Is this a rip off or not? - bucket list number 1 holiday to Mexico

413x

413x

413x

Caporegime
Joined
13 Jan 2010
Posts
33,407
Location
Llaneirwg
I'm struggling to price if this is a fair price. I know it will be more expensive than DIY. But the numbers are big and I can't work out if it's ridiculously expensive or not.

Its 4.5k per person with naturetrek.

www.naturetrek.co.uk

Mexico's Monarchs, Humpbacks & Birds

Mexico is a vibrant country boasting an interesting natural history, as well as some stunning scenery and fascinating culture both past and ...
www.naturetrek.co.uk www.naturetrek.co.uk

-Mexico
-11 days
-with monarch butterfly migration and whale watching.
-Quite a lot of internal travel
-flights included (all of them)
-food/accommodation all. Included.
-Its a holiday from a nature tour company Naturetrek

I still think it's expensive vs paying yourself. But I'm finding it difficult to price using reliable sources.
Obviously flights are OK. But the tours? It's not easy finding highly rated ones in the country.

Also. I'd be relying on travelling around Mexico (including Mexico City) with my partner. I don't presume to know how safe that is or not.


Anyone have any suggestions or ideas of if this is 2x the cost of solo? Let's say its 2k more.
That's a household cost of 4k... A chunk of cash!
I will add that this is very important to get right. I don't want to save 1k (let's say) and screw up the holiday.

Any experiences would be highly appreciated. I've never been on a holiday like this.
 
Last edited:
The tourist areas tend to be fine, including Mexico City. Cartel violence tends to be in the north and border areas.

Obviously take the usual safety precautions that you would anywhere and try to avoid certain neighbourhoods. A tour group helps a lot with avoiding scams and knowing how to get to places and where to go so they are good. As for the price it's probably been too long since I went to advise, and it was a slightly different tour. It does sound a lot for 11 days on the face of it but then if it includes everything might be reasonable.
 
I live in Mexico and have travelled all over the country by car, either on my own or with my wife.

First of all, ignore people who say that you'll be murdered / kidnapped etc. If you stick to the major cities and travel via toll roads during the day, you are not putting yourself in any great danger. People who end up killed generally fall into two groups 1) people involved in drugs / crime or 2) people who go wandering off at night in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know about that specific tour, but the accommodation / food provided by tour companies is generally more expensive and not as good than what you can find yourself by using google / trip advisor etc. I don't know much about nature tours either, but if you give me a list of places where you'd like to visit I can recommend places to stay / avoid, or you can just search on booking.com / airbnb as you would anywhere else.

4.5k per person is a lot of money. Most decent hotels in Mexico are no more than 100GBP per night, and often less. Flights with Volaris and VivaAeroBus are similar to Ryanair / EasyJet. Car hire is similar in cost to the UK, and fuel is around 1GBP per litre. Of course, you are paying for the convenience, and the "safety" offered by using a company like that. Personally, I wouldn't entertain paying anywhere near that for a holiday in Mexico, but I understand why others may do so.

Happy to help you with planning etc if you need it.
 
Ive been on many trips with companies like that, mainly Exodus, Explore or Journey Latin America. The good thing about them is that no matter where you go, they make sure everything is safe (Ive spent weeks travelling in El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua and Guatemala which are supposed some of the top 10 the murder capitals of the world). You dont have to concern yourself about a thing, transport is always ready waiting for you, the guides are on hand all the time to sort things out for you and the information and knowledge from a local guide is well worth it. Even local places to eat are usually checked out to ensure western travellers dont get dodgy guts. If it really is a bucket list trip, why go and have to concern yourself with planning it yourself etc. Everything is taken care of for you and you can spend all your time enjoying all the things you went there for.

Edit: The wife and I did her bucket list trip this year and did a nature tour around Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands, it was expensive (just under £12k for the two of us) but it was an incredible experience and probably one of the best trips we have ever been on. Would happily do it all over again and Im not one for going to the same place twice with so many things to see around the world
 
Last edited:
While I can't speak specific to Mexico but as far as safety goes with these kind of places if you take the advice seriously, stick to the main tourist areas, etc. you have to be really unlucky to have a problem - these countries generally do not want anything happening to tourists. If you want to explore further afield a reputable guide or being friends with someone locally would be highly advised. When things tend to happen is when people don't take the advice seriously or worse are flippant about it - some of these places really are dangerous but generally only if you put yourself in danger.
 
I cant help with the question but going to mention again something i bang on about that's totally life changing and if you have up to 35 days (we did in 31) to spare to walk across Spain the Camino francés is next level awesome.
Yes i am a little off subject but like to plant this seed of an idea when i can, yourube is full of vids on it, one thing i did find annoying was people paying to have their packs transported between stages (maybe 15 miles daily stages) when one of the lessons is to only carry what you absolutely need,
moon man bangs on off subject/ The accommodation we used was the basic free, donation only or Albugues that you need the Camino passport to stay at but maybe 10 euro max a night,
I really need to do it again
 
I crossed the US border into Mexico once. Immediately crossed straight back because it looked like guaranteed death.

Hopefully some package trip like this means reasonable precautions are taken, but I wouldn't risk it personally, if you get in a sticky situation in Mexico ur donezo.
 
Mexico is fine as long as you are sensible. I've been a couple of times, like another poster said just use your head, its like Brazil which is safe as long as you are sensible.

Sounds like an amazing trip, yeah maybe you could do it a little cheaper if you worked it al out yourself but if you just want to sit back and enjoy the experience then £4k sounds fine to me.
 
Do you know what level accommodation/food is? If it's 2 star with dodgy street food, then 4.5k seems steep. If it's 4 star+ within decent food, then that seems acceptable to me, especially if it's on your bucket list.

DIY might save you a few quid, and I often would when booking a holiday, but not when it's a niche trip in a country I know very little about.
 
geekman said:
I live in Mexico and have travelled all over the country by car, either on my own or with my wife.

First of all, ignore people who say that you'll be murdered / kidnapped etc. If you stick to the major cities and travel via toll roads during the day, you are not putting yourself in any great danger. People who end up killed generally fall into two groups 1) people involved in drugs / crime or 2) people who go wandering off at night in the middle of nowhere.

I don't know about that specific tour, but the accommodation / food provided by tour companies is generally more expensive and not as good than what you can find yourself by using google / trip advisor etc. I don't know much about nature tours either, but if you give me a list of places where you'd like to visit I can recommend places to stay / avoid, or you can just search on booking.com / airbnb as you would anywhere else.

4.5k per person is a lot of money. Most decent hotels in Mexico are no more than 100GBP per night, and often less. Flights with Volaris and VivaAeroBus are similar to Ryanair / EasyJet. Car hire is similar in cost to the UK, and fuel is around 1GBP per litre. Of course, you are paying for the convenience, and the "safety" offered by using a company like that. Personally, I wouldn't entertain paying anywhere near that for a holiday in Mexico, but I understand why others may do so.

Happy to help you with planning etc if you need it.
Click to expand...

It wouldn't be so popular if the murder stuff was real.

Appreciate this. I might lean on you a bit. Planning this trip at the moment.
 
To sum up all the replies.

I accept it's Over the odds. But I keep looking at the itinery and thinking "350 pounds a day" and thinking.. Can I justify that?
Its actually 1 day less in reality.

I know Mexico is relatively cheap. And looks like flights are about 800.
So looking at 3700.

It still seems a lot.

For me the bucket list is the monarch butterflies. For my partner it's the whales.
Then there's the travelling between.

But it's hard to find reliable tours for the monarchs with people's actual pictures rather than promo shots.

I can't help but think I could do the bulk on 2k-3k each. So it's 1.5k (or 3k household) worth the hassle factor?

I mean, that's the cost of our car!

But there's a lot to be said about faff factor. This would obviously take all that out. If I was going on my own, I'd probably just do the monarchs, visit the east cost and go home. And so it on my own. The whales are on the west coast. And adds a lot of travel.

As to the accommodation.. I expect it's varied. Probably an average of 3*.

I'm swinging to just paying, and going. I'll only go once. It's only money, you only live once sort of thing.

If I was putting it into hard numbers.. 1k per person of extra is fine, happy to pay that for ease, guarantees etc. 2k becomes... Unpleasant. That's another great holiday there.


I will ring up for sure. Aware that they will want a sale. But I'll try and get some details.
 
Last edited:
My workmates Uncle lives there. It is a very dangerous place. Just take good advice before you go and dont wander off as mentioned above.
 
had my honeymoon in Mexico, absolutely loved it, i hope to go back one day. we got so much more for our money than the other shortlisted destination (Hawaii)

we were on a resort but did some trips out and about whilst there that we sorted ourselves and not once did i feel remotely uncomfortable (unlike when i went on holiday to South Africa where i was robbed - tho i found it hard to blame them such was the life they had, and the horrible divide between the haves and have nots there!)
 
Last edited:
As someone who generally goes for the 'self planned' approach, I'll admit there's something to be said about handing that off to someone else even knowing it's paying over the odds.

If the planning time and effort is something you and your partner will enjoy (or maybe just not hate) then I would say go for it. If there's a risk of it talking all your free time between now and the trip or causing a bit of friction between you then that's when I'd say the tour package earns it's money, especially if you'll forget about the extra cost after a few months. Both options are equally valid which I guess is why you've come asking the question.

When we go away we quite like the freedom to modify plans if we can, so generally have a bit of slack in our timings if it's the kind of place where accommodation can be extended cheaply and easily. Sometimes you get there and find you wished you had more or less time one place or another. Unfortunately I don't have any experience of Mexico to say if that's an option. The other consideration could be the size of the tour group (I don't know if that's listed anywhere). Doing it alone if you could book on the same type of tours but in say a group of 10 rather than 30 that's going to feel a lot nicer.

Also, as much as I hate myself for suggesting it, could Instagram and tiktok (*shudder*) help with your monarch tour search? It might be that a lot of people share photos and videos there and possibly tag the tour operator rather than take the time to write a proper review these days. Not something I've tried personally as I usually find a combination of the reviews on Google maps and TripAdvisor have enough info. Surprised you've said a lot are just promo shots which I'd agree would put me right off trusting them.

Hope my waffling helps!
 
Last edited:
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom