noise drops to wind and the occasional line hum. Most of the review counts on this site — 4,930 across the eight listings — were written by people describing this minute.
What it is like to look down. From the Mürren side you are over a trench: rock walls on both sides, water coming off the rim, and the roofs of the village a long way below. From the Interlaken side you are over open ground with two lakes and a town between them. Both put the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau on the horizon, and every listing on this site names them.
How long it lasts. One listing publishes it: $234 describes 10 to 20 minutes of soaring, and gliding 800 metres above the region. The other seven publish the booking window and leave time in the air to the day. Anyone quoting you exact minutes for the other seven is guessing, and this page will not.
Turns, and asking for fewer of them. Pilots can fly gently or steeply, and they are used to being asked. Say before launch which you want. It is a normal request, it costs nothing to make, and it is much easier to make on the ground than by shouting into the wind.
The landing
Landing is the most planned part of any paragliding flight. The field is picked in advance, the approach is flown into the wind, and the pilot tells you what to do with your legs well before it matters. On most tandem flights that means standing up in the harness and taking a couple of steps as you touch grass.
Then the wing comes down. There is a minute of unclipping, the pilot gathers the wing, and the flight is over faster than you expect. Whatever transport brought you up brings you back, or you are already at the bottom, depending on the side you flew.
What you leave with. Photographs, if the operator sells them — none of the eight listings here says whether pictures are part of the booking, so it is a question for the listing page rather than something this site can answer. Personal cameras and phones are the operator’s call too: on a launch slope a loose object is a hazard to the wing, and pilots decide what may be held.
If the day did not work out. Sometimes the answer at the launch is not today. That is the sport working correctly. What happens next is written in the operator terms: Free cancellation appears on the listings here, and rebooking rules belong to the operator. Read them on the page you pay on, before you pay.
The honest summary. Of the eight listings, the two from below Mürren fly over the Lauterbrunnen valley itself and the six from the Interlaken side fly the lakes. The sequence above is the same on both; what differs is what is underneath you for the ten or twenty minutes that matter.
Your part
Everything else on a tandem paragliding flight belongs to the pilot.
The window starts when the operator says it starts. On the Mürren side, where the way up is part of the morning, early is the only sensible plan.
Five steps downhill on grass is the whole physical requirement, and it is easier in trainers than in anything with a smooth sole.
Gentle flying, fewer turns, a word before each manoeuvre — all normal requests, and all much easier to make before launch.
The one mistake beginners make is sitting down early. The pilot says when; until then, keep moving forward.
None of the eight listings publishes limits, so the operator is the only source. Ask before paying.
Free cancellation is shown on these listings, with terms set by the operator. A wind-dependent booking makes that line the one worth reading twice.
Book direct
From a 60-minute slot to a thirteen-hour day. Fares, ratings and review counts are read off the live listings; the button goes straight to the operator page.
★ 5.0 · 367 reviews
★ 4.7 · 73 reviews
★ 4.9 · 2,580 reviews
★ 4.9 · 976 reviews
★ 5.0 · 655 reviews
★ 4.9 · 194 reviews
★ 4.7 · 83 reviews
★ 5.0 · 2 reviews
Wondering which of the eight actually flies over the valley, and which flies the lakes? That is the whole of the overview page.
Compare all eight flights→Common questions
No. It is the window that covers meeting, the transfer up, waiting on conditions, the flight and the way back. Only $234 publishes minutes aloft, and it says 10 to 20.
A few steps downhill, and then the wing carries the weight. That is the physical part of a tandem paragliding flight.
The pilot, reading the wind on the day. That is why longer windows exist and why Free cancellation is shown on these listings.
Two share it at 60 minutes: $209 from below Mürren and $259 from the Interlaken side.
$234 — a 90-minute window, 5.0 from 655 reviews, and the only listing here that publishes both 800 metres and 10 to 20 minutes.
That is the operator’s decision and none of the eight listings says. Ask on the listing page; on a launch slope a loose object is a problem for the wing.
Some people are sensitive to movement and some are not. Ask for gentle flying before launch, eat lightly rather than heavily, and tell the pilot early rather than late.
$394 runs ten hours and $460 thirteen. The sequence at the launch is the same; what you are also buying is the travel to the mountains and back.
Go deeper
Two of the eight launch below Mürren and cross the valley itself; six work the Interlaken side of the same massif. Which is which, and what each costs.
Over the valleyVertical walls, Staubbach falling behind the village, Trümmelbach inside the rock, and the green floor of the valley from a harness.
How it worksWhat a tandem flight involves, what the listings include, and what stays with the operator.
In SwitzerlandThe valley on the wider map of the Bernese Oberland, and how the flights here fit a Swiss itinerary.
Valley flightsAge, weight, a head for heights, flying with children and flying with a camera — matched to the eight listings.
From MürrenThe village on the shelf over the valley, and the two flights that leave from below it.
Interlaken: Tandem Paragliding Flight
★ 5.0 · 655 reviews · Free cancellation 24 h