Bonaventura Balloon Company of Napa Valley feels blessed to be awarded so many wonderful recommendations, both from our individual guests and from periodicals, travel guides and television. We are often selected to participate in film aerial services and photo shoots, commercials and movies. Chief pilot, Joyce Bowen, is a Screen Actors Guild member. Our hot-air balloons are beautiful and seem to find their way onto covers of magazines as diverse as Touring and Tasting, Napa Valley Guide and Victoria's Secret! We have been prominently featured in AOPA Pilot Magazine, Forbes Magazine, Balloon Life Magazine, Gourmet Magazine, and others. Here is a tiny sampling:

"The best way to tour the Valley outside the comfort of your own car...and doubtless the most charming venue for morning sightseeing is a balloon flight, preferably with Joyce Bowen, whose Bonaventura Balloon Company presents a smaller, personalized alternative to the more commercial balloon services that dot the Valley."

- Forbes Magazine

 

"A moveable feast for the soul - ballooning stimulates the appetite for adventure and good food. Champagne, gourmet meals, overnight getaways and even European flights are part of hot air travel traditions with Bonaventura Balloon Company: 800-FLY-NAPA"

- Touring & Tasting

 

"Napa is better known for its epicurean habits--fine food and wine and indulgent spas--but...once aloft you realize that ballooning is the most spectacular way to see the valley...All the balloon companies promise the same adventure for a hefty price...But the details vary enormously by company. Note that some are listed in the phone book under several names to cast a wider net. Some take up to 16 people in their gondolas, making the ride more like a hot-air bus - on one trip I was crammed into the center of the gondola, surrounded by eight others and hardly able to see anything. Find out where breakfast is served...Above all, what you want is a trip in a small gondola with four to six other passengers and a pilot eager to show you the valley.

I found just that in the Bonaventura Balloon Company (707-944-2822)...It's balloons depart in the midst of some of the best vineyards - and the best views...(The pilot) gently and deftly maneuvers the balloon with the wind, and whether we're rising fast to 2,000 feet or sinking fast to 100 feet, we never sense the speed. We drop and drift quietly to the tops of the tall trees by the Napa River...That's when I realize I've arrived at an improbable place, on a visit I can make no other way. I pick some leaves as souvenirs...We set down on a dime at the edge of Beaulieu Vineyards ...and end with a champagne brunch at Meadowood. Napa Valley has been a place for escape and rejuvenation for more than a century...but the purest escape is the balloon, rising above it all, the clouds making miraculous early morning patterns...Mount St. Helena, stoic in the first light, stands strong, a perfect symbol of this bountiful place.

- Martha McPhee, Travel Holiday