Home » Central Catalonia » A guide to skydiving in Barcelona

A guide to skydiving in Barcelona

Experience all the adrenaline from a free fall followed by an absolute calmness while parachuting. Watch Montserrat, the sea and the Pyrenees from a different perspective, and get your endorphins pumping right after stepping on the plane.

Just one hour from Barcelona, you’ll find a skydiving centre, Saltamos Village, that will offer 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 to you all the ins and outs of skydiving in Barcelona province and our thoughts about this adventure. Are you ready for an exhilarating experience?

Two people free falling during a skydiving jump

Info about skydiving in Barcelona

What is skydiving?

Not every time you see a human form toodling around in the sky, you can call it skydiving. There’re many disciplines, and it’s easy to get confused if you don’t know all the modalities that exist to get around in the sky. 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 airplane, or whichever thing moving 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 do I get to the skydiving centre Saltamos?

There’re two skydiving centres in Catalonia, and the closest one to Barcelona is Saltamos Village.

Saltamos skydiving centre is located nearby Sant Fruitós de Bages, a village one hour from Barcelona by car. If you don’t have a car, you can also get to Manresa by train. You need to take the FGC (Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat de Catalunya) R5 train from Plaça Espanya (Barcelona) to Manresa Alta. You can search for the train schedule here. The train trip takes 1 h and 30 min, and it 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?

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 cloud on the horizon. This leaves us with one question: When is the best time to skydive in Barcelona? Actually, skydiving can be done all year round. Maybe the best time would be in spring (April and May), as the landscape is greener.

Sometimes you may have to wait for a while until the wind diminishes and the conditions are suitable for jumping. The good thing is that there’s a bar and a swimming pool in the centre. 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 274 €/person. This includes a briefing, the equipment needed, the flight, and the jump. Keep in mind that it doesn’t include any 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’re 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.

Parachuting after a skydiving jump

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 Clàudia’s birthday gift, and it surely was a memorable one!

In our case, one of the cool things to skydive 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!

There’s only one thing you need to pay attention to when getting ready for your skydiving adventure: your shoes. They need to 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 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. During the flight, the instructors give you googles and attach you to them.

The plane used for skydiving in Barcelona

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 take a look at the landscape. When we look 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.

Three people inside the plane before skydiving

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 moment of skydiving? Definitely when the instructors opened the plane’s door! Your legs are hanging kilometres above the ground, high wind speeds are crushing into your face, and you can’t hear anything. For an instant, you just wish you hand’t sign up for this activity, but before you realise it, the instructor has already jumped and you are falling at vertiginous speeds.

Views from the plane with the door open before skydiving

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 you could stay awake for days. As you can appreciate in the picture, I couldn’t stop shouting during the whole free fall. Fun thing, though, is that you’re falling so fast that you can’t even hear your own voice.

Two people skydiving in Barcelona

The second part is a pleasant descend 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, it felt like we were floating. It also felt like we were 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.

Depends on the weather conditions and the instructor’s humour, he or she may allow you to pull the ripcord.

Views of Montserrat during a skydiving jump

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 is how the heck the instructors do it to land where they’re 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. You’re 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 the 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. Better to leave this part to the instructors!

We were also stocked to see Catalonia from the sky. As Sant Fruitós de Bages is located in the heart of Catalonia, you get to see almost everything, from the mountains to the sea. The views are jaw-dropping 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?

Prepare for your trip

Accommodations

Travel insurance

Itinerary review

Map guide

If you buy through some of the links on this post, we receive a commission (at no extra cost to you) that allows us to continue writing free, independent guides about Catalonia and its surroundings. Thank you!

2 Comments

  1. Susan

    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

    Reply
    • Unexpected Catalonia

      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!

      Reply

Submit a Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

I accept the Privacy Policy