Want to try something different? Try and ride a segway. I took a tour in St. Petersburg Florida about the town’s history, but the tour was very different from any normal tour. It was a tour on segways. I thought that the idea of having a tour on segways was a cool idea because most people have never ridden one. The added variable of learning how to ride a segway while taking a tour of a place you haven’t been before can make for a fun experience.

Before the tour started the guide gave us a brief tutorial on how to ride the segways. This was useful because none of us have ever ridden a segway. The controls are very different compared to any other motorized vehicle. To move all you have to do is lean in the direction you want to travel. To turn there is a handle you can twist left or right. And as for the brakes… there are no brakes! To stop you have to lean in the opposite direction you are moving, if you are moving forward lean backward. Of course this can take some getting used to, but after the guide told me that he has had 80 and 90 year old people on his tour I figured that surely I could manage. Besides I consider playing my friends Wii games that require the balance board practice because the feeling of riding a segway is very similar.

As the tour was taken from location to location I noticed that the segway would push back at me if I went too fast. This is a safety feature that the segway has. If you lean too far forward it thinks that you are falling and tries to correct your balance, the slower the speed cap the easier it is to do this. Eventually the guide set the segways to a higher speed cap so we could go faster :) . The guide said that the top speed of each segway is about 15 miles per hour.

After showing some historic buildings, some interesting trees that had a history in the town, a horse drawn carriage that held a couple that had just been married, a palm tree paradise that had numerous types of palm trees, a bay side beach filled with tanning natives (not Indians, people who live in St. Petersburg), and a floating wedding chapel the tour was over. It lasted about an hour and a half, but it seemed much shorter. Usually when you feel like you have lost time you most likely had a good time. Needless to say I had a great time and really enjoyed the segway tour and if you are looking for something different to do for fun look into it.