An exciting tour to Bolivia for a bonanza of brilliant butterflies!

We’re delighted to be offering this new tour to Bolivia in 2025! It is sure to be popular, read on to find out why…

Bolivia is one of the most fascinating, beautiful and unspoilt countries in South America, and boasts at least 3295 species of butterfly. Their beauty and diversity is mind-boggling, and we can expect to see and photograph numerous swallowtails, cattlehearts, morphos, owl butterflies, glasswings, hairstreaks, metalmarks, firetips, banners, sisters and much more on this adventure.

Breaking the butterflies down into families, Bolivia has 70 Papilionidae, 366 Lycaenidae, 181 Pieridae, 3 Hedylidae, 419 Riodinidae, 877 Hesperiidae and an amazing 1307 Nymphalidae. If that isn’t enough, we’ll also be running moth lights on several nights, so expect to see a staggering diversity of hawkmoths, tigers, owlets, wasp-mimics, pyralids, silkmoths, geometers and prominents. There are also many hummingbirds, reptiles, amphibians and hordes of wierd and wonderful beetles, grasshoppers and dragonflies!

Our tour begins at La Paz – one of the world’s highest airports, at 4061m. After a night there in a city hotel, to recuperate after our flights, we depart next morning towards Coroico, and weather permitting we’ll break the 3 hour journey with several stops to admire the spectacular mountain scenery, and to photograph high elevation butterflies.

We’ll have 4 nights at Coroico, where we’ll stay at a small eco-lodge on the edge of town. The lodge has a butterfly garden, and although not luxurious, the accommodation is clean and comfortable. Most rooms have en-suite facilities, the food is delicious, and wi-fi is available in the reception area. Coroico is a small town built on a steep mountainside, and is full of character, with women dressed in traditional multi-layered frocks and bowler hats. Each day we’ll travel on journeys of up to 90 mins to reach a variety of excellent cloud-forest habitats at various elevations. This will include one day on the infamous Death Road, which despite its name isn’t in the least bit dangerous – traffic only flows in one direction, and we’ll only encounter a handful of jeeps and cyclists. In the evenings, back at the lodge, we’ll run a moth light and sheet which should attract a huge variety of species.

After bidding a fond farewell to Coroico, we head downhill towards the bustling town of Caranavi. It’s a journey of about 3 hours, but at about the halfway point, we’ll stop and spend half the day exploring a long forest track where we’ll see many stunning butterfly species. We stay at the only hotel in Caranavi, which is rather basic, but the rooms are a good size, clean and comfortable, with en-suite facilities. Wi-fi and laundry service are available. It’s a breakfast-only establishment, so we’ll eat at local restaurants and pizzerias. The town itself has a frontier feel about it, a bit noisy and chaotic, as are most towns in South America. Each day we’ll travel out by minibus to explore mid-elevation transitional cloud-forest/rainforest habitats, all within 90 mins of our hotel.

After 4 nights at Caranavi, we continue driving downhill to Yucumo, with a series of butterfly stops along the route. We should reach Yucumo mid-afternoon, and then we continue for about another 90 mins to Rurrenabaque, which is the gateway to Madidi rainforest. We’ll have a night at Rurrenabaque, and in the morning we take a 2 hour journey by motorised longboat, along an Amazonian tributary to our top-rated eco-lodge in the heart of Madidi National Park. This will be our base for the next 4 nights, with each day spent exploring the extensive trail system, with optional boat trips to lakes and sandbars. In the evenings we expect to run a moth sheet, and there are also optional night safaris to see reptiles, amphibians, owls etc.

Grading on this trip is easy to moderate. Most walks are on level ground but there will be a few places where it will be rocky and you’ll need to be steady-footed. This trip takes part at the start of the rainy season, which is the time when butterfly and moth abundance and diversity is highest. In the cloudforests weather can vary from clear blue skies to overcast with light drizzle. In the Amazonian lowlands mornings are usually hot and sunny, with cloud building in the afternoons. Rain occurs mostly in the evenings but be prepared for short bursts of rain in the afternoons – this is rainforest!

Travel:

This tour starts at La Paz airport and ends at Rurrenabaque airport. Please note that the tour cost does not include international airfares, and does not include your one-way domestic airfare from Rurrenabaque to La Paz (or Santa Cruz) at the end of the tour, which you will need to purchase yourself.

Tour leader:

Your tour leader is Adrian Hoskins, author of “Butterflies of the World”, “1000 Butterflies” and several scientific papers. Adrian has vast experience of neotropical butterflies, having undertaken numerous tours to Brazil, Peru, Argentina, Colombia, Venezuela, Costa Rica, Panama and Ecuador, as well as 2 previous tours of Bolivia. We’ll also have a local English-speaking butterfly guide who will procure and lay liquid baits along the trails to attract butterflies. Please note that we don’t shepherd you around in a group pointing out and identifying butterflies on the spot. Instead, we encourage you to explore the habitats at your own pace and take time enjoying your photography. In the evenings we’ll assist with identifications from your cameras and laptops, and Adrian will provide pfd files that illustrate a high percentage of the butterflies we are likely to see.

Identification Guide

Here is a fantastic and free resource to help guests to prepare for the tour and to help with identifications during or after it.