I’m looking across the clouds and golden sky at a hot air balloon. Despite what it might seem like, I am not in the basket of another balloon drifting in the wind. In fact, for all the forms of transport, I’ve traveled on around the world, I’ve never once been in a hot air balloon.

It’s one of those things I’d like to do, but I’ve yet to get around to it. For the past couple of days hot air balloons, or as the French call them, Montgolfières, have been flying across the countryside an hour from Paris as part of a festival of hot air balloons.

Watching them take off and drift away in near silence made me wonder how it is that I haven’t yet done this. Maybe I’m subconsciously nervous about finding that I don’t like the experience. I’ve pestered friends to take me on their small boats and in their small planes, thinking those experiences would be amazing, and often times I end up throwing up and feeling really sick!

Can such a thing happen on a hot air balloon ride? I suppose there is only one way to really know for sure, right?