Explore the cloud forest in Monteverde after the sun sets on this guided nighttime tour. Starting at either 6 or 8pm, explore the biodiverse forest at Ficus Trails, spotting the nocturnal animals that inhabit the area. See tropical birds sleeping, as well as the nighttime habits of other wildlife like scorpions, tarantulas, bats, and more.

Choose between either a 6 or 8pm tour start time
Closed shoes, a poncho, long pants, and jacket are recommended
Flashlights are provided
Hotel pickup and drop-off is included

What's Included

Bilingual guide
Flashlights.
Transportation in Santa Elena - Monteverde area
Hotel pickup and drop-off

Ponchos

Meeting And Pickup

Pickup points

Select a pickup point

Start time

06:00 pm

Pickup details

Monteverde- santa Elena

What To Expect

Ficus Trails

Admission Ticket Free

Additional Info

Confirmation will be received at time of booking
Not wheelchair accessible
Warm clothing.
There is no age limit or weight, (note 2 hours walking distance).

minimum 2 people per reservation
Most travellers can participate
This tour/activity will have a maximum of 8 travellers

Cancellation Policy

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

For a full refund, you must cancel at least 24 hours before the experience’s start time.
If you cancel less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time, the amount you paid will not be refunded.
Any changes made less than 24 hours before the experience’s start time will not be accepted.

Cut-off times are based on the experience’s local time.
This experience requires good weather. If it’s cancelled due to poor weather, you’ll be offered a different date or a full refund.

Traveller Photos

Traveller Tips

Not an easy hike for older adults but a safe experience for all

Reviews

4.5

163 reviews

Total review count and overall rating based on Viator and Tripadvisor reviews

Reviews by Viator travellers.

Showing 1-10 of 163 reviews

Disappointment

Annie_G, Mar 2023

The guide doesn't seem to like his job, not a lot of explanations about the fauna and flora or what to look for with our flashlights. Not even 2 hours of excursion and at the end a simple: it's over, just wait for the shuttle... this tour was a disappointment!

cool bugs (not in a scary way)!

Chandler_R, Mar 2023

Fun experiencing Monteverde at night! Saw a stick bug, a leaf bug, tarantulas, frogs, a crab and a nocturnal mammal in the trees.

Definitely worth the cost...

David_G, Mar 2023

Definitely worth the cost and experience. Very interesting what comes at night. Viewings of animals in the wild is at best a lucky shot. We saw some from a distance. Still worth the trip.

Super fun and cool!

Amy_K, Mar 2023

Super cool and we saw a ton of insects and animals: a variety of frogs, toucans, walking sticks, viper, lots of birds, and super cool flowers! A night tour is by far the best! Great and informative guides as well!

Cool tour

Lily_B, Mar 2023

I am super scared of bugs but took this tour to get outside of my comfort zone. We saw a sloth during our transport that was included and got out to see. We saw many tarantulas, some mammals that look like lemurs or monkeys, the biggest stick bug, and tons more. Would recommend wearing pants, and long sleeves.

One of the best-value experiences you can get

Greg_U, Feb 2023

This night tour with Olman was absolutely top notch! Olman, with seemingly superhuman ability, was able to spot a huge variety of animals on just a two-hour hike. I was skeptical that animal-spotting is luck of the draw, but this guy really knows his stuff. We saw: a sloth, kinkajou, armadillo, wild pigs, tarantula, monkeys, sleeping birds, frogs, stick bugs, and more I swear, if this man spotted a jaguar I wouldn’t have even been surprised.

Unfortunately, it was a...

Lisa_S, Jan 2023

Unfortunately, it was a rainy night, but we saw a few things huddled up in the trees:. Sloth, turkeys, Coati. Our guide coaxed a tarantula from her burrow. We saw some other insects. Pickup and transport to the site was fine. Transport back, our driver dumped us 2 blocks from our hotel so we could walk back in the dark and rain. He should lose his job. My only complaint.

Response from Host, Feb 2023

Thanks for coming again Pura vida

Very cool night safari

Mihail_G, Jan 2023

It was a really nice tour, and we saw lots of cool animals! I was excited to see bullet ants, and the eyelash viper :)

Response from Host, Feb 2023

Pura vida Thanks for coming and enjoying the tour. See one day around here. Gracias

Informative

Jeff_B, Jan 2023

At the beginning we were finding mostly insects and were concerned that was going to be all we would find. It was lightly drizzling. Candy was a great guide and was very knowledgeable with excellent English (the word bioluminesce is a very specific English word to know). She told us about plants, insects, birds, butterflies, and animals of Costa Rica. We were able to see a Possum, kinkajou, side striped palm pit viper, bats, sleeping Emerald Toucan, Pygmy frogs, and a lot of insects (tarantulas, stick insects, etc.). We were happy with our experience and what we got to see.

Response from Host, Feb 2023

Thanks for coming and enjoying the tour it's great to have people like you on the tour

Lots of effort for little reward

Gerald_K, Dec 2022

We did expect to see more wild life but realize that cannot be guaranteed. Did see lots of insects & spiders. The terrain was somewhat more challenging than anticipated or noted in the description of the walk, which proved rather challenging for my spouse who had recent physical limitations. Had we known it involved rough trails with rather steep inclines, she probably would have declined to participate, but there is nothing in the description to indicate such (she could have easily managed less challenging trails). Overall, not the best experience given the time & effort expended and “sightings” - I was ready to be done half way through.

Response from Host, Dec 2022

Thanks for coming and do the tour sorry about that the guide teke the trails we use for students o some time for birds watching tour.

One of the more lackluster night tours we've had

Tiiu_K, Nov 2022

Having been on some amazing night tours, we were very excited to do this in Monteverde. Unfortunately we left the 2h (to the minute!) experience rather disappointed. While one cannot control nature and the wildlife, it is very much in one's control what they are saying and talking about; informing us of wildlife that was around the previous night does not make our tour more enjoyable. There were very few actual sightings, suggesting either a poor choice of habitat, or guide ability. Much of the info was very rudimentary, and as a professional entomologist, I found it to be very much below a standard. Compared to our other night tour experiences with other guides (e.g. Tarantulas Way in Cahuita), this was actually pretty boring. Monteverde is well known for being a biodiversity hotspot, especially at night, so to essentially walk around aimlessly focusing more on "yesterday we saw", rather than actually pointing out things, which we were finding ourselves... not impressed. All in all, not worth the price paid. Three stars is a generous reflection of the guides enthusiasm more than anything.

Response from Host, Dec 2022

Thanks for your comments we tried to do the best.

Passionate guide

MYRNA_C, Nov 2022

Our guide was so passionate and obviously loved his job. He found us tiny frogs of less than a centimetre, spiders, tarantulas, an opossum, a porcupine, a bat eating a guava, and ... A great night walk in the forest

Response from Host, Dec 2022

Thanks for coming and enjoying the tour this a great spot every thing Pura vida

Very happy with the night hike

Marla_D, Oct 2022

Absolutely wonderful. Omand was amazing. He's been doing this for so long he saw things right way. We got lucky with the variety of animals we saw.

Response from Host, Oct 2022

Pura vida costa rica thanks for doing this amazing hike with ficus trails

Amazing trail and tour!!

Stefan_P, Sept 2022

Olman is really friendly and knowledgable. He asked us what we wanted to see and he tried his best to find them. We saw armadillo, kinkajou, sloth, frogs, etc. The trails are very well managed, but it’d depend on the weather. Olman always try his best to clear up the trail before the tours. Highly recommended!

Response from Host, Sept 2022

Thanks for coming we do best forever is was a great to have you in the tour and enjoying the night tour. Pura vida

Dangerous and Difficult Hike

shystermom, Aug 2022

Physically demanding, treacherous night hike. We had Olman. It had rained previously and there was alot of mud on the trails. This hike is very dangerous in spots with no handrails, through mud, over slippery rocks, in darkness. You are given a flashlight but there is no wrist lanyard to it so if you want to use that hand for balance at all you cannot. There were at least two "bridges" to cross over rushing water that were merely slippery wooden planks laid down. The worst was when we came to a point where a large tree had fallen over the trail and Olman told us we had a choice of climbing over it or ducking under it. I am 60 years old and my boyfriend is 63. This was ridiculous. Olman said "the tree just fell today" but it clearly had not. When he saw how upset I was, he said he would refund my money at the end of the tour - which he never did. The things we saw on this tour included: a tarantula, stick bugs, a frog and other insects. He shined a flashlight at a tree very far away and told us there was a Kinkaju in it but nobody could see it, even when he set up the telescope. For the first 20 min of the hike, I was excited. I felt like ab adventurer. But then the hike got very difficult and dangerous and it became about being concerned I would sprain an ankle or slip on the rocks and was not enjoyable at all. Do this hike if you are young and in excellent shape.

Response from Host, Aug 2022

Hello good afternoon I am Olman the Owner of the night tour. As a daily protocol, the trails will always be checked before entering, this day I did it at 4:30 pm, we are aware that at any time a tree could fall since it is primary forest and there are large trees and normally fungi they eat inside and being a natural habitat, it may happen that we find ourselves with situations like the ones that night. On the trails we have handles, in some parts of the trails, being flat, we do not have them because they are not necessary, the trails are given maintenance, also throughout the route we have only 18 steps where it is very easy to access and adapts very well to the elderly, on the tour we have had tourists up to 70 years old and more Tonight it rained with little intensity, and it was a bit windy, normal for the Monteverde area. There were 7 people on the excursion and the others left very happy to see mammals, frogs, tarantulas, stick insects, leaf insects, morpho butterflies and many other things. I want to apologize to the client, since she was wearing two staffs which she could not take the focus well, I think it was a miscommunication issue when detailing the accessories and thus not being able to take the focus with her hands, I tell you that we We do not have headlamps because when they talk to us they put the light in our eyes or the other hikers, however, if a client brings it, they can take it, they only explain how to take it. The comments provided are appreciated, since Ficus Trails is characterized by always seeking continuous improvement and they make us see details that we must pay more attention to and correct, on our part we are always willing to see what is wrong and correct it, we will continue to do the best job as always Again, a thousand apologies for what happened. Cheers

Very good tour, could have been better if we did not get rained out

Jignesh_M, Jan 2022

Overall this tour was very good. Our guide was knowledgeable and experienced and we started out the tour with torches in our hand. It was very slippery since it rained throughout the 2 hours we were taking this tour, but the guide warned us of it. He found littlest creatures such as tarantula, frogs size of a fingernail, spiders, crab etc. We were hoping to see a snake or armadillo but due to rain, a lot of the animals were hiding. But the guide explained the nature of animals as well as the plants around it well, used his laser pointer to point to very tiny creatures and all in all, it was a good tour. Well worth it.

Response from Host, Jan 2022

Thank for coming i does the tour it was nice to have yuo in the tour. Have a good day

Not to be Missed!

Luiza_C, Aug 2021

Not to be missed when in Monteverde! I was a little apprehensive but with a small group, it was less scary to be wandering around the jungle at night and it was an amazing experience. I definitely got the best nature critter photos during this tour and we even saw tarantulas. Amazing how the forest comes alive at night in a way so drastically different than the day. Highly recommend it!

Nice guide and we saw lots of wildlife

Ilona_S, Dec 2020

Tour guide picked us up and dropped us off to our Airbnb, which was off the main road and a trek to get to. Guide was informative and we saw lots of cool wildlife!

Amazing night tour !

Lili_J, May 2020

Great guide ! We saw a lot of animals. And we were a small group. So it was easy to follow the informations. Highly recommended !

Night hike

Gina_P, Feb 2020

great experience for kids and young adults. Not an easy hike for older adults but a safe experience for all

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