Balloon flights over Vilnius Old Town: the airport sets the terms, and the booking page tells you so
Vilnius is one of the few capitals where balloons fly over a UNESCO old town, but the airport sets the terms. What the six listings cost, how the Vilnius-or-Trakai call is made, and when the season reopens.
Serengeti balloon safari and the migration: which launch area is open when the herds are there
Four launch areas, four calendars: Seronera flies all year, Kogatende June to November, the west June to October, Ndutu mid-December to March. Set against the herds, they match for most of the year and miss in one stretch.
Where to fly a hot air balloon in winter: four skies at their peak, four that are shut
Of 271 flights listed here, 85 are in places where November to February is the annual peak and 17 are in places that publish a closed season. The largest block of all, Cappadocia's 51, takes bookings all winter and grounds more mornings then than at any other time.
Nile cruises with a hot air balloon ride: one dawn hour, and usually one chance at it
Thirteen Nile cruises here include a balloon ride, from 207.73 to 1,133.89 euros. The flight is the same dawn hour in all of them, and in Luxor it sells alone for a median 78.55. What the price tracks is the boat, the fees and the mornings.
Dubai hot air balloon rides: twelve listings, eleven sellers, and far fewer balloons
Twelve Dubai balloon flights are listed here under eleven seller codes, and four of the names come straight off one operator's own package menu. Prices run 209.30 to 2,496.31 euros. Only four companies can be named, and no public register will confirm the list.
Albuquerque, Phoenix and Temecula balloon rides: one price at the floor, three markets that work nothing alike
Temecula sells the cheapest American desert balloon ride at 162.53 EUR, Albuquerque the next at 171.60, Phoenix at 180.68. Above that floor the three share almost nothing: no private basket in Phoenix, no evening flight in Temecula, and Fiesta week in Albuquerque at 2.51 times.
Shared basket or private: what changes at dawn, and what only changes on the invoice
Twenty-five of the 271 listings here hand you the basket. The cheapest is 71.56 EUR in Luxor, the dearest 4,500 in Tuscany, and six other listings say private while meaning the car. What the word buys, and the four-word question to ask first.
The Tuscan balloon season, and the three Florence flights that play by other rules
Thirteen balloon flights listed in Tuscany, four of them priced at exactly 269 euros. The season runs April to October and every one lifts at first light. Three cross Florence itself, start at 399, and get cancelled by a different rule than all the others.
Hot air ballooning in Australia: six skies, and only two of them have a season
Twenty two balloon flights in Australia, from 203.29 to 380.32 euros. Perth shuts for the summer, Cairns has a wet season, and the Yarra Valley's best months are exactly those two's worst. The one window that works everywhere is the southern winter.
Three Marrakech hot air balloon flights cost exactly 130 EUR, and almost nothing else about them matches
Fourteen Marrakech balloon flights are listed here, three of them at exactly 130.00 euros, with the median of the whole catalogue at 131.00. The same money buys a share of a nineteen place basket or a small group, a stated 45 minutes aloft or no stated time at all.
Breakfast in a cave at Teotihuacán: which cave, and what the package actually includes
Nine of the seventeen Teotihuacán balloon flights listed here sell a cave breakfast. They do not all mean the same cave: the itineraries point at three different addresses, and in eight of the nine the cave is an option rather than the price.
Terni's night glow, 5 September: the last one on the Umbrian calendar, and why the balloons stay tied down
The Umbria Balloon Festival closes its run of night glows at Terni on 5 September, on an airfield named after a First World War pilot. What a glow is, why the balloons never leave the ground, and why the evening is not the flight you think you booked.