Skydive Interlaken: 45 seconds of freefall over the Swiss Alps

Interlaken sits on a flat strip of valley floor with a lake at each end and the Bernese Alps standing straight up behind it. That geometry is the entire reason people fly here. From 4,000 metres you are not looking at one mountain, you are looking down a wall of them, with the two lakes laid out on either side of the town and the valley running away underneath. It is the view that sells the jump, and it is the one thing no photograph taken from the ground can give you.

The booking itself is simple, and worth stating plainly because the search results make it look complicated. $526 buys a tandem skydive: you are harnessed to a tandem master, the two of you leave the aircraft together, and you spend 45 seconds in freefall before the canopy opens. The listing puts the exit at 4,000 metres and the speed at 200 km/h (120 mph), and gives the canopy ride as five to seven minutes. The whole booking runs 3.5 hours, most of which is travel, kit and waiting for your slot in the aircraft. The flying part is short and the day around it is not.

Four things come with the fare, and the listing names them one by one: the skydive, the safety briefing, the skydiving equipment and the tandem master. That last one matters more than the rest combined. Interlaken runs one instructor per client, so nobody is sharing an eye with another customer. Your tandem master does the briefing with you, checks the harness on you, flies the canopy and lands it. You are not asked to learn anything in the morning and perform it in the afternoon.

The other thing to know before you book is where the day happens. The jump does not leave from Interlaken itself. You meet in town at the Outdoor Höheweg Shop, Höheweg 95, and then travel out to the airfield at Reichenbach, about 30 minutes away, which is also where the landing zone is. Seats on that transfer are reserved for people who are jumping, so anyone coming along to watch has to make their own way out there. Plan that part before the morning of, not during it.

Search for skydiving in Interlaken and you will be shown paragliding roughly half the time. The two get mixed up constantly, so here is the difference in one line: a skydive is 45 seconds of falling and then a canopy; a tandem paraglide is a launch on foot from a slope and then a long, level glide. Both put you in the air over the same mountains with a qualified professional attached to the same harness. They are not substitutes, and the reason is time. On $526 the air is doing something to you. On a paraglider you are sitting in it.

The jump. $526 — Airplane Skydiving over the Swiss Alps. 4,000 metres, 45 seconds at 200 km/h (120 mph), a canopy ride of five to seven minutes, a tandem master with you the whole way, and 3.5 hours blocked out for it. 4.9 across 586 reviews. It is the only skydive on this site because it is the only one in the area, which also makes it the lowest fare for a jump here and the highest: there is nothing to compare it against locally.

The flights from Interlaken itself. $222 is the most reviewed listing on the whole site at 2,580 reviews and 4.9: a 90-minute booking covering a tandem flight with a qualified pilot, hiking boots, flight equipment and transport. $234 holds a 5.0 across 655 reviews and glides some 800 metres above the valley for 10 to 20 minutes, with an air-conditioned bus to the launch, a safety briefing, mountain shoes and flight gear in the fare. $259 is billed as the highest tandem flight in Interlaken, with transfers to the take-off side and a certified pilot, looking across Eiger, Mönch and Jungfrau and down onto Lake Thun and Lake Brienz.

The flights over the Lauterbrunnen valley. $209 is the highest rated listing here — 5.0 across 367 reviews — an Airtime flight launched from Mürren over the valley waterfalls and the cliffs, up to 20 minutes aloft, with a licensed tandem pilot, helmet, insurance and boots or a jacket when needed. The listing lets you choose between an armchair in the sky and something a lot more spirited. $234 is the panorama version, sold as the highest flight in Mürren and Lauterbrunnen, with a take-off and landing briefing and a stretch where the pilot hands you the controls.

The flights further out. Three of them face famous mountains instead of this valley. $198 flies Chamonix with the Mont Blanc range in front of you, gear and insurance included, 328 reviews at 4.9. $371 is a Zermatt tandem flight with the Matterhorn as the backdrop, a flysuit, helmet, hat and gloves handed to you, and a straight 5.0 across 66 reviews. $420 is the premium version of the same idea: a 25 to 30 minute scenic flight with a pilot who has flown that mountain for more than twenty years, certified equipment to Swiss aviation standards, and a small-group format. $272 flies above Lake Lucerne with tandem gear and a camera in the fare.

How to read the cost-per-hour column below. It divides the fare by the booked length, so the skydive reads low because 3.5 hours are blocked out for 45 seconds of freefall, and the one-hour flights read high. Use it to see what a fare is carrying — an aircraft, a pilot, transport, a full set of gear — not as a ranking of which one you will enjoy more.

If you came for the jump, book $526. It is the only skydive in Interlaken and it does the thing nothing else on this page does: 45 seconds at 200 km/h from 4,000 metres, with the Alps filling the whole frame, and then five to seven minutes under the canopy to come down slowly and look at what you just fell through. The briefing, the equipment and a tandem master are in the fare, and 4.9 across 586 reviews is the evidence. This is our top pick and the reason the site exists.

If you want the longest time in the air, book $209. Up to 20 minutes over the Lauterbrunnen waterfalls, launched from Mürren, with a licensed tandem pilot, helmet and insurance included. It holds the only 5.0 with a serious review count behind it — 367 of them — and it is an hour of your day rather than three and a half.

If you want the flight everybody here has already taken, book $222. 2,580 reviews at 4.9 is not a sample, it is a verdict. Ninety minutes covering the tandem flight, a qualified pilot, hiking boots, equipment and transport, launched from the slopes above town and landing back beside it.

If you are doing both in one trip, jump first. The skydive takes a 3.5 hour block and depends on the aircraft, the slot and the weather, so it is the harder of the two to move. A 60 to 90 minute flight like $259 or $234 slots into whatever the rest of the day leaves you. Doing them in that order also means the glide is the part you remember last, which is the calmer note to finish on.

If your trip runs to Zermatt or Chamonix as well, save a flight for there. $371 and $420 put the Matterhorn in front of you, and $198 does the same with the Mont Blanc range. They are different views, not better ones, and they are the reason this page lists ten things instead of one.