I like to think of myself as an adventurous person. When my husband and I watch reality TV shows like The Amazing Race, he usually turns to me and says, “you’ll be the one who bungee jumps off that bridge,” or “if you dive off that platform, I’ll eat the weird stuff, OK?”

So when he suggested a hot air balloon ride on a recent vacation in Napa, I immediately said yes. But as our trip approached, I started having second thoughts about our aerial adventure. Why had I agreed to get into a giant wicker basket that goes thousands of feet in the air and has literally no way to steer other than the wind?

Did you know? Hot air balloon rides only take place in good weather—wind speeds less than 10 MPH and no rain.

When I booked, I was told that the flight was subject to the weather. A quick lesson about how hot air balloons work: wind dictates everything, from how the balloons inflate to where they go in-flight. So a balloon can only fly in calm, clear conditions; no rain, no fog, and very little wind—no more than 8–10 mph. That made me feel better, especially because there was still a chance the flight wouldn’t happen.

On flight day, we woke up at 4:30 a.m. (Most hot air balloon companies fly only at sunrise and sunset because that’s when wind is the calmest.) There was fog, and I was secretly thrilled, thinking there was no way I would actually have to go through with this. But then we got a call to meet at the backup launch location 20 miles away, where there were blue skies and no wind.

The hot air balloon basket isn’t so scary.
I'm 5'4" and it came up to my ribs.

When we pulled up to the field, I was feeling better. The sun was rising, the skies were clear, and no one else seemed scared, which I took as a good sign. We got to watch the ground crew lay out the giant balloon—it was probably 60 or so feet tall—and the pilot inflate it. At that point, we were helped into the hot air balloon basket. I’m 5’4”, so I needed the built-in foot holds to get up and over. The sides came up to about my rib cage, which definitely made me less scared about not being strapped in.

The basket was made of a really thick wicker material and divided into a T-shape with three sections. Pete, our pilot, explained that the partitions strengthened the basket and made the balloon easier to control, because he could more evenly distribute the weight. Sorry tall people who had to stand in the middle, us shorties get the edges because otherwise we wouldn’t be able to see anything.

The flight itself is still, quiet, and peaceful.
Plus, you can’t beat the view.

We were ready for takeoff. The ground crew untied our basket and Pete pulled down on the propane-fuelled torch handle for a good 10 seconds as we drifted up and away.

That was it. Once we got a few feet off the ground, it really felt like floating. Because the balloon moves with the wind, you don’t feel any resistance or swaying, and the air is still and quiet. We floated up and down, topping out at about 2,000 feet off the ground. That sounds high, but we could still make out all the landmarks and see people and cars on the ground, so it didn’t feel intimidating. Plus, the view was worth it. At that altitude, we could see all the way to the Sierras, about 100 miles away.

The Scariest Part About Hot Air Balloon Rides: 
Taking photos—and trying not to drop your phone.

In the end, the hot air balloon ride was calm and relaxing and the complete opposite of my expectations. The only real “scary” part of the whole hot air balloon experience turned out to be taking pictures. To get a clear shot, I had to reach out past the basket’s edges, and I couldn’t stop imagining that I would drop my phone. Trusty Pete said that had only happened a few times, and that they actually found a woman’s phone once—when she dropped it from about 10 feet up. Whew! What a relief.