If you happen to be afraid of heights then this post is probably not for you!
When visiting a new place, Kim and I love when we can take a cable car (aerial tram) up to a site. It can be very interesting seeing a place from way up high and can make for a totally different perspective. (It can also sure beat walking!)
A similar mode of transportation that we’ve gone out of our way to take have been funiculars. They’re fun and relatively short rides but they can also offer great views.
During our trip to Chile a few years back, Kim and I visited Valparaiso as a day trip from Santiago. We wandered around trying to find all of the working funiculars and took rides on many of them. This made for a fun attraction for a city that we didn’t love.
Funiculars according to Merriam Webster are “a cable railway ascending a mountain; especially : one in which an ascending car counterbalances a descending car”.
Travel + Leisure has a fun slideshow about the World’s Coolest Tram Rides.
Check out their list:
- Stanserhorn CabriO- Stans. Switzerland
- Langkawi SkyCab- Malaysia
- Dubrovnik Cable Car- Croatia
- Roosevelt Island Tram- New York City
- Sandia Peak Tramway – Albuquerque
- Gibraltar Cable Car
- Emirates Air Line- London
- Telluride Gondola- Colorado
- Grenoble- Bastille Cable Car- France
- Skyline Gondola- Queenstown, NZ (Kim and I rode this in Rotorua, NZ)
- Rosh Hanikra Cable Car- Western Galilee, Israel
- Hakone Ropeway- Japan
- Table Mountain Aerial Cableway- Cape Town
- Sugarloaf Cable Cars- Rio de Janeiro
- Ngong Ping 360- Hong Kong
- Port Vell Aerial Tramway- Barcelona
From T+L’s list, Kim and I have only taken a ride on two of the trams listed. I thought one of the cable cars that we took in Australia would’ve made this list.
What do you think about cable cars? Do you love or hate riding on them?
Check out Travel + Leisure’s slideshow about Coolest Tram Rides HERE.
All of those on the list look great. I would also suggest going to the Schilthorn (aka Piz Gloria) in Switzerland. Starting from Lauterbrunnen (near Interlaken) ride a cable car & short train ride to Mürren then a couple of cable cars to the summit of the Schilthorn. On the way back take yet a different cable car down from Mürren to Stechelberg then the bus back to Lauterbrunnen. The drawback here is that the cable cars can be quite crowded.
This is definitely not for those who are afraid of heights.
VG- I looked up Schilthorn and it looks amazing. Thanks for the rec!