Slovakia’s diverse natural environment offers countless options for spending your free time and playing sports.
Be it high mountain tourism, mountaineering, adrenaline sports, or exciting fun in the water or in the air. If you like active relaxation, you can choose from an extensive range of unique experiences.
Walk through the untouched nature
You will find such untouched nature in Slovakia as hardly anywhere else in Europe, but you will not get lost thanks to a dense network of marked hiking trails.
Whether you wish for a hike through deep valleys around gurgling waterfalls, ascend along a majestic ridge to a Tatra peak or an easy walk on an educational trail, you will certainly find your route here.
The therapeutic serenity and enchanting atmosphere of romantic spots, undisturbed by the bustle of the city, still offer a true escape from the worries of everyday life, and give nature lovers the perfect getaway for relaxing and recuperating new strength.
SKI in HIGH TATRAS
In the mountain ranges with both summer and winter marked tourist tracks that make orientation easier, it is strongly recommended to use these marks. Moving around along the unmarked tourist tracks and summer marked tracks can be difficult and dangerous because of impassable ground, bad orientation and avalanche danger.
This is the case of tracks in the region of mountain meadows in the Malá Fatra and the Velká Fatra ranges. Tourist tracks and forest paths can be considered as tracks reserved for cross-country skiing if the snow conditions are good on them and if the season closing does not apply to the region given.
On all tourist tracks and forest paths skiers have to give way to walking tourists.
Gliding
Flying in a glider gives you one of the most beautiful feelings. The feeling of freedom and control over your own life, when the safety of the flight is entirely in your hands. Gliding is one of the ways of developing ones own self-confidence, courage and presence of mind. Is this what you are looking for? Why not?
All you need is a pilot licence. Before you get it, you will have to show determination and endurance. After minimum of 45 flight lessons, and theoretical and practical examinations, youll be a qualified pilot of gliders.
Now that you have the licence, you can set off for the airport, jump into the first glider, start the engine and ….of course you know gliders have no engine. So let yourself be pulled up by a colleague who has a motor plane, e.g. in Poprad,and soar over the High Tatras, where one can fly into the altitude of 6-8 km
dog sleigh race
One of the most favourite winter sports is the traditional dog sleigh race that has good conditions and a long tradition in Slovakia. Several international competitions regularly take place in various parts of Slovakia.
In winter the race is held in a different area every week on the initiative of the so called musher clubs in cooperation with villages where they already have beat down tracks.
The most significant centre in our country is PARK SNOW Donovaly (Klub Donly Donovaly). Since 1996 the World Championship and the European Championship have been held here regularly.
For its excellent conditions it became popular with foreign participants who gave it the name of “Alaska below the Tatras”. The event attracts a large number of viewers from all over Slovakia and from abroad.
Downhill skiing
Slovakia is mostly a mountainous country, typical for its vertical unevenness. This fact, together with the continental climate, creates favourable conditions for skiing. Ideal natural conditions are mostly in the Tatras where winter sports have been developing fully since the end of the 19th century in the local centres.
The ski jumpers made their first jump on the wooden springboard over Tatranská Polianka. Today the length of the jumps makes us smile as the longest of them was only around 25 meters long.
The history of skiing was later connected with Štrbské Pleso and its centre Areál snov which in 1970 became the place of the skiing world championship.
Paragliding
Paragliding is one of the youngest air sports which are able to provide people what the nature cannot provide them – flying.
The feeling of the free flight is very intense and cannot be compared to anything else. Slovakia, thanks to its mountainous surface, offers very good conditions for this beautiful sport.
Whether you wish to learn how to fly or just try flying, you can choose courses of flying which take several days or a one-day trial course.
If you are afraid of getting into the parachute on your own, you can try a tandem flight together with a professional instructor.
Rafting
Ever more young people and families with children find rafting very attractive. It is a comparatively new adrenalin sport.
Rafting is navigation down rapid and cascaded rivers on a big rubber boat. Experienced trippers or qualified instructors are strongly recommended as companions in this sport.
It can be fairly dangerous for inexperienced rafters. The ideal place for rafting is the Area of water sports in Čunovo or the Area of water slalom in Liptovský Mikuláš, the rivers Dunajec or Belá.
Rock climbing
Are you tempted by the breath-taking peaks of the Tatras – the smallest high mountains of the world? What about trying to climb them? Do you object that you are only beginners or you have not started yet? No problem! All you need is to manage easier pieces that are offered to you right in our country, in Slovakia.
The clubs prepare rock climbing courses for beginners as well as for those who only want to try rock climbing. Moreover, the instructors are ready to give a large scale of theoretical knowledge as well as practical advice to those who already have some experience in rock climbing. Elementary courses are organised on small rocks providing more experience to climbers and better safety for more difficult climbing.
