Top Arizona Kayaking Tours

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.

Robert was an absolutely FANTASTIC tour guide!! He was one of the first ones there in the morning, had all of our kayaks set up and ready to go even before the scheduled time. He was so friendly and helpful, and was a wealth of knowledge along with providing drinks and snacks! He took lots of photos of us during the trip, and send us the link within 2 hours of completion (the photos were free, too! So nice!!). We couldn’t have asked for anyone better. We thoroughly enjoyed the experience because of Robert!! Sure, you can save a few pennies to rent kayaks and do the trip on your own…but you won’t get any of the tidbits of information about the area. And THIS specific company did a fantastic job maintaining communication and making sure we were satisfied! There are SO many choices out there, but I’d highly recommend this one!!

Vince was an incredible tour guide with deep knowledge of the canyon, the river, and its history. Since our group was small, we got plenty of personal attention, tons of interesting information, and lots of time to explore the beautiful scenery at our own pace. He also shared great recommendations for things to do in Page—The Birdhouse was a standout! Overall, this was an amazing experience, and we made memories that will last a lifetime. I highly recommend this tour!

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.

We had such a great day with Johnny as our tour guide. Very laid back and no pressure to hurry and just an incredible day. Beautiful scenery and we had some fantastic guys from Canada on the tour that made it even more fun. I would go again in a heartbeat.

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.