HELICOPTER TRAVEL GUIDE · THE WORLD FROM THE AIR
Some views only open up once you leave the ground.
Reviews of the best helicopter tours on earth, city by city. The Manhattan skyline doors-off, the Grand Canyon below the rim, glacier landings in New Zealand, volcanoes over Iceland and Table Mountain from two oceans up. We sort through the listings so you book the right flight.
Worth the airfare
Three views you can only get from a helicopter.
Plenty of cities sell a sightseeing flight now. But dropping below the rim of the Grand Canyon, the Manhattan skyline with the door off, and a set-down on Franz Josef Glacier are flights that belong to these three places and reach what no road ever will.
The Grand Canyon
Below the Rim of the Grand Canyon
No road goes where the helicopter goes. You lift off the South Rim and the ground simply ends, dropping a mile to the Colorado River winding silver through the gorge. The walls go past in bands of red and ochre, the air gets still, and the scale of the thing only lands when you are inside it. Some flights set down on the canyon floor or out on the Hualapai plateau, in a place you could not otherwise stand.
- 1 Grand Canyon Village: Helicopter Tour & Hummer Tour Options
- 2 From South Rim: Grand Canyon Spirit Helicopter Tour
- 3 Tusayan: Grand Canyon Helicopter Ride with Optional Hummer
Manhattan
Doors-Off Over the Manhattan Skyline
The whole island fits in one window: the towers of midtown, the green rectangle of Central Park, the bridges stitching the rivers together, the Statue of Liberty small and bright in the harbour. With the door off there is nothing between you and the city but the cool air coming through. It is the shot every photographer wants and the view the postcards never quite manage, the most-flown skyline on earth for a reason.
- 1 New York City: Manhattan Helicopter Tour
- 2 NYC: Manhattan Sightseeing Helicopter Tour
- 3 NYC: Big Apple Helicopter Tour
New Zealand
A Landing on Franz Josef Glacier
The glaciers of the West Coast pour off the Southern Alps almost to the rainforest, and the only way onto the ice is from the air. The helicopter climbs the valley between walls of rock, the river of blue ice opens out below, and then the skids touch down on snow that sees no other footprints. You step out into the silence at the top of the country, somewhere a heli-hike is the only way to reach.
- 1 Franz Josef Glacier Heli-Hike
- 2 Heli Hike Fox Glacier
- 3 Franz Josef Glacier Helicopter Flight with Landing
The flight everyone books
If you only take off once.
More travellers reach for this one than any other we cover. A safe first booking when you are still deciding which view is worth leaving the ground for.
The classics
The World’s Most Popular Helicopter Tours
Manhattan, the Grand Canyon, the Las Vegas Strip, Dubai, Cape Town. The flights travellers reach for first, over the skylines and landscapes they most want to see from the air.
Where to take off
Pick your sky.
The USA for the Grand Canyon and the Manhattan skyline. New Zealand for glacier landings. Australia for the Reef and Uluru, South Africa for Table Mountain, Iceland for live volcanoes, Spain for the cities from the air. Each country, with the flights it does best.
Which kind of flight
How to spend your time in the air.
The kind of flight matters as much as the place. Three ways to spend it, depending on the time you have and what you most want to see from above.
The American icons
The big ones are all in America.
Three of the most-flown views on earth sit within one country. The Manhattan skyline with the door off, the rivers and bridges in a single frame. The Grand Canyon dropping a mile beneath the skids out of the South Rim. The Las Vegas Strip lit up after dark, then the desert and the canyon by day. No other place stacks landmarks this famous one flight after another.
See the best helicopter tours in the USA →The Southern Alps
New Zealand keeps its best parts off the road.
Out of Queenstown, Franz Josef and Mount Cook the helicopter climbs into country there is no other way to reach: glaciers pouring off the alps, the snowfields above the lakes, the braided rivers of the Earnslaw burn. The skids touch down on the ice or a high ridge, the rotor winds down, and for a few minutes you stand somewhere with no track in and no track out.
See the best helicopter tours in New Zealand →The best part
The moment the ground drops away.
A great flight is never only the view. It is the lift in your stomach as the skids leave the pad, the headset crackle of a pilot who has flown this valley a thousand times and still points things out, the slow bank that swings a whole city or canyon into the window. A few minutes that rearrange how big the world is, and you land already wanting to go back up.
Browse every helicopter tour →Iceland from above
Some of Iceland is too new to walk on.
A flight out of Reykjavik crosses a landscape that is still being made: a fresh lava field steaming where it meets the snow, a crater glowing dull red, geothermal valleys venting white into the cold air. When an eruption is on, the helicopter is the safe seat for it, holding off the vents while the ground below cracks and flows. The pilots track where the action is week to week.
- 1 From Reykjavik: New Volcanic Area Helicopter Tour
- 2 1-Hour Helicopter Tour in Iceland: The Geothermal Tour
- 3 Reykjavik: Panoramic Helicopter Flight with Summit Landing
By time in the air
How long do you want to be up there?
Some trips you want ten minutes over a skyline and back. Some you want to fly out to a canyon or a desert for the afternoon. And some you want the full day, climbing to a landing on snow. Pick the flight, we will point you at the operator.
Ten to fifteen minutes
Just get up over the city.A short scenic loop: the skyline, the rivers and the famous landmarks from the one angle you cannot get from the ground, and back on the helipad before you have stopped grinning.
Half a day
Fly out to the big landscape.A run out to the Grand Canyon or the desert: the rim dropping away beneath the skids, a landing somewhere a road will never reach, and a glass of something cold before the flight home.
The full flightseeing day
Land on the snow and stay a while.Glaciers, alpine summits and a set-down on the ice or a remote peak: the kind of flight you plan a whole trip around and describe to people for years afterwards.
Where two oceans meet
Cape Town has the best seat in the air.
Lift off the Waterfront and the whole Cape unfolds: the flat table of the mountain, the Twelve Apostles falling to the surf, Camps Bay and Clifton, then the long run down the peninsula to where the Atlantic and the Indian oceans trade colour at Cape Point. Twelve minutes or a wider loop, few cities pack this much coastline and cliff into one short flight.
See all 12 Cape Town helicopter tours →By city
Pick a city and lift off.
New York for the skyline doors-off. Las Vegas for the Strip and the canyon. Cape Town for the mountain and two oceans. Queenstown for an alpine landing. Oahu for the Nā Pali cliffs. Reykjavik for the volcanoes.
By country
Every country worth leaving the ground for.
From the American icons to the New Zealand alps, the Australian outback to the South African cape, the deserts of the UAE to the volcanoes of Iceland. Browse by the country whose view you most want from above.
From first flight to the big one
Three flights to work up to.
New to flying and not sure where to start? Here is the order that works, from a short loop over a city to a landing on a glacier.
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