The Adrenaline Capitals of the UK

It’s no secret that we love adrenaline here at Geronigo. We’re constantly looking for the next big adventure. We’ve traveled high and low across the country to find the best experiences, which got us thinking – where in the UK has the highest concentration of adrenaline junkies? 

So we decided to analyse over 1 million activity bookings at nearly 2000 activity locations to find out the adrenaline ratio.

You might be surprised to hear that the top of the list is Woking, which is home to the highest concentration of adrenaline-seekers in the UK, with an adrenaline ratio of 5.2. This means 1 in 5.2 residents have taken part in an extreme activity at some point, so with a total population of 105,367 that equates to 20,232 adrenaline junkies living in Woking alone!

The UK’s Capitals of Adrenaline

Interestingly, there were two main areas where the top adrenaline hubs were located, one being the Greater London area, and the other being the Northwest of England. Quad biking tended to be much more popular in the north of the country, with more southerners favouring laser tag. 

We love that as many as 1 in 5 people are taking part in adrenaline-fuelled activities, particularly in this digital age. There is often a perception that more and more people are living life indoors and online, but clearly a large chunk of the population are keen to get out and about, sharing exciting experiences with their friends and family. 

The UK’s Top 5 Adrenaline activities

We also looked at the top activities across the country. Paintball was by far the UK’s most popular activity, featuring as the top activity of choice for 19 of the top 20 towns.

The UK’s Top 5 Adrenaline activities are: 

1. Paintball
2. Karting
3. Quad biking
4. Laser tag 
5. Airsoft 

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The full data set

Geronigo’s research was conducted by analysing the data from over 1 million activity bookings at nearly 2000 locations around the UK. The adrenaline ratio was calculated by dividing each town’s population (according to the most recent census) by the number of activity bookings for each town. This was also done on an activity-by-activity basis to identify the most popular activities for each town. 

The full top 25 data set is available here:

Rank	Town	Ratio	1st	:	2nd	:	3rd	:
1	Woking	5.2	Paintball	9.6	Karting	27.3	Laser	71.8
2	Watford	5.3	Paintball	10.7	Karting	21	Laser	87.1
3	Crawley	5.8	Paintball	12.6	Quads	41	Karting	43.5
4	Maidstone	7	Paintball	15.3	Karting	34.6	Quads	53.5
5	Basildon	7.1	Paintball	15.2	Karting	38.8	Laser	68
6	Slough	7.4	Paintball	13.2	Karting	28.3	Laser	105.4
7	Gillingham	7.7	Paintball	16.3	Karting	40.4	Laser	65.8
8	Chelmsford	7.7	Paintball	14.9	Karting	40	Laser	70.9
9	Wigan	8.4	Karting	21.6	Paintball	24.4	Quads	59
10	Luton	9.8	Paintball	17.7	Karting	42.7	Quads	120.2
11	Rochdale	9.8	Paintball	23.3	Karting	30.2	Quads	81.6
12	Stockport	9.9	Paintball	23.1	Karting	27.9	Quads	128
13	Basingstoke	10.5	Paintball	18.2	Karting	59.4	Quads	114.5
14	Warrington	12	Paintball	31.1	Karting	35.5	Quads	84.1
15	Blackburn	12	Paintball	25.4	Karting	48.5	Quads	80
16	Sutton Coldfield	12.3	Paintball	24.9	Karting	62.9	Quads	98.4
17	Milton Keynes	12.5	Paintball	21.2	Karting	61.2	Quads	150
18	Birkenhead	12.7	Paintball	34.7	Karting	42.3	Quads	72.6
19	Rotherham	13.4	Paintball	27.6	Karting	53.9	Quads	138.5
20	Worthing	13.6	Paintball	28.5	Quads	64	Airsoft	204
21	Huddersfield	13.7	Paintball	32.3	Karting	49.3	Quads	87.3
22	Oxford	14.1	Karting	14.1	Paintball	43.8	Quads	134.9
23	Southend-on-Sea	15.3	Paintball	15.3	Laser	117.4	Quads	132.1
24	Croydon	16	Paintball	16	Karting	76.9	Quads	202.3
25	Bolton	16.3	Paintball	16.3	Karting	74.1	Quads	90