Six launch sites. One unforgettable sunrise.
A balloon goes where the wind goes — so every flight starts wherever the morning air is safest and most beautiful. Here's every place we launch, and how we choose.
Wind picks the spot. We pick the wind.
A balloon has no steering wheel — it rides the wind. So before dawn your pilot reads the day's surface and upper winds, then picks the launch site that flies you over the best scenery and sets you down somewhere safe.
- More approved sites means more mornings we can safely fly — so we cancel less than most
- About 9 in 10 flights lift off right from our home field at Sonoma Skypark
- We confirm your exact launch site and meeting time the evening before — no dawn surprises
Where most mornings begin.
Five sites across Sonoma wine country — all a short drive, all over the vineyards and ridgelines people picture when they book.
Sonoma Skypark
Our home field in the heart of Sonoma Valley, five minutes from the Plaza. Nine mornings out of ten we inflate and lift off right here — straight up over vineyards, oak-lined ridges and the Mayacamas, with San Francisco Bay on the clearest days.
Glen Ellen
A quick hop up-valley when the morning winds favor the north end. You drift over the vineyards and oak woodlands of Glen Ellen with the Sonoma Mountains on one side and the Mayacamas on the other — the postcard middle of the valley.
Kenwood
The valley's green, narrow top end, ringed by Sugarloaf Ridge and Hood Mountain. Vineyards wall to wall, and often a ribbon of fog burning off beneath you as the sun comes up.
Santa Rosa Airport
When winds set up to the north, we launch near the county airport and float over a wider, more open sweep of Sonoma County — vineyards, the Laguna and rolling farmland on the valley floor.
Russian River
Out toward the Russian River, a greener and woodsier flight — vineyards giving way to tree-lined hills and the river valley. A different, more forested feel from the open vineyard sites.
Once in a while: Yolo — and always optional.
On a small number of mornings, the only safe, smooth air is east — out in Yolo County, about a 45-minute drive. The scenery trades vineyards for wide-open farmland and the big Sacramento Valley sky: long horizons, quilted fields and an unobstructed sunrise.
We won't pretend it's our postcard flight — but it's the call that lets us fly on a morning we'd otherwise have to cancel. If the winds point us to Yolo, we'll tell you the evening before, so the drive is never a surprise.
Questions about where you'll launch
What if I don't want the longer drive to Yolo?
Can I choose my launch site?
Will I still fly over vineyards?
How far will I have to drive?
Where do I meet you?
