I jumped off a cliff with a complete stranger and it was nothing like I expected

I knew I was in the right place when a man attached to a parachute breezed past my hotel window.

Dumping my bag on the ground, I watched, gobsmacked, as people dropped out of the sky and into the town square—parachutes of different colours covering the ground like a giant quilt. 

Welcome to Interlaken, the capital of sky-high adventures. 

I booked my first tandem flight ever for the last day of my 10-day stay in Switzerland, and I’m not going to lie—the minute I arrived in Interlaken I couldn’t think about anything else.

I was slightly distracted while creating my own chocolate at the Funky Chocolate Club and day-dreaming about it while tasting local beers and whiskey at Rugenbräu Brewery. 

Even after meeting the extraordinary Chef Stefan Beer, executive chef at Radius—fresh from receiving his Green Michelin Star—and experiencing his mind-blowing tasting menu created exclusively with ingredients grown within a radius of 25 miles of the restaurant, I couldn’t shake a vision of me plummeting like a rock through the air.

The night before my flight, I imagined every possible scenario, none of which lulled me into a peaceful slumber. And when I woke up the next morning to a light mist covering the mountains, I wondered (perhaps a little bit hopefully) if it would happen it all.

Located between two pristine lakes in Switzerland, Interlaken seamlessly blends its natural resources with adventure. Set against the striking backdrop of the Swiss Alps, the town— a breezy train ride from both Zurich and Geneva—is a gateway to the Jungfraujoch mountain, also known as the adventure capital of Europe.

Whether it’s fall, winter, spring, or summer, adrenaline junkies flock to Interlaken for paragliding, skydiving, bungy jumping, rafting, canyoning, kayaking, jet boating, ice climbing, canyon swinging and more.

Walking into the town square to meet up with my pilot from Skywings Paragliding, my heart was racing. As we drove up to the village of Beatenberg (1,350 metres), he explained all the safety procedures and what to do in an emergency. Stepping out of the van, the rain had lifted and in its place was a giant rainbow.

“We don’t usually see those,” my designated pilot, Dave, said, which I interpreted as a good sign.

Having just come back from Jungfraujoch – Top of Europe where I travelled by train through a mountain, stood on a glacier 3,454 metres above sea level and explored an ice palace inside a glacier, I felt prepared for just about anything. But now whipping up and down in the new Eiger Express tricable car from Grindelwald to the Eiger Glacier station in just 15 minutes seemed like child’s play.

Time Out tip: The best way to travel between the Jungfrau Region and Interlaken (and through Switzerland!) is with the Swiss Travel Pass which gives you access to extraordinary train journeys as well as over 500 museums.)

As the very tall Dave removed our parachute from its bag, he explained (to a very diminutive me) that we would sprint in tandem until we reached the edge of the cliff, and then jump.

“It’s very important to make sure you don’t stop running, or it will be bad for us,” he explained while strapping me into my harness.

Before I had time to second guess or overthink, we were running towards the cliff’s edge—struggling to keep up like a giant toddler strapped into a baby carrier as my feet flailed about—and suddenly we were in the air.

I thought my heart would be in my mouth, or that I would possibly black out, but the feeling of soaring in the air far above Interlaken was absolutely peaceful.

I had imagined feeling terror-stricken, or best-case extraordinarily nervous, but all I felt was safe and calm. The wind was soft, and the skies were silent. It was exhilarating when it could have been paralyzing; invigorating instead of debilitating.

The breathtaking spiral dives and high wing-overs got my adrenaline pumping, and I will never forget the birds-eye views of the Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau peaks and the glacial blue lakes with the turrets of the Grand Hotel Giessbach in the distance. Before I knew it, we had landed in the town square, smack in the centre of Interlaken.

Time Out Tip: Definitely go for the option to videotape your trip. While the flight can last up to 20 minutes, it feels like a nanosecond. Skywings Paragliding offers tandem paragliding in Interlaken along with many other activities.