When my wife and I planned our honeymoon, she had exactly one non-negotiable: the Cappadocia hot-air balloon ride she had seen on every wedding Instagram account in Pakistan. I am the spreadsheet type, and the cost made me wince. Here is the honest story of whether it was worth blowing the budget.

The booking and the price

We flew into Istanbul direct from Islamabad, then took a short domestic flight to Kayseri and transferred to Göreme. For the balloon, I researched operators for weeks and finally booked a standard sunrise flight through our cave hotel at about PKR 75,000 per person. That is PKR 150,000 for one hour in the sky — by far the single biggest line in our whole honeymoon. I genuinely lost sleep over it.

The 4am wake-up nobody warns you about

The romance starts brutally early. We were collected from our hotel in pitch darkness around 4:30am, freezing despite it being late spring. There was tea and a quick briefing at the launch field while crews fired up the burners. My wife was buzzing; I was clutching my paratha-deprived stomach and questioning my life choices. Bring a warm jacket — I cannot stress this enough.

And then we lifted off

The moment the basket left the ground, every complaint I had evaporated. The sun broke over the horizon and lit up the rock chimneys in pink and gold, and around us maybe a hundred other balloons rose together in total silence except for the occasional roar of the burner. My wife cried. I, a grown man who agonised over the price, also went quiet. We drifted over the valleys, low enough to almost touch the rock formations, then high enough to see the whole moonscape stretch out. The pilot was calm and skilled, and the hour passed like ten minutes.

The landing and the little ceremony

We landed gently in a field, and the crew popped a small bottle of juice and handed out a flight certificate — a sweet touch for a honeymoon. We got our ridiculous, gorgeous photos with the balloons behind us, exactly the ones my wife had dreamed of.

So, was it worth it?

• For the experience: yes, completely. It is one of the most beautiful hours of my life and the photos are genuinely once-in-a-lifetime.
• For the price: if it is a honeymoon or a milestone trip, do it without hesitation. If you are on a tight budget, know that you can also watch the balloons rise for free from a hotel terrace or hilltop, which is stunning in its own right.

One practical warning

Balloons only fly in safe wind conditions, so flights get cancelled. We booked ours for our first morning specifically so that if it was cancelled, we had two more days to try again. A couple we met booked for their last morning, got cancelled, and flew home heartbroken. Do not make their mistake.

The verdict

We spent more on that one hour than on several days of the rest of the trip, and I would do it again tomorrow. Some experiences are worth the wince. If your partner has been sending you those balloon photos, just book it — and pack a warm jacket for the 4am cold.