Afraid of heights? No problem. The Suzuka Balloon Festival will satisfy your curiosity of ballooning, without letting you get carried away.

Not just hot air: Ballooning means more than just a ride in the clouds. The Suzuka Balloon Festival takes fans behind the scenes.

Suzuka, Mie Prefecture, hosts the festival from Sept. 18-20. The event offers a variety of hot air balloon-related activities (how to build them, touring inside them and lighting them up at night) — but riding in the aircraft is not one of them.

Instead, the aim is to educate more people about the concept of hot air ballooning as a sport, one the organizers hope will someday make it into the Olympics.