If you fancy some more unusual activities while on holiday have a look at the five below:
Swimming with pigs – Most people when they go on an exotic holiday dream about swimming with dolphins, well if you have already done that and want to swim with a different mammal if you go to Big Major Spot Island in the Bahamas you can now swim with pigs. A family of brown and pink boars and piglets live freely on the beach and frequently swim in the crystal clear waters greeting people who arrive on boats. These pigs are used to human contact mainly because many locals bring them food.
Volcano Surfing – If you have surfed most of the exciting waves around the world of snowboarded on some the most exhilarating snow covered peaks and you need a new rush why not try Volcano surfing? You travel down Nicaragua’s Cerro Negro Mountain dressed in protective jump suits, knee-pads and helmets and on specially-constructed plywood boards. Although Cerro Negro is Central America’s youngest volcano which appeared in April 1850 and is still active the only real danger is he risk is getting some scratches if you fall off.
Rooftop walking tour – When you visit most European cities you generally find yourself on a walking tour of which ever city you are in, which after a while can get a bit boring however if you visit Stockholm you can now do an organised tour of the city with a bit of a difference, a rooftop tour. Setting off from the roof of Stockholm’s old parliamentary building you can see superb views of the city and the historic Gamla Stan area, before moving on to other historical buildings in the city, although travelling from building to building does mean going back down to ground level, but the views seen does give a different insight to the city.
Tectonic diving – For any diver you are always wanting find new underwater experiences and now you can do something that not many people unless in a submarine get to do, which is swimming right between the tectonic divide of two continents, Europe and the Americas. To experience this you need to visit a dive spot in Iceland called the Silfra Rift, which is part of the awe-inspiring Thingvellir national park. During the dive you can see the meeting point of the North American and Euro-Asian tectonic plates and explore the craggy rocks and dramatic chasms that score the divide as well as enjoying extraordinarily good visibility of up to 100 metres.
Train as an astronaut – Did your childhood dream of becoming an astronaut not really materialise? Well now you can make these dreams come true, well sort of, you won’t go up into space but you can experience all aspects of space travel from training including training in mission simulators and performing a space shuttle mission. All this takes place at the Kennedy Space Centre and you even firsthand information from a veteran NASA astronaut. And if you have got money to spend you can go one better and book a full on zero gravity flight.
Volcan Surfers on Cerro Negro
Picture courtsey of H Dragon
