Pelago Review: Best Activities And Experiences To Book Worldwide

We’ve tried a lot of travel booking platforms over the years, and most of them do one of 2 things well: they’re either great at flights and hotels, or they’re a long, underwhelming scroll of overpriced tours that look the same everywhere you go. Pelago is different, and we mean that in the best possible way. Operated by Singapore Airlines, Pelago is a dedicated travel experiences platform with over 200,000 activities across more than 3,000 destinations worldwide. It’s the kind of platform that genuinely makes you excited to plan your next trip, thanks to Pelago activities and experiences.

What sets it apart isn’t just the sheer scale of what’s available. It’s the curation. Whether you’re chasing adventure in New Zealand, exploring ancient history in Peru, or hunting for the best food tour in a city you’ve never visited before, Pelago has thought about you specifically. Bookings are fast, prices are competitive, and KrisFlyer members can earn miles on every single purchase. That last detail alone has changed how we think about booking experiences on the road. So, from active outdoor adventures to culture-rich city tours, here are six of the best Pelago experiences we think every traveler should put on their radar.

Whitewater Rafting on the Zambezi River – Livingstone, Zambia

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If we had to name one experience that permanently altered our understanding of what adventure travel can be, the Zambezi River in Zambia would be a serious contender. This stretch of whitewater, just below the thunderous Victoria Falls, is widely considered one of the most thrilling rafting runs on the planet, and it’s every bit as dramatic as its reputation suggests. The section most rafters tackle runs approximately 24 kilometers and contains over 20 major rapids, many of them rated Class IV and Class V. That means big water, steep drops, and the kind of heart-in-your-throat moments you’ll still be talking about years later.

Pelago offers guided full-day Zambezi rafting experiences that include professional safety briefings, trained river guides, all necessary equipment, and transport from Livingstone. No prior rafting experience is required for most trips, which makes it a genuinely accessible bucket-list experience. Between rapids, you’ll drift through a gorge of stunning basalt walls with birds of prey circling overhead, and the sound of Victoria Falls still echoing faintly in the distance. When we say this experience shifts something in you, we’re not being dramatic. Few things compare to making it through a Class V rapid and pumping your fist at the sky with a group of strangers who’ve suddenly become your closest friends.

Zambezi River is also home to the Victoria Falls, one of the world’s most amazing waterfalls, and the site of one of the scariest bungee jumps in the world are – check it out!

Colosseum Underground Tour – Rome, Italy

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Rome, Italy, has been on our travel list so many times that we sometimes take it for granted, assuming we’ve already seen everything worth seeing. The Colosseum Underground Tour on Pelago reminded us, very quickly, that we had not. While most visitors to the Colosseum experience the arena floor and the upper tiers, the underground tour takes you into the hypogeum: the labyrinthine network of tunnels, cages, and mechanical lifts that sat beneath the arena floor, invisible to the crowds above. It’s where gladiators prepared for combat, wild animals were held in the dark before being hoisted into the arena, and the entire logistical machinery of ancient spectacle was run.

Pelago’s listing includes skip-the-line access, which in Rome is practically a necessity. After all, it’s one of Europe’s most-visited cities. In fact, the Colosseum alone welcomes around 20,000 visitors every day, and the line for general admission can stretch for hours. With a guided underground experience, you bypass all of that and go straight to the parts of the monument that most tourists never see. Our guide brought the space to life with details that no guidebook ever quite captures: how the trapdoors worked, what it sounded like from below when the crowd roared, how many men it took to operate a single animal lift. This is history that stops being abstract and starts feeling genuinely close. If you’ve been to the Colosseum before and think you know it, we promise this experience will prove you wrong.

Full-Day Machu Picchu Tour From Cusco – Cusco, Peru

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We’ll be upfront: few travel experiences in our collective memory carry the same emotional weight as seeing Machu Picchu for the first time. There’s a moment, usually just after you step through the Sun Gate or round a particular corner on the Inca trail, when the entire citadel appears before you against a backdrop of mist-covered mountains, and it simply takes your breath away. Pelago offers a comprehensive Full-day Guided Machu Picchu Tour from Cusco that takes care of every logistical headache, from the train journey through the Sacred Valley to the entrance tickets and the guided walk through the ruins themselves.

What we love about this Pelago listing is how much it simplifies a trip that can otherwise require weeks of planning. Machu Picchu has strict visitor caps, timed entry tickets, and a booking system that confuses even experienced travelers. Having all of that handled in a single booking is genuinely valuable. Guides are knowledgeable and passionate, and the routes available include options to visit the Sun Gate, the Temple of the Sun, and the classic panoramic viewpoints. Depending on the time of year you visit, you might see the ruins wrapped in cloud or glowing under sharp Andean light. Either version is spectacular, and this Pelago tour makes both equally easy to access.

Private 5-7-hour Northern Lights Tour – Tromsø, Norway

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We’ve chased the Northern Lights in a few different places over the years, and we’ll tell you honestly: Tromsø is where we finally felt like we found the experience we’d been looking for. Norway’s most northerly city sits well inside the Arctic Circle at nearly 70 degrees latitude, which places it squarely in the prime viewing zone for the aurora borealis from late September through early April. Pelago offers a Private 5-7-hour Northern Lights Tour from Tromsø that take you away from the city’s light pollution and into the surrounding fjord landscapes, where the skies are genuinely dark and the conditions are as good as they get.

What separates this experience from a self-guided attempt is the expertise of the guides. Aurora hunting requires patience, local knowledge, and the flexibility to drive significant distances quickly when a clearing opens in the clouds. Since it was a private tour, it was just us and we weren’t competing with busloads of tourists for the same patch of dark sky. What’s more, the guides also jad cameras and tripods, and many tours include a photography tutorial so you can capture the lights properly. We remember standing in the snow at 2 in the morning watching green and purple ribbons fold and ripple across a sky full of stars, and thinking there are few things in this world that make you feel as small and as connected, all at once, as this does.

Great Ocean Road Day Tour – Melbourne, Australia

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Australia has an extraordinary coastline, but few stretches of it are as dramatic or as satisfying to explore as the Great Ocean Road. Stretching over 240 kilometers along Victoria’s southwest coast, it’s home to the famous Twelve Apostles limestone stacks, ancient rainforests, sweeping ocean cliffs, and small coastal towns that feel wonderfully unhurried. Pelago’s Great Ocean Road day tours from Melbourne are one of the platform’s standout Australian offerings, covering the road’s most iconic landmarks in a single long, memorable day.

Depending on the tour you choose, as we chose the Great Ocean Road Day Tour, you’ll stop at spots including Bells Beach (one of the surfing world’s most revered breaks), the Otway Rainforest, Loch Ard Gorge, and of course the Twelve Apostles at golden hour, which is unquestionably the best time to see them. Most tours include a knowledgeable guide who explains the geology, the shipwreck history of this stretch of coast, and the wildlife you’re likely to encounter. We spotted koalas in the wild on our last visit, which was completely unexpected and entirely wonderful. For travelers staying in Melbourne, booking this through Pelago is significantly more convenient than self-driving, especially for international visitors unfamiliar with Australian road rules. It’s also considerably more fun to have someone else handle navigation while you stare out the window at the ocean.

Marrakech Street Food Tour – Marrakech, Morocco

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We have a theory: the fastest way to understand a city is through its food, and nowhere tests that theory more convincingly than Marrakech. The medina’s food scene is layered, loud, fragrant, and completely overwhelming if you wander into it alone without guidance. The Marrakech Street Food Tour booked through Pelago changes that entirely. With a local guide leading the way, the narrow souks and hidden food alleys of the medina become less intimidating and far more rewarding, because you’re being taken directly to the stalls and cooks that the guide trusts personally.

On a typical Marrakech street food tour, you’ll try a rotation of dishes that covers the full breadth of Moroccan snack culture: sfenj (fried doughnuts dusted in sugar), msemen (folded flatbread served warm), harira soup, merguez skewers, freshly squeezed orange juice from Djemaa el-Fna, and perhaps a glass of sweet Moroccan mint tea poured from a great height to create froth. Private tours mean the pace is entirely yours, and you can linger at the stalls you love most. We found our guide’s knowledge of family-run food traditions in the medina to be extraordinary. This is the kind of experience where you arrive thinking you’ll just eat a few snacks, and you leave having understood an entire culture better than you did before.

Can we earn KrisFlyer miles when booking experiences on Pelago?

Yes, and it’s one of the things we genuinely appreciate about the platform. Members of the KrisFlyer frequent flyer program earn 3 KrisFlyer miles for every 1 SGD spent on Pelago. You can also choose to redeem existing KrisFlyer miles as payment toward any booking, which is a smart way to use accumulated rewards on something memorable rather than simply on a flight upgrade. Singapore Airlines passengers also receive exclusive perks and deals through the platform, and new users enjoy up to 10% off their first 2 bookings when they sign up. For frequent Singapore Airlines travelers, Pelago essentially makes every activity booking part of a broader rewards strategy.

Does Pelago offer flexible cancellation on its experiences?

Most experiences listed on Pelago offer free cancellation up to 24 hours before the activity is scheduled, which we consider one of the platform’s most practical features for modern travelers whose plans sometimes change unexpectedly. Pelago also has a Best Price Guarantee, meaning that if you find the same experience at a lower price on another platform, Pelago will match it and pay the difference. Individual cancellation terms vary by operator and are clearly displayed on each listing before you book, so we always recommend checking the specific policy for your chosen experience. In general, the flexibility and transparency here put Pelago a step ahead of many competing booking platforms we’ve used.

Some images on this article are copyrighted by Pelago.