If you have cotton wool dreams of floating away into a blanket of cloud, having the sky romance you with its beautiful views, then a balloon ride might be just the thing to inflate your holiday experience.

Though many would suggest a balloon ride is a hot air attempt to blow romance into a vacation, this romantic cliché will raise your spirits to about 12,000 feet.

When most travellers experience the euphoria of soaring to the highest limits using this archaic form of flight, the very nature of its antiquity wins you over like a period drama.

Suspended in a basket beneath the warm glow of a balloon with the world at your feet makes for an intense experience, cliché or not. But selecting the ideal location that makes the most of perfect view point is vital.

Though the experience of travelling in a balloon alone is a novelty itself, it is the landscape that you fly over which really makes the experience breath-taking. The 360 degree view you encounter is unsurpassable, as you watch the world slowly drift by.

Something magical about Balloon rides….

Gone with the wind might be a popular children’s book, but it’s also the story when you take to the skies in a hot air balloon. And it is because of this gradual movement that the world appears to move around you, like gently rolling a globe towards you using your fingertips.

The origins of the hot air balloon concept date back to China in 220ad, when they released candlelit lamps made of rice paper into the sky to carry their wishes to the heavens. And it wasn’t until 1783 when the concept was finally adapted to create the passenger hot air balloon.

The balloon’s maiden voyage was in France and even to this day offers great flights to explore. Loire Valley in the country’s central region not only has fantastic period landscapes to take a view of, but also offers a variety of several take off spots making flights easily accessible. Located just 200 miles south west Paris, you might be lucky enough to see some of France’s most iconic landmarks – providing the wind takes you there of course. But the green beauty that is sprinkled with the beautiful buildings of Loire Valley makes for a fantastic spectacle.

And it is that very green phenomenon that equally makes Napa Valley a great location for balloon flights. Filled with Californian vine yards, this stateside destination creates a great ambiance, especially in sunset flights providing the perfect setting for only the most romantic couples.

If however you are looking for something different, Serengeti flights far exceed the conventional ways of wildlife watching. The region’s swelling African wildlife offers the perfect opportunity to overview the environment of this Tanzanian destination. Since 1989, there have been over 100,000 passengers that have flown over the country’s woodlands and plains. And with the scope the balloon offers in terms of its abilities to float at low attitudes in close proximity above the animals without startling them makes for a fantastic mode of safari.

The fact is that hot air balloon rides cannot only take you to spectacular horizons literally, they will take you a sunnier holiday experience.