Short answer: indoor skydiving is worth it for three specific types of people, and a waste of money for two others. The in-between group — the curious-but-uncommitted majority — it’s worth it for if you buy the right package, and overpriced if you buy the wrong one.
I’ll explain who falls into which category, and the single question that tells you which one you are.
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The three types of people it’s actually worth it for
1. Gift-givers with someone impossible to shop for
The dirty secret of iFly’s business model is that most of their bookings are gifts. Not people impulse-buying for themselves — people buying a gift card for a nephew, a dad, a hard-to-shop-for teen, or a significant other. And for that use case, an iFly gift card beats almost every alternative.
Think about the options for “gift under $100 for someone who already has everything”:
- Another sweater they don’t need
- A restaurant gift card they’ll spend on Tuesday takeout
- A book they won’t read
- An iFly gift card that gives them a story they’ll tell for six months
The iFly gift card wins because it’s memorable. Physical objects depreciate immediately. Experiences become stories. Stories are the only gift that actually gets more valuable over time.
This is the segment iFly is built for, and it’s the segment where “is it worth it?” isn’t really the right question — the right question is “is it worth it compared to other $70-$100 gifts?” And for most hard-to-shop-for recipients, yes, by a lot.
2. People curious about real skydiving but not ready to commit
Real tandem skydives cost $250-$350 for one jump of roughly 60 seconds of freefall, followed by 5 minutes of parachute descent. You can’t sample it. You can’t try it and see. You commit, or you don’t.
Indoor skydiving is the sample. For under $100, you can find out whether you actually enjoy the sensation of your body in fast-moving air — the core physical experience of skydiving — without the commitment of jumping out of a plane.
Two outcomes are possible:
- You hate it. In which case you just saved yourself $300 and the anxiety of a tandem jump you wouldn’t have enjoyed.
- You love it. In which case you’ve now spent $70 figuring out that skydiving is something you want to do, and you get to move forward with a tandem jump with excitement instead of anxiety.
Either outcome is a win. This is the single strongest use case for iFly, and it’s also the hardest one to market because “it helps you make a decision about a different activity” is not as sexy as “fly!“
3. Kids and teens between 8 and 16
Kids and teens get dramatically more value out of iFly than adults do. Three reasons:
One, the novelty gap is bigger. For a 45-year-old, indoor skydiving is one more activity in a lifetime of activities. For a 12-year-old, it might be the most unusual physical experience they’ve ever had. The signal-to-noise ratio is just higher.
Two, they’re better at it. Kids have lower moment-of-inertia and more flexible joints. They stabilize in the tunnel faster, recover from drift better, and by their second flight are often doing tricks the instructor teaches them in real time. Adults spend both flights fighting their own weight. Kids play.
Three, they talk about it. Indoor skydiving becomes a social story at school. “I went flying” is a much better Monday-morning answer than “I went to the movies.” Birthday parties at iFly consistently rank among the most-remembered childhood birthday experiences, based on parent reviews I’ve read.
If you’re a parent trying to justify $90 for a kid’s birthday experience, iFly has a stronger case than almost anything else in that price range.
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The two types of people it’s not worth it for
1. Adults expecting a pure adrenaline experience
If your frame of reference is “I want to do something terrifying that makes my heart race,” indoor skydiving will underwhelm you. The environment is too controlled. There’s a qualified instructor in the tunnel with you, the walls are padded, the floor is a steel mesh you can see, and the whole thing is too obviously safe to trigger real fear.
Real adrenaline experiences deliver real fear. Tandem skydiving does. Bungee jumping does. White-water rafting in serious rapids does. Indoor skydiving doesn’t, and trying to convince yourself it will is setting yourself up for disappointment.
If you want adrenaline, spend the money on a tandem skydive. Don’t spend it at iFly.
2. One-flight shoppers
iFly’s cheapest entry-level package is sometimes marketed as a single 60-second flight for around $40-$50. Avoid this.
One flight is genuinely not enough to understand what indoor skydiving is. The first 20 seconds of your first flight are confused flailing. Seconds 20-60 are you starting to get oriented. Then it ends. You leave having paid $50 for the orientation class and none of the actual flying.
Two flights — which usually runs around $70 — is the minimum viable package. Your second flight is where it clicks. If your budget cannot stretch to two flights, save for another month and come back. The one-flight package is a bad use of money because it guarantees you won’t have enough time in the tunnel to understand what you paid for.
The in-between group: the curious majority
Most people reading a post like this don’t fall neatly into “it’s worth it for you” or “it’s not worth it for you.” They’re somewhere in the middle — curious, budget-aware, trying to decide whether this is a good use of $100.
For this group, the answer is: yes, if you buy the right package. No, if you don’t.
The right package is the one with two flights and a high-flight upgrade. Total out-the-door cost is around $100-$120 depending on location. This is the configuration where most people walk out happy.
The wrong packages are:
- The one-flight entry package (too short to learn anything)
- The cheapest gift card tier that only covers one flight
- Booking on a weekend afternoon when the tunnel is packed and you’ll be rushed
Avoid those and you’ll come out of the experience feeling like it was money well spent.
The one question that matters most
When friends ask me “is indoor skydiving worth it?” I ask them one question back:
“Are you curious about your own body in moving air, or do you just want a bigger adrenaline dose than your normal life provides?”
If they pause and think and say something like “I guess I’ve always wondered what that would feel like,” iFly is worth it for them.
If they say “honestly I just want something really crazy,” I tell them to book a tandem skydive instead.
That single question reliably predicts who will walk out of iFly grinning and who will walk out feeling ripped off. It’s a better predictor than age, fitness, or previous experience. It’s about what you’re actually buying — a physical curiosity satisfied vs an adrenaline hit delivered — and iFly only really delivers the first one.
How iFly compares to other “worth it” questions
Let me put this in context of other $70-$100 experiences people ask about:
Is a helicopter tour worth it? Similar price range, very different product. Helicopter tours give you scenery and photos. iFly gives you a skill and a story. If you care more about what you saw, take the tour. If you care more about what you did, take iFly.
Is bungee jumping worth it? Bungee is adrenaline, not skill. Two very different categories. iFly is cheaper and more repeatable. Bungee gives you a single, intense, less-repeatable experience.
Is a spa day worth it? Different axis entirely. Spa is recovery, iFly is a workout. They answer different questions.
Is a nice dinner worth it? If you and I spent $100 on dinner, we’d remember it for a week. If we spent $100 on iFly, we’d remember it for a year. That’s a real data point.
What I got wrong as a skeptic
My pre-iFly view was that indoor skydiving was a tourist trap. A novelty. Overpriced for what it is. Here’s what I got wrong:
I was pricing the wrong product. I was pricing it as “2 minutes of flight = $35/minute, absurd.” The correct framing is: you’re paying for the entire package — training, equipment, expert coaching, a physical challenge, and a story. 2 minutes of flight is just the output. By the “event” framing, it’s in line with a tandem skydive or a bungee jump.
I underestimated the skill component. I thought it was a ride. It’s actually a physical skill that you can get better at over successive sessions. People who become regular iFly flyers are essentially picking up a new hobby, and the price per minute drops dramatically when you buy multi-session packages or a membership.
I underestimated the gift-giving value. I had never received an experience gift before, so I undervalued them. After receiving one and giving a few, I understand now that experience gifts are dramatically more memorable than object gifts. iFly happens to be an unusually good experience gift because it’s novel, approachable, and the recipient has to actually go do it (which is the whole point).
I was wrong about who it’s for. I assumed it was for adrenaline seekers. It’s not. It’s for the curious, the gift-giving, and the kids. Adrenaline seekers are iFly’s least-satisfied customer.
If you’re still on the fence
Three questions that usually settle it:
1. Do you have $70-$120 you could comfortably spend without regret? If yes, this is low-risk. If the money would hurt, don’t.
2. Are you buying for yourself or as a gift? As a gift, the bar is lower — the recipient’s novelty threshold is all that matters. For yourself, the bar is higher — you need to actually be curious about the sensation.
3. Can you book two flights, not one? If yes, worth it. If only one, wait and save for two.
If you answered yes to all three: go book it. Start with the First-Time Flyer two-flight package, add the high flight upgrade, skip the photo package if you’re cost-conscious, tip your instructor.
Book your first flight at iFly →
Bottom line: indoor skydiving is worth it for gift-givers, skydiving-curious people, and kids/teens. It’s not worth it for adrenaline seekers or one-flight budget shoppers. For everyone else, it’s worth it if you buy the two-flight package and go in curious rather than expecting a thrill ride.
This post is based on two iFly sessions we paid for ourselves and conversations with a dozen other first-timers. We may earn an affiliate commission if you book through the links in this post, at no cost to you. See our full affiliate disclosure.