Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary Private Tour from Mexico City

This was an amazing expedition. Beto was so kind and accommodating, even brought us to get tacos on the way, some of the most amazing tacos I've ever had. The day started out cloudy but as we arrived the clouds parted and the butterflies came out! A perfect day, thank you Beto!

Viator was an easy online reservation service. Eduardo spoke excellent English and drove us(quickly) to a beautiful small reserve. He did not accompany us up the mountain- we paid additional money for the guide (required). Well worth it to have a private drive. Did not need to have an “English” guide, since there was little butterfly guiding done

This is not a private guided tour of the Butterfly Sanctuary for "just your party" or "at your pace" or "in English". It is advertised as all of those things. But in fact, is is just an English-speaking DRIVER TO the Sanctuary, which for Mexico, it is significantly overpriced. Once you get to the Sanctuary, the driver makes you go with a larger, only Spanish-speaking group and guide. You have to go at the group's pace and you cannot understand anything that the guide telling you about the butterflies. When I challenged Viator on these lies in the description, they said that since the "drop off and pick up were on time" that they consider the service to be fulfilled, which again indicates that this should be described as a super expensive driver, not as a private tour. I am continuing to escalate this scam and deception to Viator. And to top it all off, our driver spent most of the drive texting while driving, which is unsafe and even after I said that it made me nervous that he did that, he continued to do it for the entire ride. Do not pay for this!

Starting with our tour guide, Beto, who waited while we finished breakfast and shared info about CDMX on the way out of town and provided a comfortable van to sitting quietly, in awe amidst the monarchs on the hillside to the delicious lunch of handmade quesadillas the day could not have been more perfect. One in our party was not feeling 100% so she and another took horses up. Their guides were beyond supportive and ensured they were able to fully enjoy the experience. The hike up and into the forest is rigorous so take a horse if you’re at all inclined. Not to miss in season.

Great tour to the butterfly sanctuary, a very special thing to see. Very convenient to be able to access the reserve from Mexico City with Viator.

The butterflies were beautiful. The problem was we were supposed to have an English speaking tour guide, but we had no tour guide for the butterflies. We were put on horses with someone assigned to lead each horse, but no one who spoke English. We were a group who wanted to stay together but got separated. We were not told of the difficulty of this tour. I though we were going to ride horses the entire way. However after a short ride we had to get off the horses and make a very difficult climb up a mountain. Our group was told it was a 20 minute walk from there. We got no further information. We had to climb up a trail that became very steep and difficult. We had no one guiding us. After several minutes of difficult climbing, some of our group had to turn back. Others from our group were quite a ways ahead. Our group got separated. We had no leader. We did not know how far we had to go. We just kept climbing with no guidance. The two who turned back found that the horses were no longer where they were dropped off. It took over an hour to climb up and the descend again. Fortunately, my horse leader came back and found me and helped me back down the mountain. Except for the butterflies, we were very disappointed in this tour.

The tour was operated by Trip To Mexico. It was fantastic! Our guide, Beto, communicated with me using What's App the night before our tour, and arrived promptly at 9am to pick us up. He then took us to a bakery that we wanted to try, and waited patiently while we got our morning coffee and snacks to go : The tour was exactly what we wanted - basically, a personal driver who spoke excellent English and had interesting tips as we were driving through different parts of the city and the country. There were 5 of us, and we fit comfortably into the very clean mini-van. Beto waited while we explored the Sanctuary we did the horses - highly recommended! The horses cost 200 pesos bring cash and don't forget to tip!, which is what having a walking guide cost as well. No matter what, it was our understanding that you have to have a guide to go up the mountain. Drink a lot of water before you go!!! We stopped at a gas station to use the restroom and stocked up on the way. Beto was thoughtful and responsive - stopping at clean restrooms for us, a street-side food stand we saw, helping us order, etc. He let us listen to our music in the car and was totally an all-around dream. The butterflies are actually one of the most amazing things I've ever seen - everyone in our group was completely blown away and it was the highlight of our wonderful week-long vacation to CDMX!

Loved this tour. Our driver, Norberto, was such a nice guy and knowledgeable about the city. He even helped us with our Spanish. Drive is long so I recommend bringing water and snacks. The hike is tough, but very worth it. And definitely rent horses for the first leg of the hike! Highly recommend!

We had an overcast day so only a few butterflies were active but still it's quite a sight. We recommend taking the horses. Our driver -- Betto -- was lovely.

We had a wonderful day visiting the butterflies! Mario and Danielle were wonderful guides with excellent English. The car was immaculate and comfortable. We hired horses to do the beginning of the walk, which I highly recommend and then we walked further up the mountain searching for butterflies. Comfortable sturdy walking shoes definitely a must. We went at the very beginning of the migration so butterflies were high up on the mountain, but an amazing sight, certainly worth the effort. Saw them clustered on the trees and flying in the air. An amazing experience, highly recommend the trip.