1. Grand Canyon Skywalk.
Taking a stroll over the edge of the Grand Canyon on a glass-floored walkway is not for the faint of heart. It's a long, long way down to the Colorado River from up there. If you were to fall, your first bounce would be anywhere from 500 to 800 feet (152 to 244 meters) below. The horseshoe-shaped cantilevered walkway allows visitors to stroll some 70 feet (21 meters) out beyond the canyon rim.
2. The Ledge, Skydeck Chicago.
A dizzying view of downtown Chicago, Lake Michigan, and more than 50 miles (80 kilometers) of surrounding countryside can be had from the four glass-cubicle balconies that jut from the 103rd floor of the Wills Tower (formerly the Sears Tower) some 1,353 feet (412 meters) above the sidewalks. On a clear day you can see four states—Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana. But the best time to go is at dusk, when the lights of the city are just starting to twinkle, like a great constellation spreading beneath your feet. If you have the nerve, you can arrange private breakfasts and dinners on tables set up on these glass-floored balconies—or even hold a wedding.
3. Titlis Cliff Walk.
Billed as Europe's highest and scariest suspension bridge, the narrow walkway (barely 3 feet, or 91 centimeters, across) in the Swiss Alps spans a glacial abyss more than 1,500 feet (457 meters) deep. The bridge was built by a Swiss cable car company to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the opening of the nearby Engelberg-Gerschnialp cableway in 1913.
4. Suspended Platform at Iguazu Falls, Argentina and Brazil.
Torrents were high on Rousseau's list of things he craved to see in his quest for the sublime, and they don't come any more torrential than Iguazu Falls, a series of 270 seething rapids and thunderous waterfalls along Iguazu River on the border of Argentina and Brazil. "Poor Niagara!" Eleanor Roosevelt is said to have exclaimed when she saw it. A suspended walkway above the surging waters as they tumble over a 820-foot (250-meter) drop gives a sense of giddy horror of what it might be like to go over that yourself.
5. Skywalk in Auckland.
Taking a stroll along a footpath nearly 4 feet (1.2 meters) wide wouldn't seem to offer much in the way of challenge or thrills—after all, when was the last time you lost your balance and toppled over while trying to walk down the middle of a sidewalk? But put that same sidewalk 632 feet (193 meters) above the streets of Auckland, New Zealand, atop the observation deck on the city's Sky Tower telecommunications spire, and suddenly its width is going to seem as precarious as a gymnast's balance beam. Visitors are double-tethered for safety and obliged to wear coveralls to be sure that nothing falls out of their pockets and injures anyone below. There is an option to leap from the walkway as well. The stroll along the walkway is said to be scarier than jumping because you are out there, exposed, for much longer and the thrill of the sublime has a better chance to play on your mind...
6. Aurland Lookout.
Scary viewing platforms needn't be all hard angles, glass, and steel. Norwegian architects Tommie Wilhelmsen and Todd Saunders designed an elegant and wonderfully heart-stopping one using classic Scandinavian timbers and stylishly curving lines. It overlooks western Norway's majestic Aurland Fjord from a height of more than 2,000 feet (610 meters). As you approach the end of the smooth wooden walkway, it plunges downward in front of you as though it were a deadly roller coaster. All that keeps you from plunging with it is a pane of glass. And in the finest tradition of the sublime, it doesn't seem like enough.
7. Dachstein Skywalk
Also known as the Stairway to Nothingness, this precarious perch 9,000 feet (2,743 meters) up in the Austrian Alps opened last July. To get there you take a cable car, then pick your way along a narrow and giddily exposed suspension bridge that spans an abyss 1,300 feet (396 meters) deep, and finally descend 14 steps down a cliff face on the Hunerkogel to a glass viewing platform with sweeping views of the Alps stretching away as far as Slovenia and, if you dare to look straight down hundreds of feet, to the Dachstein Glacier below.
more at sos: http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/20...s-travel-world/
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