Welcome to Whitewaterraftingcentral.com, the best place to find what you need about whitewater rafting in North America. We cover more than a dozen states, which we carefully selected as the premium areas for whitewater rafting. Don’t get us wrong, there may be some really great spots in rivers near you that we might have missed (which is rather unlikely, by the way), however, if you’re looking for the one-of-a-kind experience, well, you don’t get that in any random river, now do you?

Whitewaterraftingcentral.com features detailed maps of all the top rafting locations, along with practical information about how to get there, what companies run the trips, what companies TO CHOOSE, river difficulty, scenery descriptions and much more. We cannot stress enough how important is to choose the right river, the right time and the right place for whitewater rafting. That’s exactly why we are here. Make the correct decisions, and you will enjoy one of the greatest thrills mother nature can offer.

Here’s a fun fact for you – the United States has 3,500,000 miles of rivers. That’s quite a lot, isn’t it? This also means that no matter what you’re looking for in whitewater rafting – anything from a mild beginner’s ride through picturesque surroundings of a lazy afternoon to make it home just in time for dinner, to the ultimate life-threatening, hellish juggernaut challenges in the most out of control rivers of wild Arizona – you can be sure you will find what you’re looking for.

In the next pages we will get down to basic river classification, thus allowing you to easily check what you will be able to handle, and what not, for that matter. For all of you rafting rookies out there, we have prepared a whitewater rafting guide in order for you to get more closely acquainted with the important aspects of this great outdoors activity. So let us take a plunge deep in the breathtaking world of whitewater rafting, and may the adventures begin!

The most important part of the whole whitewater rafting concept is to choose the right river to go rafting on. This is not the time to act a hero and overestimate your capabilities. Whitewater rafting is not a game and you might even lose your life in the worst case scenario. While it might sound pretty exciting for some to be playing with their luck like that, we here at whitewaterraftingcentral.com strongly advice NOT to get over your head and pick something you’re not sure you are going to handle. This however applies to beginners only, because people with solid experience in whitewater rafting will already know what we are talking about.

Whitewater rafting is NOT like riding a rollercoaster or jumping with a parachute from an airplane. While these two activities mostly depend on your luck, whitewater rafting DIRECTLY relates to your own ability to perform swiftly and confidently. One wrong move and you might jeopardize the whole raft crew, especially in river areas of certain danger. A whole lot of different factors influence the whitewater rafting itself – the water flow rate, the obstacles in the water, the rapid speed – you name it. The people who operate the raft control the action – where to steer, what to avoid hitting; in general, how to act according to the situation is the choice of rafter himself/herself. The rest is - well, up to the river itself.

There is nothing to fear of, though. Ride the right river, and you’ll experience unbelievable thrills without any consequences. To make sure everything is under control, you just have to stick to the reasonable choices, for example if you haven’t yet done any whitewater rafting, don’t go trying to tame the mighty Colorado river. Think small in the start. To help you make sense of everything, we have set up some introductory whitewater rafting guide, in which we cover, among all things, the river rapids’ grading system, which is a very important aspect in choosing the river. The system breaks down the river complexity characteristics into six simple categories. Upon becoming familiar with what difficulties each category represents, you will be able to decide on the rivers that are right for you.

:: By the way, if you happen to not find something on our website you were looking for, feel free to check back later, we're constantly reviewing new material and updating our site. With best regards, the WWRC team ::