Hot Air Balloon Rides in Ibiza

Ibiza at six in the morning is a different island. The last taxis are heading home, the coast road is empty, and the interior that most visitors never bother with is sitting under a layer of cool air. That is when balloons fly. You meet on Avenida Isidoro Macabich in Ibiza town and drive inland to whichever field suits the wind, usually somewhere in the middle of the island. At around 250 EUR this is the dearest of the Spanish flights we list, which is roughly what island logistics cost.

Not over the old town. Ibiza airport is about seven kilometres from Dalt Vila and its airspace covers the bay, so flights work the rural middle of the island instead. That is the better half anyway. From a few hundred metres the interior reads as red terraced soil, dry-stone walls, almond and fig orchards and low whitewashed farmhouses with flat roofs, and the pine ridges that gave Ibiza and Formentera their Greek name run down to the water in every direction. Dalt Vila stands on the skyline to the south-east, the cathedral tower rising above the bastions Philip II built against Ottoman raiders. Further out, the salt pans of Ses Salines take the first light and Formentera lies beyond them as a flat grey line. Sa Talaia, the high point of the island at 475 metres, is the bump on the south-west horizon.

The shoulders of the year are the good part here. April, May, September and October give the calmest mornings and the least heat, while in high summer the launch is before dawn and the sea breeze fills in early; the seasonal guide covers why that matters more on an island. Winter flights are rare. Time in the air runs 60 to 90 minutes, and the landing ends with cava and a flight certificate, one of the older traditions in ballooning. Capacity on Ibiza is small and the season is short, so book before you fly out rather than on the second day of the holiday. Take the weather call seriously too: a morning can look flat calm from the terrace and be unflyable at 500 metres.