Pick a river. Then pick the grade.
What a seat in the raft costs in Turkey against Colorado, which rivers will take a nine-year-old, and where the water is actually high in the month you are going.
Four rafting days worth building a trip around.
A cheap first taste, a jungle gorge, a seven-metre waterfall and an American half-day. What each costs and what the water does.
01The easy first raftAyung River Guided Rafting Adventure with LunchThe Ayung runs grade two through a carved jungle gorge below Ubud and ends at a buffet. Nobody needs to have done this before.
02The cheapest seatKöprülü Canyon Antalya: Whitewater Rafting TripKöprülü Canyon is cold, turquoise and an hour and a half from Antalya. It costs about what lunch does.
03The big dropRotorua Rafting: Kaituna River White Water Rafting & Free SaunaThe Kaituna goes over a seven-metre waterfall, the highest any commercial raft runs. Book it for the photograph.
04The American halfUpper Pigeon River Rafting Trip from HartfordThe lower Pigeon is dam-released, so the big water arrives on a schedule instead of on luck.
Four countries do most of the world’s rafting, and they do not feel alike.
Warm canyon water for the price of a sandwich, dam-released American flows, terraced jungle gorges, and one river where the raft is bamboo. What a seat costs on each.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Half Day Whitewater Rafting Trip
TurkeyKöprülü and Dalaman: cold, turquoise, grade two, cheapest anywhere.
The USADam releases and snowmelt, from Colorado to the Smokies.
IndonesiaBali’s Ayung and Telaga Waja, usually with a meal at the top of the steps.
JamaicaA poler, thirty feet of bamboo and no rapids at all.
All 849 rafting trips reviewed →
Six rafting countries, and the trip to book in each.
Turkey for cheap cold water, the States for the spring melt, Bali for jungle gorges, Jamaica for a bamboo pole, Thailand for the river-and-elephant day, Canada for glacier-fed grade four.
The rafting trips more travellers book than any others.
Every rafting review →From a nineteen-dollar canyon morning in Antalya to a full day on the Zambezi, these are the runs that fill up first.
1
Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo Rafting
Travel from Chiang Mai to Pon Elephant Thailand for a full day of feeding, walking with, and bathing rescued elephants. Guides such as Nop, Paul, Yaya, and Sunny explain elephant care and help with photos. The day also includes a waterfall swim, Thai lunch, and bamboo rafting on the Mae Wang River.
From · $60
Read our review →
2
Ubud Gorilla Face ATV and Ayung Rafting Trip with Meal
from $19
3
Ziplining, Rafting, Jeep Tour & Quad Safari w/Lunch
from $26
4
Rafting, Elephant Bathing & Sea Turtle Center Tour
from $73
5
Ayung River Guided Rafting Adventure with Lunch
from $26
6
Rotorua Rafting: Kaituna River White Water Rafting & Free Sauna
from $83
7
Half Day Whitewater Rafting Trip
from $90
8
Cetina River: Rafting and Cliff Jumping Tour
from $53
Grade, age, weight and water level decide a rafting day. Price does not.
This is one of the few days out that can turn you away at the riverbank. Four things settle whether a trip is yours to book, and all four are in the small print rather than the photographs.
The grade
Class I and II is a float with splashes and a wet shirt. Class III is the first grade where a raft can flip, and most operators still take complete beginners on it. Class IV wants you fit and comfortable being thrown about. Class V is a different sport with its own answer to the question.
Age and weight
Family runs usually start somewhere between five and eight years old. Big water starts at twelve, fourteen or sixteen depending on the river and the country, and almost everyone sets a minimum weight near forty kilos, because below it a lifejacket stops fitting.
Swimming
You will be asked, and the honest answer matters. Very few operators demand a strong swimmer. Every one of them wants somebody who stays calm in deep moving water, because going out of the boat is a normal part of a class III afternoon rather than a disaster.
The season
Snowmelt rivers peak in late spring and thin out through summer. Dam-released runs ignore the weather entirely and go on a published schedule. Tropical rivers are strongest in the wet season, which is also the season a trip gets called off the morning you arrive.
Half a morning, a whole day, or the raft to yourselves.
Most rivers sell the same stretch three ways over. What changes is the hours on the water, whether lunch is cooked on a bank, and who else is holding a paddle.
On the Martha Brae the raft is bamboo and nothing goes fast.
A poler stands on the front of thirty feet of lashed bamboo and walks you down a green Jamaican river for about an hour and a half. Bali and Chiang Mai sell the same idea on their own rivers. It is not white water and it never set out to be: book it as a morning off, not as an adventure.
Every bamboo rafting trip →What a place in the raft actually costs.
Every trip on the site sorted by price. The gap between a Turkish canyon morning and a day on the Zambezi is wider than anything else about them.
Turkish canyon mornings, Balinese gorge runs and the short dam-released American halves.
Full days with lunch on a bank, New Zealand waterfall runs, Croatian gorges and most of Colorado.
Private rafts, multi-day river camps and the runs that fly you to the put-in.
Three rivers travellers plan a trip around.
Most rafting is sold by the hour and by the grade. These three are sold by name, and people book the flight before they book the raft.
The Köprülü
The Köprülü comes off the Taurus mountains into a gorge an hour and a half inland from Antalya, cold enough to make you swear in August and shallow enough that the grade rarely passes two. Roman bridges still cross it upstream. The whole industry here runs on volume, buses out after breakfast and back by evening, which is exactly why a seat costs less on this river than on any other in this catalogue.
- 1Köprülü Canyon Antalya: Whitewater Rafting Trip★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 974 reviews
- 2Family Rafting at Koprulu Canyon w/Lunch and Hotel Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 321 reviews
- 3City of Side/Alanya: Koprulu Canyon Rafting Tour with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.2 · 297 reviews
The Ayung
Bali’s longest river cuts a gorge below Ubud where crews have carved relief panels into the rock walls on their days off. It is grade two with a handful of grade three drops, warm the whole way down, and it finishes with a few hundred steps back up to a buffet. Rain upstream in the wet season turns it brown and quick, which rarely stops it running.
- 1Ubud Gorilla Face ATV and Ayung Rafting Trip with Meal★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 4,765 reviews
- 2Ayung River Guided Rafting Adventure with Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,289 reviews
- 3Ubud White Water Rafting on the Ayung River with Pickup & Lunch★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 449 reviews
The Cetina
The Cetina rises from a spring in the Dinaric karst and reaches the Adriatic at Omiš, half an hour along the coast from Split. The rafting stretch is short and mostly grade two and three, and every operator stops at the same cliff for the jump and the same cave for the swim. Spring is when it has real water in it. By late August it can be a float with a picnic.
- 1Cetina River: Rafting and Cliff Jumping Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,774 reviews
- 2Split/Omiš: Cetina River Rafting with Cliff Jump & Swimming★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 1,258 reviews
- 3Cetina River Rafting with Cliff Jumping and Cave Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 1,219 reviews
Four rafting trips that run on a calendar rather than on your plans.
Most rivers will take you at a day’s notice once the season is open. These four will not, because a dam, a permit desk or a monsoon has already decided the date.
- 01Zambezi River Class IV-V White-Water Rafting from Victoria FallsThe big-water season on the Zambezi is roughly August to December. Outside it the rapids below Victoria Falls are drowned out or closed, and the trip becomes a different one.
- 02Rotorua Rafting: Kaituna River White Water Rafting & Free SaunaSmall rafts, fixed departure slots and a waterfall everybody wants photographed. Weekend places go first and there is no second boat.
- 03Whitewater Rafting on Soca River, SloveniaThe Soča runs on Alpine snowmelt. April to June is when it has water; by the end of August the guides are picking a line between rocks.
- 04Half-Day Whitewater Rafting in Browns CanyonColorado peaks with the melt, usually late May into July, and the morning half-day slots go well before the water does.
By what the day on the water looks like
Where the rafting season is open, and when.
Turkey
Croatia
The USA
Canada
Indonesia
JamaicaRivers added to the list lately.
The rest of the new ones →
From Gardiner: Yellowstone River Whitewater Rafting & Lunch
Read our review →
Gardiner: Full Day Raft Trip on the Yellowstone River+Lunch
Read our review →
Gardiner: Scenic Raft Float on the Yellowstone River
Read our review →
Gardiner: Half-Day Whitewater Raft Trip on the Yellowstone
Read our review →
From Zurich: Private Aare River Rafting Day Trip to Bern
Read our review →
From Taormina or Messina Port: Body Rafting + Lunch
Read our review →
From Side City : Fully Combo Zipline, Quad Safari, Rafting
Read our review →
