Experience all the adrenaline of a free fall, followed by absolute calmness while parachuting. Watch Montserrat, the Mediterranean Sea, and the Pyrenees from a different perspective, and get your endorphins pumping when skydiving in Barcelona.
Just an hour away from Barcelona, you’ll find a skydiving centre, Saltamos Village, offering you one of the coolest experiences you’ve ever had. If you’ve experienced skydiving before, you know the feeling. If you’re new to it, it’s sure to knock your socks off!
Here, we explain the ins and outs of skydiving in Barcelona province and share our thoughts about this adventure. Are you ready for an exhilarating experience?
* Post written for the first time in July 2021 and updated in April 2024.
Info about skydiving in Barcelona
What is skydiving?
Skydiving is considered an “extreme sport” and consists of jumping from an aircraft in flight and descending to the surface. The aircraft can be a hot-air balloon, an aeroplane, or whatever moves through the air.
If you’re new to skydiving, don’t worry; you don’t need to jump alone! Luckily, the tandem jumps exist for all of us who are not professionals. In this case, you’re securely harnessed to a professional instructor who has jumped thousands of times.
The instructor is in charge of timing the jump from the plane, pulling the parachute open at the right time and descending safely. You just need to relax (to the extent possible!) and enjoy the views.
How to get to the skydiving centre Saltamos
If you’re eager to experience the thrill of skydiving, Catalonia offers two excellent options. The closest one to Barcelona is Saltamos Village.
Saltamos skydiving centre is located near Sant Fruitós de Bages, a village one hour from Barcelona by car.
You can get to Saltamos Village by train if you don’t have a car. You must take the FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya) R5 train from Plaça Espanya (Barcelona) to Manresa Alta. The train trip takes 1 h and 30 min and costs around 8.5 €. Once in Manresa Alta, Saltamos offers a free pick-up service from this train station to the skydiving centre.
When is the best time to skydive in Barcelona?
You can skydive all year round. However, the best time is probably in spring (April and May), when the landscape is greener.
We attempted to do the jump at the end of December, but we picked a windy day, so we had to postpone it. We finally jumped at the beginning of January, hence the jackets and gloves in all the pictures. Although it was winter, the weather was nice. It was a cold, sunny day without any clouds on the horizon.
Sometimes, you may have to wait until the wind diminishes and the conditions are suitable for jumping. The good thing is the skydiving centre has a bar and a swimming pool. The wait is more fun if you can drink something and chill there.
How much does skydiving in Barcelona cost?
The price of a tandem jump is 279 €/person, and it includes a briefing, the necessary equipment, the flight, and the jump.
Remember that the price excludes photos or video, so you have to pay for them separately. The price depends on what you want (photos, video or both) and how they are made (the instructor makes them with a camera on his wrist, or another skydiver jumps at the same time and takes pictures). Although they aren’t cheap, it’s cool to have them.
Our experience skydiving in Barcelona
Getting ready to skydive
In 2018, Marc and I (Marina) tried skydiving in Australia for the first time. Then, in January 2020, I repeated the experience here in Catalonia. Skydiving with Saltamos was my sister’s birthday gift, and it indeed was a memorable one!
One of the cool things about skydiving with Saltamos was that our house is located 5 minutes from the centre, and we couldn’t wait to see how our hometown looked from the clouds!
⚠️ Important!
When getting ready for your skydiving adventure, pay attention to only one thing: your shoes. They must be closed shoes, so sandals or flip-flops aren’t allowed. Also, don’t take with you anything that can be lost, such as earrings or necklaces. And check that you don’t forget anything in your pockets before jumping!
We had to wait for a while until the weather conditions were adequate for the jump. After half an hour of waiting, the wind finally stopped, and our instructor came to find us. The jump was finally happening!
Before getting to the plane, the instructors equip you with a harness and give you a short briefing explaining how the jump would work, where to place the head when jumping, and how to make the landing. Time to fly!
The flight
You get to the height needed to jump in a small plane that fits more or less 8 people. The instructors give you googles and attach you to them during the flight.
I had already skydived in Australia, but that didn’t stop me from thinking, “Why the hell am I on this plane?!” No worries, though. The instructors are super friendly. They help you calm down by keeping the conversation alive and explaining stories.
One way to distract yourself from the crazy jump you’re about to make is to look at the landscape. When we looked through the window, though, we couldn’t help but notice that the ground was further with every passing second! We were excited but freaking out at the same time.
After a 15-min flight, the airplane reaches 4,000 m. Believe us, the ground looks so so sooo far away! And it’s time to jump.
The jump
The best and worst moments of skydiving? Definitely when the instructors opened the plane’s door! Your legs hang kilometres above the ground, high wind speeds crunch into your face, and you can’t hear anything.
For a brief moment, you just wish you hadn’t signed up for this activity, but before you realise it, the instructor has already jumped, and you are falling at vertiginous speeds.
The first part of the jump consists of a free fall, reaching 200 km/h, for one minute before opening the parachute to reduce speed. Adrenaline was at its maximum levels! The adrenaline rush was so intense it felt like you could stay awake for days.
As you can see in the picture, I couldn’t stop shouting during the free fall. The funny thing is that you’re falling so fast that you can’t even hear your voice.
The second part is a pleasant descent with the parachute until getting to the ground. Professional skydivers wait as long as possible before releasing their parachutes to build up speed and make the jump more exciting. Luckily, instructors don’t take this risk and open the parachute at a safe time.
During this part of the jump, I felt like I was floating. It also felt like I was high!
This is the time to recover from the excitement of the free fall and enjoy the landscape. You can spot Montserrat, the Pyrenees and the Mediterranean Sea. On the day we jumped, we could even see Mallorca.
Depending on the weather conditions and the instructor’s humour, they may allow you to pull the ripcord.
The end of the jump
During the briefing, the instructor explains what you have to do with your legs and in which position you must be when landing. It’s not difficult at all.
What surprised us was how the instructors did it to land where they were supposed to. When you’re flying, it looks like you’re really far from the landing spot, and it’s impossible to end up there. But luckily, they do!
Once done, the instructor detaches you from the harness. Then, you are free to go tell your family, friends, partner, or whoever is with you that you’ve survived!
Conclusions about skydiving in Barcelona
That’s the end of our skydiving adventure in Barcelona. We loved the tandem jump, as we had the chance to appreciate the free-fall experience without the stress of planning the jump and timing the parachute deployment. It’s better to leave this part to the instructors!
We were also stocked to see Catalonia from the sky. Sant Fruitós de Bages is located in the heart of Catalonia, so you can see almost everything, from the mountains to the sea. The views are beautiful from up there!
We hope our blog post has made you want to skydive in Barcelona very badly! If you decide to give it a go, share your experience in the comments below. Was it scary? Awesome? The best thing you’ve ever done?
Hi
I have done a tandem skydive in England . However it took months to finally have a perfect day for it. I would like to do another one so thought about Barcelona. Is it more or less guaranteed to happen if I made a trip of maybe 3 days from England?
Thanks
Susan
Hi Susan!
It took me two attempts to get the weather right when I did it here in Barcelona. The first day was too windy, but I could do it without any problem on the second one. I believe that if you make a trip of 3 days and you’re flexible, there won’t be any problem. Before booking the flights, you could write to the skydiving company asking about the weather. They might not know the exact weather, but they could compare it to last year and advise you on the best time to come.
Hope this is useful!