Top Arizona Kayaking Tours

Griffin at River Dogz helped me create a memorable day for my granddaughter. We all fell in love with kayaking and now want one. I'm a second time client and apparently my husband wants to go now too! Everyone at River Dogs is committed to making sure you are #1 safe and #2 have a great day! I’m bringing another group in a few weeks!

We did the 6:30am kayak and it was simply amazing. We were able to have a great experience before the heat and crowds came. We saw tons do wildlife. The morning sun off the water and canyon shadows was so beautiful. Our guide was so knowledgeable and make the experience so memorable.

It’s a wonderful paddle on the Colorado River with stunning views. The trip is 4 miles round trip and an easy paddle unless the winds are high. I definitely recommend a guided tour - we had Anthony and he was great! The shuttle leaves from Mandalay Bay and is about an hour’s drive to the launch site. The cave itself is cool but, as Anthony told us, it’s more about the journey than the destination. Expect to wait (45-60 minutes) to enter and only spend 5-10 minutes in the cave itself. Overall I highly recommend if you want to get out of the city and explore the beautiful desert scape.

We had the best experience on this expedition. The organisation was perfect, regular contact throughout, pickup on time, 2 great friendly and knowledgeable guides, Jeff and Emma made this our greatest experience. So friendly and patient, we had such a laugh, having never used a kayak before the instructions were clear, simple and the kayaks were brilliant, food was great, even went for a swim after lunch and as promised the river took our breathe away for the first few seconds but shortly after it was such a nice swim, we got back into the kayaks and wanted to swim again, would highly recommed this 🏊‍♂️. Followed by a casual row back we kind of started a massive water fight which im sorry but I definitely won 🤪 as we approached the shore where we started Jeff gave a great speech that really touches your heart and makes you understand that even with all the entainment available, a great trip through mother nature can bring you peace and sometimes thats all you need ❤️ Thank you evolution expeditions, this memory will never be forgotten. ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ From your Troublesome 2 from England UK Tom senior and Tom Junior 🤪🫶✌️

Went on the guided tour with Emmett (spelling?) as our guide. Our guide was very knowledgeable and confident and gave us a sense of ease. The sights were gorgeous and the water was nice. Would highly recommend getting food after the kayaking trip because the food is great, and competitively and fairly priced. I think you should go with more people on a guided tour because honestly, the more the merrier but it wasn’t bad with the little group we had. Would definitely do it again!

My 13 y.o. son and I booked a guided kayak trip down the Verde River. Guides Lindsey and Cooper were awesome! Everything was very convenient - they had us park our car down river near where the trip would end, then they drove us upriver to the starting point of our trip and where the kayaks were. They gave us some instruction on how to handle the kayak and we spent a few minutes practicing in a wide part of the river where the water was slow moving. One guide led the way, giving instructions on the best way to navigate down river. The second guide followed behind to make sure no one fell behind. The nice thing is that our tour included only people from our party - they do not mix groups of people who don’t know each other. In our case this was only 2 people, so for my son and I, it felt like a very private tour. We timed our trip around my son’s spring break, which turned out to be perfect time of year to explore northern Arizona. At 10am on the day of our tour, it was maybe a little cool, but warming up fast to around 85 degrees at the end. There’s lots of tree cover so we didn’t spend much time in direct sunlight. Fortunately the water level of the river was good enough that grounding was not a serious problem. There were a few places where the bottom of my boat did contact a sandbar, but nothing requiring me to get out and pull the boat to deeper water, though YMMV. I did get myself into trouble early and ended up capsizing, but Lindsey and Cooper kept everything under control and got me back in my boat quickly. There were some faster moving sections of water in places. I’m not sure if it is correct to call them rapids or not, but it definitely made things more interesting - in a good way! If you’ve done white water rafting or kayaking before, then these ‘rapids’ would bore you, but for someone like me, who has only ever kayaked in calm lakes, it was a little shot of excitement sandwiched between some rather calm and serene stretches of river. My son and I had a great time and we highly recommend booking a tour with Lindsey and Cooper.

This experience was great and well worth it. Our tour guide Burton made the experience as best as it could be. It was awesome to have a guide who really took great care in ensuring we had an excellent experience - in every way - logistics, communication, information, pictures, the list goes on. It was truly refreshing to have someone so passionate about ensuring a great time. Even though one has to spend a significant time in the car, the day completely flew by and was engaging the whole time. In terms of the sights, those speak for themselves!!

Wonderful and worth every dollar! Blazing Paddles tour guide Eugene was so enjoyable, full of info and little stories. We did the /2 day Emerald Cave Tour. We were all experienced with kayaking so no lessons were needed, but he did give little tips and offered to help with everything. I did think the caverns would be larger, or able to kayak through them. But there were lots of beautiful views with a little hike for a snack and stretch break and photo ops. Highly recommend this adventure.