The objective of this blog is to publish all the information you need to choose the best Teotihuacan Tour from Mexico City.
Thousands of tourists arrive to Mexico City everyday and want to visit the Pyramids of Teotihuacan. The Pyramid of the Sun is one of the largest of the world. Teotihuacan is the most famous tourist attraction of Mexico City, one of the world’s biggest cities. (Article: Teotihuacan Pyramid of the Sun and Moon)
Despite this I have not found a clear guide or reference about the ways of making this visit and the quality of the tours available.
If you want to skip the introduction use the fast navigation links:
I have received friends and family in Mexico City from: France, Holland, Germany, Italy, Korea, UK, and of course the USA. All have asked me to arrange a Teotihuacan tour. Some have had good experiences but others not so much.
Once a couple of friends from Holland ate something bad in the buffet included in the tour. That ruined 3 days of their vacation. Luckily he got better and some days after he asked her to marry him. We bought that tour because we read good reviews in TripAdvisor. I know now that most where not true and that some companies buy reviews. Believe it or not Oobah Butler made a non-existing restaurant the #1 Reviewed of all London (watch video here: How to Become TripAdvisor’s #1 Fake Restaurant).
This is why I have decided to make a thorough and meticulous research to help people choose the best Teotihuacan Tour. Also how you can make the tour on your own.
Join me in this little project, read and share your experience (it helps me keeping the blog updated). I will try explain the pros and cons of all possibilities. I hope this guide is useful for many and that most tourists enjoy this World Heritage Sight (City of Teotihuacan UNESCO).
You can help me with a Share in Social Media. I will appreciate it a lot. It will help me position the website and help more travelers. Enjoy!
Thank you for all the visits and friends that have helped and motivated me to do this blog: Thomas, Marie Louise, Chloe, Claudia, Luis Manuel, Marco, Danilo, Justine, Chris, Judith, Marion and Celine, etc…
#1 Place – Teotihuacan with Meaning Tours Mexico City
Meaning Tours Mexico City is a tour company who’s objective is to give “meaningful, understandable and emotional experiences that help tourists connect with Mexico City.”
In there website they openly state that the price of their tour is more expensive because they pay guides 3 times more than other tour companies. Although the price of their tour is 10 to 15 usd more expensive than average.
I have ranked Meaning Tours for having the best Teotihuacan Tour because:
- They do not take you to tourist traps to get commissions. Such as expensive restaurants with low quality food where you have to eat or starve. And stores with “original art replicas” and souvenirs that are 10x more expensive. In my reaserch I discovered that stores pay 100 mxn for groups of tourists and 30% of comision of whatever they buy. Restaurants pay 20% comision of the bill.
- The schedule and itinerary is the best. They start at 8 am next to a Cafe in La Condesa, one of the nicest and best located neighborhoods of the city. It does not start so early so tourists can be well rested for the tour. Waking up at 5 am to take a tour to Teotihuacan at 6 am or 7 am after a long flight the day before from Europe and with jet lag disorder is a crime. My guess is that walking zombies in Teotihuacan are not having so much fun.
- Strategically located as most tourists choose a hotel or Airbnb in Zona Rosa, Condesa or Roma.
- Their guides are very good. A good guide makes a whole difference in the tour. In this point is where Meaning Tours excel.
- Small groups. Less people makes the tour more agile.
The cons of the tour to Teotihuacan of Meaning Tours Mexico City are the following:
- They offer a more expensive tour. Yes, it is about 15 usd more expensive than the tours you will find on mayor online travel agencies or hotel lobbies. Everyone wants to pay less, but having a better experience has a cost. As my British friends say “if you pay peanuts, you get monkeys”. Low wages attract incompetent or unskilled workers, simply because better workers can go elsewhere. For me it is not an issue paying some extra bucks as most of the sights in Mexico City are free or very cheep. If you are on a super low budget this is not your option.
- Individual travelers cannot buy everyday. They only give tours when there are more than 2 persons in the group. If you are a Solo Traveler you might only have the option to book when someone has already booked the tour.
References:
- Read more about Meaning Tours Mexico City in https://meaningtours.com
#2 Place – Visit Teotihuacan Using a Car Rental
The cost of a small car rental per day with insurance is around 25 to 40 usd. The highway toll is of 9 usd round trip. You will need to spend around 15 to 20 usd of gasoline. The entrance to the sight cost 4.5 usd for each person. The parking costs 4 usd. Summing up it costs around 95 usd without a guide.
If you want to know more about the costs I advise checking this article: Teotihuacan Hours and Tickets
I highly recommend using Waze or Google Maps and to be very careful in the way back. There is a part of the highway that is confusing and if you choose the wrong route you will get lost into an ugly neighborhood.
The GPS and WiFi offered by the Car Rental companies normally does not work properly. Using the roaming of your mobile is the best. You can download the road map previously to save data roaming charges.
#3 Teotihuacan Tour with the Turibus
Turibus is probably the most popular way of doing the tour to Teotihuacan. The reason is because it is a huge company and they have two floor buses going around the city. They have great branding and advertising.
It is more expensive than the regular tours from TripAdvisor, Expedia, Viator, Amigo Tours, etc … But they include the buffet of the tour (which you would have to buy anyway in the other masive tours). You will have to go to one of these restaurants prepared to receive lots of tourits and also to the stores that pay for your visit.
The only advantage is that the bus has a second floor with panoramic view. Nevertheless they say in their website that if there is no two floor bus available they will take you in a normal bus.
It is the most massive tour.
#4 Teotihuacan Tour sold in Viator, TripAdvisor, Expedia, Amigo Tours, etc…
What I have learned is that all of the big online travel agencies sell the same tour. The name, description and price varies a little. But all of them sell the same tour.
They ask you to be on a certain point or they pick you up at your hotel and then take you to the gathering point. Then you get into a big bus that might go to another gathering point to pick up more tourists. They use a different agency names but at the end everyone goes in the same bus.
The truth is that many tourists take this tour because the price is low. But as I said before the low prices impact the quality of the tour.
I did the tour to see how good or bad it was. I made friends with one of tour guides and she told me that they paid her 300 Mexican pesos (15 usd) to do the tour. Of course she was frustrated with her salary and talked a lot about poverty and bad working conditions in Mexico City during the tour.
The bus was for 60 persons but luckily we where around 30. We had to wait for a couple in the gathering point in Teotihuacan because they were not on time. We left behind three because we could not wait for them anymore.
The guides asked us not to buy souvenirs in the archaeological sight because they were going to take us afterwards to a better place. Of course they took us to a tourist tramp where everything was much more expensive. They put a sticker in our shirt and asked us to show it at the counter if we bought something.
Then they took us to a buffet to eat. It was not so expensive but it was bad. I did not ate anything because I was scared of getting sick as my friends did.
At the end of the tour I asked some of the other tourists if they liked the tour and some told me they liked it. I think some tourists are pleased because it is cheap, this tour is sold everywhere and they do not have great expectations.
It is not the Teotihuacan tour I would recommend to my family and friends.
#5 Getting to Teotihuacan using Public Transport
This is the cheapest way to do the visit of Teotihuacan. You can find instructions about how to do it in guides such as Lonely Planet or Routard.
If you are on a short budget and you would not like to drive this will be the only option you will have to do the tour.
I would recommend reading some information about Teotihuacan beforehand. It is a very interesting place and having some insights will enhance your experience a lot.
If you are only seeking to spent the less possible follow the instructions of this post: Getting to Teotihuacan from Mexico City
6# Getting to Teotihuacan using Uber, Didi, Cabify or Beat
Using these kind of services is an easy and safe way to transport within Mexico City. It is cheaper than taxis from hotels. I highly recommend them to all the friends and family that visit me.
You can perfectly use it to transport within the City Center, Roma, Polanco, Coyoacán, the airport and Condesa. But I do not recommend it to go to Teotihuacan for 2 simple reasons:
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- The service is NOT always available on the way back. Maybe you are planning to stay in Teotihuacan forever and build your own Pyramid. But if you are not, expect to use different means of travel to come back. The easiest and maybe the only available option will be a taxi that will probably charge you a lot of money. You will need to bargain for a good rate and you might put your safety at risk.
- Dynamic rates can be very expensive. You can calculate the rate of your trip in Uber Estimate: https://www.uber.com/mx/en/price-estimate/. You will see an estimate that varies from 680 to 935 mexican pesos which is about 35 to 50 usd. The price looks attractive. The problem is that Mexico City is one of the largest cities in the world and it has A LOT of traffic which will impact on that estimated rate. At rush hours Dynamic Rates can make the price go up by 3x. Rush hours are normally between 7 am and 10 pm, then again from 12 pm until 3 pm and finally from 6 pm until 10 pm.
Use Uber or any of your favorite mobility apps to get to a meeting point of a guided tour such as the one from Meaning Tours. To go anywhere within the city, but not to go to Teotihuacan.