Several years ago, our youngest son started giving us experiences for Christmas instead of things. One year it was a helicopter flight, another year tickets to a dinner theatre. Last Christmas, we received gift certificates for a one hour Segway adventure in Edmonton’s beautiful river valley.

Though River Valley Adventure Co. operates Segway tours year round, we waited until summer for our adventure and I’m glad we did! The conditions were perfect.

Our experience began with a short safety video followed by a hands-on training session with our experienced guide. We learned how to mount and dismount the Segway, how to stand still, start, stop, turn, speed up, and slow down. Since the Segway balances automatically, it was really quite simple. Before we knew it we were riding the trails, going up and down hills, and even slaloming between trees!

To operate a Segway, you simply lean forward to make it go and backward to make it slow down or stop. Tilting the handlebar slightly to the left or right turns the machine in that direction. By standing upright and tilting the handle, you can actually turn 360º on the spot.

At the end of our tour, we received our Segway Operator’s License which allows us to skip the training session if we return for another try.

Would I do it again? Absolutely! It was a blast!