Ice climb in London
1 The huge ice rink at Somerset House has been drawing crowds each winter for years, but last November an ice wall was added for the first time, bringing even more danger and excitement than the fear of having your mittened fingers run over by a 10-year-old skater. Standing more than 26 feet high is a column of pure ice, featuring three climbing faces of varying difficulty which are scaled using crampons, ice picks and ropes. Using it costs about £40 (020 7845 4600; www.somersethouseicerink.org.uk) and it is open from late November to the end of January.
Don't worry if you can't wait - you can ice climb all year round in the Ellis Brigham outdoor store (020 7395 1010) in Covent Garden, or in Manchester (0161 837 6140) or Castleford, West Yorkshire. The cost in London is £40 for an introductory lesson. Experienced climbers pay £30, including equipment, or £20 without it.
Hang-gliding in Rio De Janeiro
2 According to the hang-gliders of Rio, once you've swooped over the city's streets, gazing at the Sugar Loaf, Corcovado, Ipanema, Leblon, Copacabana and the city of Niteroi on the other side of Guanabara Bay, you will 'understand why birds are peaceful animals'. Embrace the romantic notion on a 30-minute tandem flight from the 525-metre Pedra Bonita in the Sao Conrado mountains down to the Sao Conrado Beach. It costs around £55.
Contact Air Adventures (00 21 9843 9006; www.riohanggliding.com).
Skywalk in Sydney
3 This experience takes having a peek at a nice view to a whole other level, as you are suspended more than 850 feet (260m) above street level, harnessed to a glass viewing platform that hangs from the side of Sydney Tower. It's the city's highest building, as tall as the Eiffel Tower. After a thorough briefing and being fitted with protective 'skysuits', skywalkers make their way along two purpose-built walkways and platforms, which have transparent floors, while a guide points out landmarks. Night time skywalks are also available. Book at www.skywalk.com.au. It costs £46.
Mountainboarding in Leeds
4 Similar to snowboarding but with wheels, mountainboarding is gaining momentum in Britain. Riders roll down hills and fly off jumps, doing tricks. It's most commonly a rural recreation and a number of special mountainboard parks have opened around the country (see www.ridethehill.com). But the Leeds contingent of the Northern Offroad Boarding Society (or Nobs) practise at least twice a week in the city in locations that include Roundhay Park. Those with their own board are welcome to join them. Contact the society at www.scuz.info. Alternatively, beginners can get lessons in Halifax at the Another World (01422 245196; mountainboarding.co.uk) mountainboard centre for £8 an hour, with equipment.
Parkour in Paris
5 Parkour involves running, jumping and vaulting over urban objects, leaping from walls, swinging from buildings and the like in a fluid and graceful combination of movements. It began in the 1980s in the south Parisian suburb of Lisses. It was first practised by David Belle, who was influenced by obstacle course training, martial arts, gymnastics and actions his father had used in the military.
All you need to be a traceur, as they are called, is a town or city and some skills, the best place to develop them being with the crowd who invented them. Every last weekend of the month there is a training session at the Dame du Lac monument in Lisses, with various coaches, sometimes including Belle himself, for £6.80. The traceurs also meet in Lisses on Saturdays; check www.parkour.net. To reach Lisses, take a train from the Gare du Nord in central Paris to Evry Courcouronnes, then the 53 bus to the Dame Du Lac stop.
Parkour is sweeping the world's cities; visit www.parkour.org.uk to contact traceurs in London and nationwide.
Hop on a Harley in Melbourne
6 Not only do you get the thrill of the wind blasting your face as you tear through Melbourne's most interesting areas, but also the fun of riding the ultimate motorbike behind an authentic, mustachioed Aussie grease monkey in leathers, on a Harley Ride (www.hdride.com) tour of the city. You'll feel you're going a million miles an hour, but the riders stay within the speed limit. An hour costs £42, or £76 for a bike with sidecar, which seats up to two.
Long distance ice skating in Stockholm
7 Your idea of ice skating may involve clinging to the handrail of a small ice rink, making wobbly steps for 10 minutes, doing a few laps, then having a hot chocolate in the cafe. Not so in Sweden, where long-distance fans skate 50 miles or more on frozen lake systems.
The annual Vikingarannet - Viking Run - event, which takes place in February, is a 50-mile skate from Uppsala, ending in the historic areas of Stockholm. Organisers arrange transport from the capital for the 8,000 participants, some of whom use traditional Viking cow bone skates. See www.vikingarannet.com for details and how to enter.
Alternatively, Stockholm's frozen lakes offer good skating: Hellasgarden park, in the southern suburbs, has a scenic track and a sauna, and Kungsträdgården, a lovely park in central Stockholm, has a rink modelled on the one near the Rockefeller Centre in New York.
Skiing in Detroit
8 It was too good an opportunity to miss. My return flight from Salt Lake City back to Britain last March was via Detroit - a city known rather more for its production of motor cars than its skiing. But this rather flat state has more than 30 ski areas, more even than Colorado. There were four and a quarter hours between flights. Should I sit in the lounge and have a snooze, or should I go skiing?
I grabbed the first Metro-Airport cab I saw. It was driven by an Indian not of Native American origin, but Pasramjit Singh-Sandhu from New Delhi. His call sign was 'Pinky', and he was, to put it mildly, intrigued with my mission. Not being a skier, he had never heard of Alpine Valley, just 20 miles from the edge of Detroit's urban sprawl, and under 40 miles from the airport. I briefed him on the route and Pinky put his foot down, then started phoning his friends to ask, in Hindi, if anyone knew where it was.
All went well on the outward journey, and while Pinky waited, engine running to keep him warm, I dashed to the rental shop to grab skis. There was no time to change out of my jeans, but one of the Shumaker's Ski Shop team kindly lent me his jacket. I dashed towards the slopes.
Alpine Valley opened for business in 1962. It started with a rope tow on a single hill and now has 25 runs, a terrain park, a halfpipe, 10 chairs, six rope tows, a ski shop, a large lodge and a restaurant. Giving the halfpipe its own dedicated lift and creating the terrain park has made Alpine Valley popular with snowboarders.
While we rode the main chair, Bob Cowen, who has been patrolling the pistes here since 1963, told me a little about the ski area's history. 'When we were building more trails and lifts, Alpine's management had the foresight to plant numerous evergreen trees on the slopes,' he said.
'The trees now exceed the height of the lift towers. They not only provide a very beautiful venue, they shelter the skiers on the slopes and on the lifts, and help preserve the groomed conditions. In January, we're open until 2am on Saturday nights for "midnight madness".'
After two or three more runs of my own madness, it was time to go. But there was drama to come. On the way back, Pinky - until now rather enjoying this unusual mission, not to mention the $120 return ride - lost concentration for a moment, and we rammed the back of a 4x4. No one was hurt, but it made a big mess of the front of Pinky's taxi. Fortunately he was able to limp back to Detroit, even throwing in a quick tour of the waterfront.
Ski Independence, the US skiing specialists, says there is very little demand from UK skiers to visit Michigan ('You were the first!'), but the slopes aren't bad, and make a great day trip for visitors to Detroit. Amazingly, I even made the plane home.
Arnie Wilson
Abseil off Table Mountain in Cape Town
9 If you're going to abseil off something, why not make it one of the world's most famous natural landmarks? After you've walked or taken the cable car to the top of Table Mountain, you meet your guides who will instruct you, before you step over the edge, nearly 330 feet (1,000m) above sea level, and slide into vertical space, enjoying awesome views of the city and the Atlantic. The cost is £30 per person with Abseil Africa (00 27 214 244 760; www.abseilafrica.co.za).
Caving in Budapest
10 Hungary lacks mountains and rock faces, so caving has become its big adventure sport. Budapest's vast cave system is formed by thermal waters bubbling up through rock, unlike most caves, which are formed by rainwater steadily dripping down. Exploring the subterranean labyrinth involves squeezing yourself through crevices, but the city has many thermal baths back on the surface where bruised cavers can ease their aches.
Thrillseekers can explore the stalactites and stalagmites with Absolute Tours (www.absolutetours.com) for about £8. Visits start in the Matyas Cave on the outskirts of the city, and include a crawling-room-only section called the 'sandwich of death'.
ADVENTURE RACING IN EDINBURGH
11 Adventure racing involves teams competing in a series of physical events over a set period. The challenges of the Rat Race event in Edinburgh may include abseiling from the city's tallest buildings, running, cycling, kayaking along the Firth of Forth, skiing at Hillend dry slope, orienteering in the city's parks or rock climbing in the Pentland Hills. Details are kept secret until the race, due this year on 15 and 16 July. Teams of three can enter for £80 per person. Contact 08704 103 245; www.ratraceadventure.com. Other Rat Races take place in Bristol in June and Manchester in August.
Rooftop Thrill Rides in Las Vegas
12 Roller-coaster fans haven't lived until they've experienced the world's highest rides, 100 storeys up at the top of Las Vegas's Stratosphere Tower. Sadly, the super-scary High Roller ride closed last year, but three white-knucklers remain. The Big Shot, a hydraulic freefall drop tower, catapults people straight up 120ft at a force of 4G, then lets them drop back down. The XS-Scream, a giant seesaw, teeters over the edge of the tower so riders stare into the streets below, while Insanity has seats attached to an arm that swings out past the tower, then tilts down towards the strip. An admission package that includes the three rides costs £13.70. See www.stratospherehotel.com.
Canyon walking in Los Angeles
13 LA may be famed for its glitzy stores and celeb-infested bars but it has an earthier side that visitors would be mad to miss. The area is ruptured by canyons and ridged by mountains, which offer great hiking within the city limits; the sage-scented Santa Monica Mountains which dissect it are known as the Angelic answer to Central Park, and Topanga State Park is the world's largest area of wildland within a city. It has 36 miles of trails, with Topanga Canyon to the west and Rustic Canyon at the east. The Temescal Fire Road rises above the canyons with oak and sycamore forests below, or the Backbone Trail winds up from the Santa Monica Mountains. See www.parks.ca.gov.
Kayaking around manhattan
14 I'm canoeing past the Empire State Building. This is not a cheese-induced dream or a homage to a surrealist painter, but an exhilarating and unnerving reality. Less than a mile east of Times Square, I'm bobbing up and down in a yellow kayak in the Hudson. The view back to shore is jaw-dropping - the length of the island soaring up from my black paddles. On my 16th visit to Manhattan, I feel as if I'm seeing the city for the first time.
The Manhattan Kayak Company, which is beside a pier at the western end of 23rd Street, is dedicated to getting a city traditionally fearful of its mighty brown river out of its Prada and Armani and into polyethylene high-performance canoes. The company's founder, Eric Stiller, looks like GI Joe but as a kayak teacher he possesses the patience of a soccer mom. We begin on land, outside the office, to the amusement of passers-by. I follow instructions - move your hips and torso rather than arms and shoulders to minimise fatigue - pretending canoeing on grass is all the rage in England.
An hour later, I jump into a life jacket and my own kayak. From the shore, the river looked docile. On the water, it feels like the South Atlantic. And it's full of boats: cruise ships, police cruisers and ferries churn past.
But the Prijon kayak is remarkably stable. I paddle out (hips and torso, hips and torso), until I'm scything the water like a champion. Far out into the Hudson, I gaze back at the Big Apple and decide that there's something about being in a small yellow canoe at the edge of the most powerful city in the world that really rocks my boat.
Jim Keeble
· Manhattan Kayak Company (001 212 924 1788; www.manhattankayak.com). Sunset tour $55; three-hour Paddle Basics class $160.
Canoe safari in Amsterdam
15 There is one more addition to the long list of transport methods in Amsterdam. Forget bikes or big tour boats. Paddling your own canoe means you see more and explore in an unusual way. These tours take you out of the city and into the watery reedlands and villages built on the water's edge nearby. Wetlands Safari (00 31 20 686 3445; www.wetlandssafari.nl) offers group tours between May and September, leaving from Centraal Station. They cost £20.
Base jump in Auckland
16 New Zealand has more hare-brained adventure activities than pretty much anywhere, including SkyJump, which allows the brave to leap from Auckland's Sky Tower - the tallest building in the southern hemisphere at 630ft (192m). SkyJump most resembles base-jumping, the sport that involves leaping wearing a parachute, which barely has time to open before the jumper hits the ground.
The Kiwi version has the jumpers attached to a cable, which unravels at a controlled pace. However, it still travels at a thrilling 47 mph (75kph) for 16 seconds, followed by a slow descent to the street below. It costs £74 with SkyJump (00 64 9368 1835; www.skyjump.co.nz).
Bungee jumping in Vienna
17 Forget the Viennese whirl, try the Viennese hurl, after you make an eye-popping drop from the top of Vienna's Danube Tower, known as the 'concrete needle'. At nearly 500ft (152m), it is claimed to be the highest bungee from a tower in the world, and daredevils fall at 56mph (90kph) until they're dangling just 66ft (20m) off the ground. The jump is available between April and October for £95; www.donauturm.at.
Zero gravity flight in Moscow
18 At £8,000 a pop, it's not cheap, but it's a lot more affordable than the first space flights, which are tipped to cost £20m or so when they become available. These plane flights are not totally dissimilar to going into space, as flyers experience the weightlessness of zero gravity for several minutes, when they can bob around the aircraft, drink floating water and do somersaults in the air. The plane creates the effect by making a roller-coaster-type curve. Wild Wings (0117 965 8333; www.wildwings.co.uk) runs trips to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonaut Training Centre near Moscow.
Climbing a tower in Macau
19 Vertigo sufferers read no further: even the idea of this activity will make those without a head for heights need a lie down. In the city of Macau, about 44 miles (70km) from Hong Kong, is a very tall tower, and on top of the tower is a very thin mast, and climbing that mast, to a height of 388 metres, could be you. Climbing a ladder from the top of the building, you ascend 100m up the mast attached by a harness, have your photo taken, admire the views, then climb down. It is the only free-standing tower where the public can go to the top. The two-hour climb costs from £35, contact Macau Tower (00 853 933 339; www.macautower.com.mo).
In-line skating in Barcelona
20 Crank up your sightseeing a little by doing it on a high-speed in-line skating tour of Barcelona. The tour company Skate Around (00 31 20 4681 682; www.skate-a-round.com) runs trips to European cities, including Barcelona, where bladers are taken on a beach-front skate, a nighttime tour, a harbourside skate and even a tour of Gaudi's greatest buildings. Five nights, including accommodation and tours but not transport, costs £242.
