I Tried Hang Gliding At Age 55, Here’s Why I Think You’ll Love It

Written By: Gail Clifford | Published By: Travel Awaits | August 15, 2022

https://www.travelawaits.com/2792481/i-tried-hang-gliding-at-age-55-heres-why-youll-love-it/

The Outer Banks, North Carolina has long been a dream vacation. Gorgeous sandy beaches, lovely weather, and great outdoor activities — as long as you’re not there during a hurricane, you’ll be grand. 

I worked with the Outer Banks Convention and Visitors Bureau and was partially hosted by them to arrange a great five-day familiarization trip for four travel writers. All opinions are mine.

Where I Went And Why 

A group of four travel writers went for four days and had a blast. We stayed in Nags Head, centrally located along this 175-mile stretch, in a house on stilts with four bedrooms and three and a half bathrooms. Having our own completely equipped kitchen through Kees Rental made a big difference to us. I was able to prepare and eat my breakfast before anyone else got up. They were able to have their late-night snacks long after I’d gone to bed.

Being in Nags Head was convenient to reach Jockey’s Ridge National Park where Kitty Hawk Kites took us for our ground school and hang gliding experience. Foul weather with high winds delayed our initial flight until the winds calmed in the afternoon.

How I Approached The Trip

There are so many incredible villages in the Outer Banks and things to do that I knew we’d be fighting the clock the entire time. Also, the weather. We went in May, known as “shoulder season,” when the weather is iffy. We lucked out that we came in on the tail end of a nor-easter, not in the midst of it, but had several events canceled or rescheduled. Being centrally located, we allowed a day for each island (Roanoke, Hatteras, and clustered the others accordingly). We had a wish list that could’ve taken two weeks to complete.

All we knew about the hang-gliding was where and when to show up. I thought we’d be jumping off a cliff, tandem. One of the others said she was just plain scared. All of us were excited to go. I was the second youngest in the group, all of us over 50, but we knew the hospital was only a few miles up the road. So, we were ready.

What Did You Do, Where Did You Go, How Did You Get There, And What Did You Experience

We went hang gliding with Kitty Hawk Kites in Jockey’s Ridge State Park on the same sand dunes that Orville and Wilbur Wright went from hang gliding to flying. They worked all of it out on the Wright Flyer.

We drove into Jockey’s Ridge, parked in the parking lot, walked up the deck to the Kitty Hawk Kite storefront, signed our lives away with the hang gliding release form, and began our ground school with Michael Vaughn, young enough to be one of our sons. After flight school, we walked across the boardwalk to the sand dunes and out the sand dunes to where they set up the hang gliders for our use with the Atlantic Ocean just beyond.

What a relief to learn that, though we’d be solo, we’d be tethered to two instructors running aside. Think of it as training wheels, except you’re in the air.