White waterSoča River Rafting Adventure in Bovec
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · from $84
Somebody is running that river tomorrow. It may as well be you.
Which rivers give you real rapids and which give you a float with a cold drink. What a seat in a raft costs in Bali against Colorado. Whether the water will even be up when you land. Reviews of the rafting trips you can book, river by river.
Bamboo waterKhao Sok Bamboo Rafting and Elephant Bathing Trip
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · from $79
Four rafting days worth building a trip around.
One warm-water classic, one snowmelt canyon, one bamboo float and one river with a grade that means something. What each costs, and what the people in the boat said afterwards.
01The easy yesAyung River Guided Rafting Adventure with LunchAyung River outside Ubud, Class II with a waterfall stop and lunch at the take-out. Nobody needs to be brave for this one.- 02The pretty oneSoča River Rafting Adventure in BovecSoca River out of Bovec, water so clear you watch the riverbed go past. Snowmelt keeps it cold into July.
03The slow oneJamaica Martha Brae Bamboo Rafting with Bus TransportationPoled down the Martha Brae on a bamboo raft built for two. Ninety minutes, no paddling, a rum bar halfway.
04The loud oneRotorua Rafting: Kaituna River White Water Rafting & Free SaunaThe Kaituna near Rotorua drops seven metres over Tutea Falls. Highest commercially rafted waterfall anywhere.
Six countries with six different ideas of what rafting is.
Colorado snowmelt through granite, Jamaican rivers poled with a bamboo pole, Bali gorges thick with jungle, Turkish canyon water the colour of glass, Thai rivers that come with elephants, and a Croatian karst river that ends in a cliff jump.
American whitewater: pick the river first, then the day length.
Almost every US trip on this site is a snowmelt river inside a canyon, and the choice comes down to two things. How rough you want the water, and whether you are back for lunch or out until dinner.
★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · Half Day Whitewater Rafting Trip
Real rapidsClass III and up, helmets on, a swim briefing before you launch.
Back by lunchThree or four hours on the water, the rest of the day still yours.
Out all dayTwo runs, a riverside lunch and the long quiet stretches between.
With the kidsClass II floats with an age floor low enough to bring everyone.
Every American river run, all 329 of them →
Whitewater proper: rapids that come with numbers attached.
Class II is a bouncy float. Class III soaks you. Class IV needs you to paddle when you are told, and Class V needs you to have done it before. These three are the ones people come off talking about.
More travellers get into these boats than any others.
Every rafting trip we review →Bali, Antalya, Chiang Mai and Rotorua between them take more bookings than the rest of the world put together. Here is why, one boat at a time.
1
Elephant Sanctuary, Waterfall & Bamboo Rafting
Spend a full day near Chiang Mai feeding rescued elephants, swimming at a waterfall, eating Thai lunch, and rafting 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
Bamboo rafting is the quiet half of this site.
Thirty poles of bamboo lashed together, a raised seat for two and a captain standing at the front with a long pole. No paddling, no helmet, no rapids. Jamaica invented the trade on the Martha Brae and Thailand runs its own version through limestone jungle.
Every bamboo river float →
What a seat in a raft costs, from Antalya to Wyoming.
Every trip on the site, grouped by the per-person price. The gap is mostly geography: a Turkish canyon morning and a Wyoming full day are the same activity at four times the money.
Turkish canyon runs, Balinese gorge trips and the Jamaican bamboo floats, transfers usually thrown in.
The middle of the sport: half days on American and European snowmelt, most of New Zealand, lunch included.
Full days, private boats, Class V water and the trips that fly you to the put-in.
The river decides: season, water level and who is allowed in the boat.
Rafting is the one activity where the product changes month to month. Snowmelt rivers are biggest in spring and thinnest by September. Tropical rivers swap it round and run on the rains. Every operator sets a minimum age, most set a minimum weight, and a Class IV trip will ask whether you can swim. Read the grade before the price.
The Kopru, the Martha Brae and the Zambezi have no substitute.
Rapids are rapids on most continents. A Roman bridge over glass-green water, a bamboo raft with a bar on it and the biggest commercially run whitewater on earth are not.
Koprulu Canyon
A Roman bridge still stands over the Kopru river an hour inland from Antalya, and the water underneath it runs a cold, opaque green all summer because it comes out of the ground rather than off a mountain. The rapids are modest, Class II with a couple of III sections, and half the boats stop so people can jump off the rocks. It is the cheapest real rafting anywhere on this site.
- 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 Martha Brae
Errol Flynn is generally blamed for turning bamboo rafts from a way of moving bananas into a way of moving tourists. The Martha Brae runs three miles through Trelawny bush at walking pace, two seats on a raised platform, a captain poling from the bow and a bar built into a jetty halfway down. Nothing about it is athletic and that is the entire point.
- 1Jamaica Martha Brae Bamboo Rafting with Bus Transportation★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 559 reviews
- 2Jamaica Bamboo Rafting Experience with Lime Stone Massage★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 549 reviews
- 3Margaritaville Hip-Strip and Great River Rafting Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 245 reviews
The Zambezi below the Falls
The river leaves Victoria Falls through a zigzag of basalt gorges and produces about twenty five named rapids in a single day, several of them Class V. Low water from August to December is the big season because high water drowns the drops and closes the top rapids. You walk out of the gorge at the end, which nobody warns you about.
- 1Zambezi River Class IV-V White-Water Rafting from Victoria Falls★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 243 reviews
- 2Full Day: Zambezi Whitewater Rafting 1-25★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 204 reviews
- 3Half Day Zambezi Whitewater Rafting★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 149 reviews
Four rafting trips that will not wait for you.
Most rivers on this site can be arranged the night before from a hotel desk. These four run on snowmelt, dam releases and a low-water season, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Zambezi River Class IV-V White-Water Rafting from Victoria FallsThe full gorge run only opens when the river drops, roughly August to December. In high water the top rapids are closed and the day starts further down.
- 02Half-Day Whitewater Rafting in Browns CanyonColorado runs on snowmelt. June is the big water, by late August the same stretch is a gentler trip and some outfitters stop selling it.
- 03Whitewater Rafting on Soca River, SloveniaThe Soca is cold Alpine melt and it peaks in spring. Bovec operators put you in a drysuit and the busy weeks sell out well before you get there.
- 04Rotorua Rafting: Kaituna River White Water Rafting & Free SaunaTutea Falls runs to a schedule and the boats are small. The Rotorua trips book out through the New Zealand summer.
Rafting plus whatever else is in the valley.
In Antalya, Bali and Chiang Mai the river is one item on a list. You raft in the morning, then a quad bike, a zipline, an elephant wash or a canyon walk fills the afternoon, and the whole thing costs less than a half day in Colorado.
Rafting country by country
By what the day is actually like
From your first rapid to Class V, in six rivers.
Koprulu
Browns Canyon
The ZambeziThe rafting reviews that went up most recently.
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