It’s 5 p.m. in Adelaide, Australia, and I’m counting to 10 into a breathalyzer—a precaution before I brave RoofClimb, a trek up 164 feet to the top of the Adelaide Oval. Best known for cricket, rugby, and Australian-rules football, the swoopy stadium moonlights this afternoon as an adventure park.
Turns out I’m the kind of person who looks at a stadium roof and thinks: I’d like to be on top of that. There are more of us than you’d expect. “We get all kinds of climbers,” says Lincoln Moynahan, RoofClimb’s operations coordinator, “from young couples looking for a date activity to groups of friends, families, sporting fans, and visitors looking for the best way to see Adelaide.”
I’m in it for the thrill—and the perspective. Whenever I arrive in a new city, my first instinct is to go high. Instead of walking down the street feeling dwarfed by the skyline, neck craned, buildings erupting around me, I find somewhere to be above it all. Altitude converts a flat map into a living thing; streets become arteries, neighborhoods take on distinct shapes, and a new place becomes digestible.
Launched in 2016, RoofClimb grew from a simple question: How do you maximize the potential of such a prime location? The Oval sits in the heart of the city—one of Afar’s Where to Go 2026 picks—on the banks of the River Torrens. The answer, it turned out, was to put people on top of it. From above, visitors get sweeping views from the Adelaide Hills to the vineyards and the coast, all while hearing stories like cricket matches from 1873 and a rollercoaster set ablaze for World War I fundraising. Offerings at the Adelaide Oval have grown to include twilight walks, dawn and night walks in the summer, and chances to watch matches from the highest, most exhilarating spectator seats in the house.
The team behind RoofClimb weren’t the only ones to recognize the benefits of visitor traffic. As adventure tourism grows, more cities are finding ways to make pulse-quickening experiences part of the urban fabric.
Why so many people are climbing buildings
Don’t just go to the top of CN Tower in Toronto—get out on top of it.
Courtesy of Destination Toronto (L); photo by Maarten van den Heuvel/Unsplash (R)
People have been climbing buildings as long as there have been buildings to climb. In early 20th-century New York, daredevils scaling skyscrapers were so common they earned the nickname “human flies,” until the activity was eventually banned. Today, cities have found a way to make it work, liability and all. It’s now even being televised. In 2023, actor and musician Jared Leto scaled the Empire State Building—the first to do so legally. In January 2026, professional climber Alex Honnold’s free solo of Taipei 101 became a Netflix event.
What was once a stunt is now an industry, fueled both by a drive for stimulation and a tourist’s curiosity. Get high enough above a city and you start understanding it. “It’s the city as a whole that you really get a feeling for when you’re on the ring,” says Robert Ng, director of attractions at the CN Tower in Toronto, whose EdgeWalk allows thrill-seekers to walk on a five-foot ledge circling the outside of the building at 116 stories (nearly 1,168 feet) off the ground. “[From above], so many people are stunned by all the greenery in Toronto and how each neighborhood weaves into the others.”
At the pinnacle of City Climb in New York’s Hudson Yards (currently closed for renovations), it was easy (and fascinating) to trace how the megapolis I call home grew outward from a modest, 17th-century port. At the Adelaide Oval, I could see whole neighborhoods I hadn’t yet explored and mentally filed them away for my to-do list.
Another draw is the transformation that climbers experience. For the majority of us, at the beginning there’s an element of fear. But then as the climb progresses, fears become conquered as strangers become a built-in support team. Says Moynahan, “Suddenly, this group of strangers is bonded by a sense of awe and adventure as they take in the views and take on the climb together.”
Where you can urban climb around the world
Who needs a rock wall when you have a power plant in Copenhagen?
Photo by Pandora Pictures/Shutterstock (L); photo by Pyty/Shutterstock (R)
Perhaps the most famous urban climb in the world is BridgeClimb Sydney on the Sydney Harbour Bridge, but Australia has a seemingly endless appetite for adventure. Down Under you’ll also find Brisbane’s Story Bridge Adventure Climb and Perth’s HALO Rooftop Climb, a loop around the top of Optus Stadium.
Inspired by the daredevils at the Auckland, New Zealand, Skywalk, Toronto’s CN Tower launched EdgeWalk in 2011. It holds the Guinness World Record for the “highest external walk on a building.”
In 2012, Up at the O2 opened in London as a guided climbing experience across the roof of the O2 arena. Then in 2013, an Edge Walk opened in Tallinn, Estonia, on the outer perimeter of the Tallinn TV tower. Here, you can even sit on the edge and dangle your feet for a bit.
In Seoul, South Korea, for a few months each year you can take a guided rooftop architecture tour over Zaha Hadid’s Dongdaemun Design Plaza. In Bratislava, Slovakia, there’s a UFO Tower Skywalk, named for the flying-saucer-shaped restaurant you’ll be circumnavigating (though it couldn’t hurt to look for little green men while you’re up there).
In 2019 Copenhagen straight-up put a climbing wall in the middle of the city called CopenHill, an energy plant–slash–ski slope. The climbing wall stands just under 279 feet tall.
And the most recent addition to the genre is Summit: Ally Pally Rooftop Adventure, which opened in February 2026 above London’s historic Alexandra Palace, a grand Victorian venue that dates to 1873. At 426 feet and sitting on a natural hill, Ally Pally is billed as the U.K.'s highest roof walk. From the winged Angel of Plenty statue at the summit, views encompass 28 of London’s 32 boroughs.
Urban climbing tips
Get the best views of the city, summit the highest external walk in the world, and even climb through a rainbow.
Courtesy of Adelaide Oval
If you’re considering an urban climb, there are a few things to know before you go. First, dress for the weather, and take into account that the temperature up high can often be much colder—and much windier—than when on the ground. Wear laced shoes, and leave the elaborate hairstyles at home, as pins, clips, and jewelry will need to come out. Your phone stays behind too, which turns out to be a gift: Without it, you’re fully present.
Exercise extra discretion if you’re pregnant or suffer from vertigo, dizziness, or balance problems. Be aware that for some experiences, height requirements and weight limits apply. And know that the experience can shift dramatically with the seasons. “Whether it’s mist moving through the buildings, clear fall views, or even snow,” says Ng, “each visit feels a bit different.” Book for a time of day and season that suits what you want to see, including starry nights.
Lastly, let yourself be surprised. The wildest thing Robert Ng has ever encountered 116 stories above Toronto (and which is now my goal)? Walking through a rainbow.
In Adelaide, before we climb the Oval, there’s some ceremony. We surrender our jewelry and phones, zip into matching blue jumpsuits, clip in radios and earpieces, and pull on branded baseball caps. For a moment, we look like an expert NASA ground crew or maybe like we’re about to go skydiving. Then the metal anchors come out, clipping us one by one in a line to a shared railing. As we shuffle along with our cables and heavy metal, the illusion collapses. To anyone watching, we look considerably less mission control and more like kindergarteners strung together on a walking rope.
Wind whips past our ears. Hats fly off. We follow a grated metal walkway that steadily rises upward. The apex of the whole experience—the money shot—is the lean-out. Here, we’re strapped into a second cable, shuffled around a ring from the inside around to the edge of the platform, and instructed to lean backward.
Here is my one moment of hesitation. Are we sure these cables hold up? But then I give in. Suspended, with only open air between my back and the pitch, I give a thumbs up.
