World's Scariest Attractions
June 1, 2025
•19 min read
A ride on top of a Skyscraper? Or a plank on the side of a mountain? Let's explore some of the scariest attractions in the world.
The world’s filled with awesome attractions that really get your heart racing! But as exhilarating as they can be, some push the limits of fun too far! Whether it’s stomach-churning swings set thousands of feet over a canyon, extreme thrill rides built on top of buildings, or even plank walks carved into literal mountain sides, let's take a ride on some of the scariest attractions in the world!
The Strat Hotel
The very top of The Strat Hotel in Las Vegas doesn’t have a penthouse suite, but it does have Insanity; a thrill ride designed to make even the most daring adrenaline-junkies a little squeamish!
Riders are seated under a large mechanical claw that veers over the edge of the hotel. How high’s the fall? Just 900 feet! That means, if anyone was unlucky enough to fall from this ride, it’d take nearly 8 seconds until they reached the ground. Riders here are secured by lap bar restraints, without even an extra seatbelt! After passengers are secured, the claw dangles its victims over the edge of the hotel, before tilting them 70 degrees downwards, all while spinning them round at a ferocious 40mph.
Formula Rossa Rollercoaster
Let’s stay closer to the ground now, and head over to Ferrari World in Abu Dhabi. This theme park features a whole host of motor-related rollercoasters, like the Fiorano GT Challenge and Mission Ferrari, which both launch their riders around courses at high speeds, all designed to be as exhilarating as driving a Ferrari.
But the jewel in Ferrari World’s crown is the Formula Rossa rollercoaster, which emulates the Formula One experience. Formula Rossa is fitted with a hydraulic launch system, a similar concept to those that catapult fighter jets off aircraft carriers. The power this generates is enough to launch riders around the 1.3-mile-long course in just 92 seconds. When it comes to top speed, the Formula Rossa rollercoaster hits an electrifying 149 mph, making it the fastest roller coaster in the world, and a whole 20 mph faster than the coaster in 2nd place! This ride even zips about 11 mph quicker than the average speed of Formula One cars! In fact, this rollercoaster is so rapid, riders have to wear safety glasses to protect their eyes from insects or sand, which can cause blindness at these speeds!Zumanjaro: Drop Of Doom
Prior to the creation of the Formula Rossa, Kingda Ka, found at Six Flags, New Jersey, was the world’s fastest coaster ride, clocking up an impressive speed of 128 mph! That coupled with the fact that this thing stretches to a neck-breaking 456-feet tall, makes it one of the world’s most thrilling rides.
But things got even more exhilarating in 2014, when the Zumanjaro: Drop of Doom was built inside the Kingda Ka rollercoaster! This soaring 415-foot drop tower is both the tallest and fastest in the world! It starts by hauling 3 separate gondolas up 415 feet, well over 100 feet taller than the Statue of Liberty. Considering that Zumanjaro is integrated into Kingda Ka, there’s even a chance the rapid rollercoaster ride will whizz right past passengers suspended at the top of the tower! After taking in the view, and perhaps dodging the Kingda Ka rollercoaster, Zumanjaro’s gondolas drop back down at a gnarly 90 mph, with the ride stopping just in time to prevent passengers becoming pancakes. In all, it takes less than 10 seconds for Zumanjaro to plunge down over 400 feet!Sky Lodge Adventure Suite
What better place to lie down than the comfy looking bed in the post below? Except, this isn’t any old bed. It’s actually suspended some 1,200 feet in the air! That’s 100 feet taller than the Eiffel Tower!
Peru: Nur für Schwindelfreie – Schlafen in der Skylodge on.welt.de/1CKLsLh
ペルーの空中ホテル、泊まってみたいけど一睡もできなさそうやな…
Kilimanjaro Water Slide
On the other side of South America, nearly 2,000 miles east of the spine-chilling Sky Lodge Adventure Suites, is the Aldeia das Águas Park Resort in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. And this water park has one attraction that stands above the rest, literally!
1 op de 3 maakt eenmaal boven een rechtsomkeert! gewoonvoorhem.nl/een-van-de-mee… #summer #waterslide #extreme
Vanish Rollercoaster
Brazil isn’t the only place where you’ll find a wicked watery attraction. Across the globe in Yokohama, Japan, there’s another water-based ride that’ll test the nerve of even the most extreme adventurers.
At first, Vanish Rollercoaster at Cosmo World Amusement Park may seem like a pretty regular ride; it’s got loops and drops like any other. That is, until the ride gets 90 seconds in, when the coaster suddenly dive bombs straight into the water below! After dropping riders down a steep slope, the ride just disappears into a watery vortex. At least, that’s what it looks like.Nijigen No Mori
Japan clearly has a thing for hair-raising attractions, because less than 300 miles west of Yokohama, at the nearby Awaji Island, exists a ride that’ll have film buffs crawling behind their couch. This is the home of Nijigen No Mori, a theme park dedicated to none other than Godzilla!
Visitors to the park’s museum and studio can get a closer look into the world of Godzilla from the big screen, but the main attraction at Nijigen No Mori has to be the Godzilla Interception Operation Awaji; the world’s first life-sized Godzilla! That’s not all, though. This manmade Godzilla is also part of a ride.Crocosaurus Cove's Cage Of Death
Godzilla Interception Operation Awaji isn’t the only attraction to feature a prehistoric-looking predator. Crocosaurus Cove’s Cage of Death in Darwin, Australia, is every bit as nail-biting as it sounds! Essentially this attraction puts human visitors face-to-face with one of the world’s most feared animals: crocodiles.
To start, participants enter an acrylic tube about 1.5 inches thick and 10 feet high! At first, they’re dangled above the water while the crocs feast right before their eyes! Soon after, the tube is lowered into the water for 15 minutes, bringing anyone inside face-to-face with one of the world’s scariest sights. Especially so, since the critters here are saltwater crocodiles!Yukon Striker
Canada’s Wonderland amusement park thankfully doesn’t have any crocodiles, but it’s main attraction can still leave daredevils crying for their mommies! Soaring some 223 feet in the air, the Yukon Striker, a steel dive coaster, is the tallest of its kind in the world!
In case you didn’t know, dive coasters are a type of rollercoaster that feature plenty of steep, vertical drops. These rides also hold passengers at the top of the drop for a few seconds, just to make the wait before the fall even more agonizing. And the Yukon Striker is the most agonizing of all dive coasters. The ride starts by veering passengers over the edge of a 90 degree drop, before racing down at speeds of 80 mph, making this the fastest dive coaster in the world.Bailong Elevator
Halfway across the world, Wulingyuan in China isn’t revered for any blood-curdling coasters. Instead, this place is known for its scenic beauty, as more than 3,000 sandstone pillars tower over the forest landscape here. But built into the side of a cliff is an elevator! The Bailong Elevator, as it’s known, takes passengers up a vomit-inducing 1,070 feet high. That makes this the world’s tallest outdoor elevator!
If going up to such heights in an elevator wasn’t scary enough, this attraction is also fitted with glass windows, letting you see exactly how far your fall to the ground will be! If you’re still not feeling queasy, this lift is also purported to be one of the world’s fastest passenger elevators, soaring up at close to 12 mph! While an elevator embedded into a cliff-face sounds dangerous enough as it is, the thrills aren’t over yet!
Dangerous Steps In China
Considering that the Great Wall of China is one of the world’s most popular destinations, attracting more than 10 million tourists per year, you’d presume it’d be pretty leisurely to visit. And, for the most part it is, but that can’t be said for the Jiankou portion of the Great Wall, however.
This 12-mile section, found 45 miles north of Beijing, is known for being the most dangerous. One part in particular, known as the heavenly ladder, is comprised of 70 steep stone steps that were built into a 260 feet tall cliff! Being such a rural section of the Great Wall, there aren’t any safety procedures or guides to ensure people complete the climb unharmed. As a result, it’s not uncommon for tourists to injure themselves by falling onto the cliffside!
There's a reason they never show the base
Mount Hua Hiking Trail
You thought China was done there with its super scary attractions? Nope! In the isolated Huanghsan Mountains, in the Anhui Province of eastern China, is the Mount Hua hiking trail, believed to be the most dangerous of its kind in the world!
To reach the highest summit on the mountain’s south peak, explorers must traverse through narrow pathways and up vertical sky ladders. But what Mount Hua hiking trail is really infamous for is the plank walk. For starters, the wood slats are rammed together by nails, while the plank itself is only 12 inches wide. Tourists have to carefully cross this 330-foot-long plank walk, with the threat of dropping down over 7,000 feet!Ordovician Theme Park
Created in 2002, Ordovician Theme Park, in Chongqing, central China, is home to the largest concentration of sky-high attractions in the world! Usually, getting pushed on a swing is one of life’s simple pleasures, not here! Tourists are strapped to their swing seat, before being pulled back 90-degrees, and pushed out some 1,000 feet over the valley.
Giant Canyon Swing
Glenwood Canyon in western Colorado, U.S, is known for its rugged scenery and 1,300-feet deep canyon, not exactly the safest place for a theme park, but the creators of Glenwood Caverns Adventure Park disagree. It features daring rides like the Defiance Rollercoaster and Alpine Coaster, which is more of a taboggan, but the real reason adrenaline-junkies flock here is to try another ride.
Giant Canyon Swing may sound innocuous at first, but one look at this thing will tell you all you need to know. This menacing mechanism uses a pressure-powered swing to propel participants back and forth, dangling over the edge of a 1,300-foot drop!Chinese Glass Bridges
Glass bridges have become a big tourist hit in recent years, so much so that throughout China, there are currently a staggering 2,300 glass bridges! But as cool as they look in pictures, it’s a whole other thing actually walking over one!
Take East Taihang Glasswalk, found in the mountains of the Hebei Province of eastern China. This crossing is positioned a stomach-churning 715 feet above the valley floor! That’s a scary look down, even more so when that glass walkway starts cracking under you!
Fortunately, there’s no cracking sound effects on this walkway. Unfortunately, the glass here has actually cracked. If crossing over a glass walkway nearly 1,500 feet in the air wasn’t worrisome enough, some tourists were invited to smash some of the glass panels with a sledgehammer!
Dangerous Wave Pools
Wave pools are effectively swimming pools in which there are artificially generated large waves. They’re incredibly popular and can be used by surfers looking to practice, or swimmers looking to feel realistic ocean waves without the beachside hassle.
However, one wave pool, found at Summerland Water Park, Tokyo, regularly attracts tens of thousands of people looking to cool off during the heat of summer! The result? A pool so packed it’s hard to find the water. But for many this isn’t a problem, as the surges of water do the moving for them, meaning they don’t need to swim to cool off.
