Tropical Birding ToursReviews of tropicalbirding.com

Chuck Hung was an excellent guide and I recommend him strongly. Chuck knew good local restaurants. He speaks excellent English, with minimum confusion, mostly over the bird's name. He worked long days and kept the group moving. Chuck also brought extra equipment such as a laser, a parabolic microphone, good bird recordings and bright flashlights for owl prowls. Chuck did all the eBird checklists for the group. I would like to travel again, with Chuck, especially to China. The English speaking Tropical Guide was great about repeating the bird's name, sometimes several times (if requested). However, he showed some preference for one specific participant, over the others. Also, he showed variation in willingness to pay for breakfast & lunch food items (at Seven-Eleven's), from one participant to another. Towards the end of the tour, he seemed distracted, less engaged.

Tropical Birding offers several packages to Ecuador. We took the Andes Introtour and the High Andes 2-day extension. All the accommodations were properly arranged in advance. We arrived a day early, staying that extra night in the same hotel reserved for the night before the tour proper, the very high-class Hotel Quito. We were a little uneasy at first at not finding anyone from the tour until the morning we set out, when we were met cordially by our guide Jose. A more enthusiastic, good-natured, hard-working guide could not be imagined. There were only 4 of us, + guide and driver "Edison" so we all fit into the van w/o trouble. Other trips may have more customers so this may not be typical. The birding sites were well chosen and many en route to and from the Tandayapa Lodge where we stayed 5 nights.This arrangement is more convenient, in my opinion, than frequent changes of abode with all the hassle and extra driving involved - an advantage perhaps of being in a small country. For the high Andes extension we stayed at Hotel Rincon, near the airport and from there left early for the high country, then after a full day, back down and overnight at another lodge, the Guandos, somewhat lower down. From there back up to the Alto Plano for another half-day. Even w/o actually staying overnight in the mountains, we highly recommend taking this extension since you will see birds found nowhere else. Mornings are indeed cold, as warned, but if anything we were over-prepared with warm clothing. The last day finished with a morning birding the extensive grounds of the Guandos Lodge. The hummer feeders here are as active and viewer-friendly as any. This lodge, btw, is a historical building going back 1/2 a century, worth a stay in its own right. The food here is a specialty - traditionally Andean and excellent. Indeed everywhere we stayed the food was delightful and plentiful and dietary restrictions respected - never a problem. Our guide Jose was experienced, knew what species to expect where, tried hard to get us all on the birds, using a laser pointer with skill. If anyone was troublesome (not saying anyone was) he got past it with infectious humor. I would ask for him specifically if I ever return to Ecuador. Our driver Edison, not speaking English, interacted less with us but was always helpful. He did me many small several favors over and above the call of duty. Lastly, Eco-tours made the arrangements for us to stay at 2 Jocotoco Foundation sanctuaries for 2 days each. These were experiences for the hardier birder. Since not run by Eco-tours this is not the place to review them, but just to say the accommodations - individual cabins - were delightful, as was the lodge dining. Good trail maps are available on site. But be warned too - no one on the staffs speaks English and it would be advisable to have mastered some Spanish beforehand. There are no guides on site except as you might arrange in advance. Also the driving times are much longer than you would expect from the map.(Cab service was provided as part of the package). But all in all we would not have missed this part of our visit for worlds. A final note - Ecuador is a friendly country. Everyone we met was courteous and polite, and when drivers passing us walking along the road tapped their horn it was in greeting, not irritation.

Trip didn’t go so review process is redundant.

I have done several Tropical Birding tours, and easily rank them amongst the very best companies in the birding tour business. The itineraries are always very well laid out and with extremely capable guides. Highly recommended and good value when compared to the other alpha companies specializing in this genre. My most recent tour was an extensive tour of eastern Australia, with many incredible sightings along the way and practically no misses of animals we had a high likelihood of seeing.

It was a great custom birding/photography tour to Costa Rica. The pre-trip information supplied by Tropical Birding was very helpful in presenting our intinerary, and packing in preparation and planning for the trip. All arrangements for flights and pickup went smoothly. Our lodgings were unique, scenic, comfortable and beautiful. The food was varied, plentiful and delicious. Our guide, Fito Downs was knowledgeable, professional and courteous, He definitely knew The Who, What, When, Where and How to ensure we saw and could photograph the birds we had traveled to Costa Rica to see. He was especially able to quickly spot & identify birds/wildlife and then proceed to set up the spotting scope in seconds to enable each of us to see beyond the limitations of our own spotting skills and the power of our individual binoculars. Beyond the tourist resorts which were our lodging, our guide Fito also selected smaller interesting diverse local restaurants for lunch which greatly added to our satisfaction and enjoyment with the tour. Fito provided a variety of activities, early morning, morning , afternoon and evening where we could personally pick between walks, drives around our resorts as well as numerous excursions to explore adjacent areas to suit our personal desires and energy levels. At our request Fito also identified and took us to some good places for purchasing mementos and even gave us tips on value shopping in Costa Rico. The trip had a number of magical moments which were all facilitated by Fito including the joy of watching hummingbirds bathe in small pools of a jungle stream at dusk at Rancho Naturalista, the wonder of observing a mother moth and her baby in the trees ,and the incredible birdwatching at los Cusingos Bird Sanctuary. Our driver, Mauricio, was also professional and careful driving (in some crazy traffic) our small but comfortable bus/van. The thing I would change is to add a few more days to the trip to allow more downtime. I highly recommend this company and this tour guide, Fito Downs.

This last trip to Australia was not as good as other trips Ive taken with you. The guide was full of himself and catered to one couple blantantly and a couple of the accommodations were filthy and buggy. The guide and two of the other people were photographers also and we spend quite a bit of time waiting for them to get the perfect shot! This was not a photo trip!

Birding was the best we've had. Our guide Ken Behrens was the author of the book Wildlife of Madagascar. The lodging, food, guides, and the people of Madagascar were wonderful. We will do future Tropical Birding trips.

Highly recommend Tropical Birding. Knowledgeable guides, great variety of locations and different types/lengths of vacations. The birding with cameras was perfect for me as a photographer/birder and my birder husband. Will book with them again.