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Mindo Private Day Tour: Hummingbirds, Waterfalls, Jungle ...

Recommended by 97% of travelers
Quito, Ecuador
Great choice
5+ bookings last month.
  • 8 to 9 hours (approx.)
  • Pickup offered
  • Group discounts
  • Mobile ticket
  • Offered in: English

Overview

Spend a day away from the city and immerse yourself in nature on this private tour from Quito. Head to the Mindo Cloud Forest, a biodiverse region on the end of the western Andes Mountains, and admire the beautiful nature that surrounds you. Then, choose from an array of optional activities like ziplining, tubing, and a chocolate tour, or simply enjoy a hike through the jungle. Round-trip transit helps make this experience seamless.
  • This tour makes exploring the Mindo Cloud Forest seamless
  • Customize your tour with a range of possible experiences
  • Enjoy hassle-free transfers from your central Quito hotel or airport
  • Receive more personalized attention on a private tour

What's Included

  • A Professional Guide/Driver with private vehicle
  • Quito Pick up or includes transfer from the airport if needed.
  • Activities based on your expectations
  • Travel Insurance
  • Meals
    $7.00 per person
  • Entrance fees
    $15.00 per person

Meeting and Pickup

Pickup points

Select a pickup point

Pickup details

Pick-up from the Quito Airport is offered at no extra cost

Operating hours
.7:30 am

Itinerary

Quito (Pass By)

1

Tarabita y Santuario de Cascadas Mindo

1 hour Admission Ticket Not Included

2

Mariposas de Mindo

1 hour Admission Ticket Not Included

3

Las Cotingas Bird Reserve

1 hour Admission Ticket Not Included

4

Mindo Canopy Adventures

1 hour Admission Ticket Not Included

5

Alambi Reserve

1 hour Admission Ticket Not Included

Additional Info

  • Confirmation will be received at time of booking
  • Not wheelchair accessible
  • Near public transportation
  • Not recommended for travelers with back problems
  • Not recommended for pregnant travelers
  • Most travelers can participate
  • This is a private tour/activity. Only your group will participate

Cancellation Policy

You can cancel up to 24 hours in advance of the experience for a full refund.

Traveler Photos

Gallery picture 1 (from a traveler's review)
Gallery picture 2 (from a traveler's review)
Gallery picture 3 (from a traveler's review)
Gallery picture 4 (from a traveler's review)
Gallery picture 5 (from a traveler's review)

Featured review

Charlotte_A
Fantastic day with Renaa! We loved having a private tour as we could personalise our day, and take it at our pace. Renaa was the perfect guide, really friendly and knowledgable. Definitely recommend this tour!

Reviews

4.9
based on 144 reviews
Total reviews and rating from Viator & Tripadvisor

Perfect day in Mindo with Renaa

Charlotte_A, Nov 2025
Fantastic day with Renaa! We loved having a private tour as we could personalise our day, and take it at our pace. Renaa was the perfect guide, really friendly and knowledgable. Definitely recommend this tour!

lovely day but was unlucky 1

andy_R, Jul 2025
the trip takes around 2 hrs to get there approx and you will have a range of activities to chose from some more adventurous than others

Friendly, knowledgeable...

Mark_M, Jul 2025
Friendly, knowledgeable guide and driver. Great patience and flexibility in arranging stops and schedule to focus on our interests.

Great day in Mindo area

Kathleen_W, May 2025
Did the bird watching tour with Eduardo. It was great, especially the hummingbirds flying all around you.

A fantastic day in Mindo

Ian_G, May 2025
For a single day experience we felt we had an incredibly full and excellent itinerary. Joswe was a knowledgeable and fun guide and we would highly recommend him to anyone visiting Ecuador.

Full day Mindo Cloud Forest (Tailor-made tour)

Nigel_F, Apr 2025
Excellent day with very knowledgable guide. Very diverse trip which was geared to our needs. Humming birds were a fantastic surprise

Go to Mindo!

Les_A, Apr 2025
This was a really lovely tour, though I think it would have been wiser for me to wait until I had been at this altitude for more than 16 hours, as the hike to the waterfall would not have been strenuous normally but it required more stopping and I noticed my elevated heart rate (my usual workouts includes swimming 1.5 miles three times a week to give you a sense of my fitness level) I appreciated that I got to pick and choose what to do, and that my tour guide suggested that an earlier start time would mean less traffic and smaller crowds. We hiked to a waterfall and took the tarabita back, I did the two course zipline, butterfly refuge and hummingbird refuge. Seeing all the hummingbirds and having them sit on my hand or hover over it to drink nectar was a peak experience. My guide was great, helped me practice my Spanish and was able to give me a translation whenever I needed to ask for a word in English, had lots of knowledge about the ecosystem, and was also wonderful with finding foods that meet my rather extensive dietary needs. At one point, he noticed people standing off to the side of the road, next to a parked car, and using binoculars to look at a tree, and he asked them what bird it was, and then pulled over so that I could see it, too. Apparently common potoos are not that common!

Brilliant tour of Mindo

Eve_G, Apr 2025
We had an amazing day exploring Mindo and surroundings. Very flexible guide with great knowledge, many thanks for a brilliant tour 😊

A taste of Ecuador’s Beauty

Myra_M, Apr 2025
Door to door service! We were promptly picked up from our hotel in Quito. Carolina our naturalist guide was “the best” guide. She has an extensive background and her explanations of what we were seeing along the way and at each of our stops was excellent. My favourite stop was our stop to feed the hummingbirds. This is a must do tour! This Mindo Cloud Forest is a taste of the nature and beauty you will see in Ecuador. The hike in the first to the waterfall and the cable car ride across the forest was fun too ( if you are not fearful of heights) Thank you Carolina for a great day!

A day of fun and bird watching

Bharani_Y, Apr 2025
Eduardo was very helpful and we thoroughly enjoyed the trip watching hummingbirds and hiking and zip lining.

Great tour and guide.

Peter_C, Mar 2025
The day was fantastic and educational. The hummingbird viewing was a mazing and the coffee tour at the same location was very educational. The car was comfortable and the guide was great. He was very knowledgeable, and was very patient, allowing us to visit the butterfly farm and orchid garden even though we were running late and it would have impacted his family.

It’s all about the guide you get sometimes

NicoleL_S, Feb 2025
We loved this tour above all the other tours we have done in our short 5 day trip to Quito. Giovanni was our tour guide and he made this tour the highlight of our trip. He was so nice and spoke very good English which was helpful for us and he was very informative the whole day. He gave us the opportunity to pick and choose what we wanted to do and even gave us some unique/ cultural experiences of things in town we didn’t know about that we were so happy to experience. He was kind and patient and you never feel rushed at all. We did the humming bird feeding which was our most favorite and it was amazing, we did the 10 zip lines which took about an hour to do and we say one of the waterfalls which was beautiful. We decided to skip the butterfly thing and did the chocolate tasting which was nice. This tour you are able to do a lot in one day with a very informative guide. Thank you Giovanni for making our trip so great!

Great experience. Our...

Michael_T, Feb 2025
Great experience. Our guide, Eduardo, was prompt for pickup, made sure to organize our day according to our wants, and provided some interesting insight into Ecuadorean culture.

So much in one day it's hard to describe!

Adam_M, Jan 2025
Giovanni is a gem of a guide. Fluent in English and everything was perfectly timed. Picking us up promptly at 7:30am, we were in the cloud forest before other tour groups, and started the day with a stop at the hummingbird garden with a plantain tasting. Then for breakfast, Giovanni brought us to a local place where we tried two tasty, filling local dishes and got to try tamarillo juice. Next was the serene waterfall hike and cable car, then up the road to the butterfly garden. Finally we went into Mindo for encebollado (fish soup) and a chocolate tasting. Once back in Quito, Giovanni let us stop to try some cuy (bbq guinea pig) before visiting La Mitad del Mundo. A jampacked, amazing day.

HIGHLY RECOMMEND

Makayla_O, Jan 2025
We had the best time with our tour guide! This was a very beautiful day trip that we are so happy that we got to experience… it was one of our favorite parts of the trip. It’s very flexible where you can pick whatever you and your group what to do for the day based on all the activities offered. We had SO MUCH FUN

Outstanding Experience

Nancy_P, Dec 2024
It was a wonderful introduce to Quito. Loved the drive to the Mindo Rainforest, the hummingbird experience was memorable, & the gondola ride with the hike to the waterfall was special especially with Eduardo as our guide.

Perfect day tour!

Veronique_B, Nov 2024
Marcelo and Eduardo where amazing guides, full of knowledge. They really adapted the tour for our physical condition and center of interest. They shared plenty of nice tips with us also! That what we call a perfect day!

Fantastic Excursion to Mindo!

Michael_W, Nov 2024
We booked this private tour as part of our honeymoon in Ecuador and definitely recommend it for a fantastic day trip to Mindo, when staying in Quito! Our guide was Giovanni, who spoke fluent English. He was incredibly knowledgable and taught us a lot during the day. We were able to choose what we wanted to do, including a bonus trip to the Pululahua crater which we'd not been able to get to the day before. We saw the highlights advertised on this tour (hummingbirds, butterflies, waterfalls, tarabita cable car) and also got some extra little local experiences (e.g. sampling the fire water). Great day out!

A great day at Mindo

SUSAN_N, Nov 2024
This involves a long 2.5 hour drive from Quito to the Mindo rain forest but the scenery is interesting and for me it was worth it. Giovanni was my driver and guide and he did an excellent job arranging a customised itinerary as per my requests. He provided extensive explanations during the drive and introduced me to some great Ecuadorean foods along the way. The stop at the hummingbird site was wonderful. The guides at Mindo Ziplines were very friendly and professional and took great videos of my flights over the forest. The hike through the forest to the waterfall was very pleasant but the trail was rough in some places and I was glad to make part of the return by cable car. The butterfly farm was interesting and very colourful although I thought the admission price was a little steep compared to other places. Overall however I had a great day.

Mindo Cloud Forest - private tour

Chad_G, Nov 2024
Carolina did an amazing job! She was very knowledgeable about the Cloud Forest area and took us to a great local restaurant. We completed many different activities even with all the busy holiday traffic. She went above and beyond. Very memorable trip!!

Giovanni is a great tour guide!

sanathvkumar, Nov 2024
The hummingbird feeding, the hike, the waterfall, and our guide, Giovanni! He was awesome! The lunch in Mindo, with vegetarian ceviche

Absolutely Perfect Day

Terri_V, Oct 2024
What a perfect day we had with our tour guide, Marcelo. He was the most knowledgeable for this day possible. We were never rushed and had such a wonderful day. We started with the bird watching with the hi light of having hummingbirds eat out of our hands. All so memorable and Marcelo made sure the moments were captured. The cloud forest hike was beautiful with Marcelo able to answer any and all questions. We ended with a great chocolate tasting. I highly recommend!

Go to Mindo

Spott_S, Sep 2024
What a memorable tour. It is rare to feel the flutter of a hummingbirds wings as it lands on your hand. Not to mention the many different types of birds. Giovanny is a great tour guide for the area and for the history, If you are thinking of going, go.

A definite must-do!

James_P, Aug 2024
Our guide Marcelo was a fountain of knowledge with infectious enthusiasm! Would do it all over again with him.

Amazing tours provided by Eduardo!

Elizabeth_P, Jun 2024
Eduardo picked my friend and I up at our Airbnb location in Quito and drove us 2 hours to Mindo. He also gave us all the options of activities we could do while we were there. We took the cable car and then hiked to a beautiful waterfall (~30min there, then 30min back), then we went to lunch in town, which was amazing. We then did both a coffee-making a chocolate making tour (which was WAY better than I had anticipated), followed by hand feeding humming birds while looking over the Andies. Best tour I've been on in a while - I completely recommend it!

Not value for money

Fiona_L, Jun 2024
We recently booked a day trip to Mindo Cloud Forest. We would have liked clearer information of pricing structure, and information as to whether the tour was a private or group tour. Also, on reflection, information on available activity options before we set out. On top of the tour price, we were continually required to pay seperate admission fees for all the attractions we were taken to. It turned out to be a very expensive day. Eduardo was our guide. He was great with providing interesting commentary during our trip, and was happy to answer our many questions. As good as Eduardo was, this tour was NOT value for money.

Response from Host, Jun 2024

Thanks Fiona for the review. However, The tour program explains is a tour where the entrance fees are not including because you have to choose the activities are expecting. Too, the itinerary indicated the cost of the entrance fees. Before the tour we send you a message where we suggested to bring cash for the entrance fees. In addition, the tour indicates is a group tour (shared). Despite of our departures are shared we did a private tour in that booking. Also, our rates are based on market research.

Great day out in the nature of Andean foothills

FBI, Jun 2024
Private bird sanctuary great for photos and videos. Lovely river walk and sampled some highland coffee. Teleferico across the ravine at tarabita to the waterfalls trail, not great if you have a fear of heights. The walk requires some fitness, involves forest paths leading down about 20 storeys and back up again on the return. Waterfalls are splendid.

Incredible

Rosa_B, May 2024
Eduardo was on time and very knowledgeable of the area. My daughter and I had an amazing time enjoying nature.

Great tour and guide

yoru85, May 2024
My guide Eduardo was great, I really loved this tour and once you get to Mindo you can choose which activity you'd like to do (after the waterfall hike). The lunch spot he's chosen for our meal was great too and can't fault che chocolate tasting! I also really liked the drive, the road is new so it's very comfortable and the views are beautiful

Worth it just for the hummingbirds

Victoria_M, May 2024
I was expecting the hummingbird place to be packed and for us to be quite far away, but we were really close and the only ones there. They even land on your hand. The walk to the waterfalls was lovely and tailored to our mini group (4 of us). There were options for the rest of the afternoon and we choice the butterfly house. That wasn't my favourite bit, but you could choose coffee making instead.

From $134.00

per person

up to 24 hours before the experience starts (local time)

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On average, this is booked 47 days in advance.

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