Are you kidding me? These actually exist? Travel and Leisure Magazine did a spread on some of the wildest runways around the globe. Let’s just double check that all our tray tables and seatbacks are in the locked and upright positions.

Discussed in the article are the many variables in landing a plane to start with. Then you add in shortened runways, unique atmospheric and meteorological conditions, heavy air traffic, or a combination of those and you have yourself a white knuckle thrill ride . . . at least for some of the people on board (we won’t mention any TheExpeditioner.com contributors or anything).

Tom Claytor, a pilot with experience flying in and out of the Matekane Air Strip in the small African country of Lesotho, talks about taking off from this short strip of concrete sitting inches from a vast couloir at 7,550 feet high,  sometimes “you shoot off the end of the airstrip, then drop down the 2,000-foot cliff face until you start flying.”

The picture above was taken at Maho Beach on the Caribbean island of St. Maarten, where pilots are required to have additional training to fly there. Regardless of training or amount of Dramamine, I’m sure there’s some seriously colorful language heard in these cabins (or cockpits).