Night Turtle Nesting Tour from Tamarindo
Description
On this Tamarindo Turtle Nesting tour, you will have the rare chance to see Olive Ridley and Green Pacific sea turtles, dig their nests, lay their eggs, and sometimes even see the babies hatching and making their way out to sea! The professional tour guide will take you walking along some remote beaches just North of Playa Grande in search of the turtles as they arrive and dig their nests in the sand! Due to the sensitive nature of this naturalist tour, we prohibit the use of flashlights or flash on your cameras, but you may take pictures. A special red light will be provided by the guide that does not disturb the turtles. Turtles can be seen year round, but November to April is the peak season for turtle nesting.
Tour Options
Itinerary
Leaving just after sunset, you will meet at our office and your guide will take you to a protected beach located 30 minutes away.
You will have the chance to see Olive Ridley and Green Pacific sea turtles laying their eggs at a series of secluded beaches near Playa Grande. You could possibly see the Leatherback turtles, but it is rare. Due to the sensitive nature of this naturalist tour, the local guides prohibit the use of flashlights or flash on your cameras, but you may take pictures. A special red light will be provided by the guide that does not disturb the turtles. Turtles can be seen year round, November to April is the peak season for turtle nesting.
Pick up Drop off $20 fee per booking Included in Private Tour
Pick up Drop off $20 fee per booking Included in Private Tour
Pick up Available for Private Tour
Pick up Available for Private Tour
Pick up Available for Private Tour
Highlights
What's included
Traveller Ratings
Important Information
- Not recommended for travelers with spinal injuries
- Not recommended for travelers with poor cardiovascular health
- Travelers should have at least a moderate level of physical fitness
- Children under 5 years old are not permitted to attend this tour. We need to remain very quiet and often there are extended periods of simply waiting and observing
- There is not a long hike, however there are times where we move from one beach or viewing point to another. Standing around patiently is normal for this tour.
- Please reconsider booking if you have mobility issues, difficulty seeing in the night, recently undergone surgery, or have current physical injury
- The turtle season generally extends from Mid-November to Mid-April, however since this is a natural phenomenon, the season can start, slow or end without specific reason.
- A minimum of 6 people are required to operate. If we have not reached the minimum we will contact you 1 or 2 days before your tour to offer other options.
- Not permitted for children under 5 years old
Reviews(218)
Lived up to expectations. Excited to see few green sea turtle coming out of ocean and couple returning back. 2 baby turtles were highlight of tour.
We were very lucky on our tour! We saw 2 adult turtles one heading back to sea and the other we got to watch dig her nest. We also got to experience 2 nests hatch so for us it was an amazing experience! The shuttle ride was longer than expected and there are no bathrooms but other than that this was one of our favorite excursions
The pickup was in the centre of town. The guide was very clear on his instructions, and was very respectful towards the turtles! He took us to a remote beach where we saw 2 mama and a couple of baby turtles. It was an amazing experience would definitely recommend it!
We saw two turtle tried to dig the hole for nesting, but eventually the turtle gave up. Wish we had the luck seeing the nesting.
Natives Way did this tour and our guide Ivan was amazing -he was very knowledgeable and had an eagle eye to spot the turtles and ensure we had the best experience-we were lucky to see about a dozen turtles overall and one nest and lay eggs.
What a moving experience! We watched as two green sea turtles dragged themselves up the beach from the ocean. One of them started to dig in the sand, but then moved on to another location just a few feet away. The second turtle did not end up nesting, but we did watch as she made her way a flipper at time back into the surf. While the first turtle was excavating away, with sand flying, in another hole nearby we saw about a dozen little turtles making their way from their eggs to the top of the hole. Wow! Then back with the first Momma turtle, she had finished digging we formed a circle and watched her lay her eggs. What an experience!
Would definitely recommend. Ivan was our guide and he was awesome!! We initially went to a relatively easy area of a beach and our guide found 2 baby turtles that we saw come up from the area they had hatched and make their way all the way to the surf. Very inspiring. We also saw a large green turtle in the same area but she decided that tonight was not the night and made her way back to sea. But then our guide got the call that a sea turtle was in the process of digging her hole to lay eggs on an adjacent beach. This was going to entail going back in the bus for a short ride and a 20 minute walk to get there. We were all in. After trekking through a trail lit by a full moon, stars and some bats we witnessed an amazing site - an enormous green turtle digging out a large hole with her back flippers and then laying her ping pong sized eggs. Truly awesome.
We have seen 3 large and one small turtles. During our tour, care was taken to be quiet and only take photos without flash to avoid disturbing the turtles.
Our tour guide, Ivan was very informative and really worked hard going up and down the beach to locate turtles. We only saw one female travel up to the shore, but she ended up returning to the sea without laying any eggs. That’s Mother Nature., you never know what will happen..
We enjoyed this excursion, where you got to be very close to giant green sea turtles on the beach. We took our kids ages 6 and 8 and they did okay but definitely would be better for older kids 10+. There was about an hour drive from Tamarindo to the beach (second half on dirt road, but driver was good) and once you arrive at the beach there’s a fair bit of waiting and patience for the turtles to arrive. We saw 2 turtles start the nesting process but they were in a rocky location so they didn’t lay eggs by the time we left the beach at 8:30pm, and we saw another turtle climbing the beach on our way back — it seems like you’d have to get pretty lucky to see a turtle lay eggs so early in the night. Our guide Antony was knowledgeable and respectful of the turtles — he was even policing others in the beach to make sure they weren’t shining lights that would interrupt the nesting process. We saw one other Group on the beach but we were mostly alone with our group of about 15 people and the guide. It was fun seeing the turtles and the beach at night was beautiful. We arrived back in Tamarindo at 9:30pm
