If you enjoy combining travel with a rigorous athletic adventure experience, a rafting tour is a great way to learn about new places and make new friends. Tour companies operate rafting tours. Some companies only offer rafting tours, while others integrate rafting as a component to another type of tour, such as a bus or airplane excursion.
Compared to other vacation experiences, rafting tours can provide economical fun for families and small groups. Whether you’re traveling solo or as a couple, you can gain a memorable vacation experience through the teamwork and interaction necessary for a successful rafting tour.
Advantages of Rafting Tours
- You can get a great work-out while sightseeing
- Videos and photos of your experience are available after the tour through the tour company- it’s nearly impossible to take pictures with an oar in your hand, so it’s a nice perk that companies offer to commemorate your experience.
- You can’t beat the high-speed, high-adrenaline rush of flying down a river in a raft.
- Rafting tours offer an invaluable team-building experience for both families and professional organizations.
- Rafting Tours are suitable within a wide age group- provided that everyone meets the minimal requirements; a rafting tour is a great group opportunity.
Disadvantages of Rafting Tours
- If you have a whiny passenger on the raft, you’re stuck with them for the duration of the trip.
- Because you are concentrating on the river and its various obstacles, you might not have much time to look at the beautiful scenery passing you by.
- There is an element of danger associated with this type of tour; while tour operators are specially trained for extreme sports tours, you assume the risk of injury or death by choosing this activity.
- Guided rafting tours can be expensive.
Rafting Tours- Should You Grab an Oar or Stay Grounded?
If you are not in great shape, you might consider a different type of tour. People who should not take a rafting tour include:
- Pregnant women, babies and small children
- Individuals with cardiovascular, respiratory or heart problems
- Those who have existing injuries
- People who are afraid of water or who don’t know how to swim.
It should be noted that not all rafting tours are alike- there are certainly more family-oriented rafting trips that involve gently floating down a slowly flowing river. Other rafting trips are designed for highly athletic adventurers who enjoy testing their limits in an outdoor, team environment. A “team person” is an ideal candidate for a rafting tour. If you enjoy other people, and working as a team to accomplish a difficult feat, you will enjoy the physical and intellectual challenge that rafting can offer.
