canyontravel

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Why Us?

WHY Canyon Travel?

Canyon Travel receives the Best Endorsements Frommer's Mexico 2002-2007 "The best of the bunch is Canyon Travel" Mexico Handbook by Moon Pubs. "continually receives the best reports" Also endorsements from: Audubon Magazine, Wildbird Magazine, Lonely Planet, Discovery Channel, Texas Monthly, Outside Magazine, CNN Travel Guide, Farm Family America, Vogue Magazine, Brides Magazine, Endless Vacations, Mexico Adventures in Nature, New York Times (co-lead article), Houston Chronicle (lead article), Preview Travel Media on 94 television stations, etc.

Private Lodges Away from Mass Tourism Canyon Travel operates directly, through its affiliated Mexico corporation, the most in-depth and flexible Copper Canyon travel programs featuring private lodges without the commercial distractions of mass tourism. Canyon Travel built lodges near Cerocahui and Batopilas in mutually beneficial partnerships with local communities. The Uno Lodge, a Tarahumara owned lodge, built with government funding and operated by Canyon Travel, has the most panoramic overlook of any canyon rim lodge with the only view of the meandering river one mile below. The company, in partnership with an El Fuerte family, built the Rio Vista Lodge overlooking the Fuerte River. In Urique, the company enjoys exclusivity at a small inn with assistance to the family owners in funding and designing the grand dining room. In both Urique and Cusarare, the service is enhanced by Canyon Travel's guides, vehicles, equipment and supplies. The comfortable lodges are environmental friendly and offer dining rooms with scenic views and all rooms have two double beds, tiled bathrooms, hot water and terry-cloth robes.

Naturalist Resident Guides Leading small groups of 14 or less travelers. with Guaranteed Departures Bilingual naturalist guides -- all native residents -- host small groups of 14 or less travelers (up to 20 for private custom groups) on well-designed yet flexible itineraries with expert natural history interpretation and with a personal insight into their culture and community. Trained by field scientists, the lead guides have a distinct advantage as life time residents in addition to the long term employment of more than 10 years with Canyon Travel. The combination of these experiences has enabled the lead guides with outstanding interpretive abilities and the most extensive field knowledge. They are also warm and gracious individuals, delighted at introducing travelers to their families and to other community members, visiting their homes and sharing enriching cultural exchanges that unfold naturally. Travelers may observe culturally sensitive presentations of ceremonial dances and music, pottery firings, fields being cultivated with plows fashioned from oak limbs, corn grinding on stone metates and they may sample delicious blue corn tortillas hot off the grill. Canyon Travel's lodge partnerships with local communities bestow travelers with privileged invitations to traditional ceremonies, community gatherings or to attend just about any festivity including children's birthday parties. The guides dine with travelers, in a congenial breaking of bread, and if there isn't a festivity to attend perhaps they'll make their own around a bonfire with guitars and under starlit skies. Assistant bilingual guides and lodge staff also provide support at each location.

Soft Itineraries with Sightseeing in Vans & Easy Walks or Active Adventures with Guided Day Hikes Savvy travelers and those preferring soft itineraries with easy or moderate walks, will enjoy a tranquil river cruise and vehicular sightseeing in vans to natural attractions that are not visited by any other tourists. Active travelers will embark on guided day hikes to remote wilderness areas on our lodge based trips or they may choose a more adventurous base camp trek. Travelers may choose to participate in some or all of the guided activities or they may explore on their own or they may just relax at our lodges.

Regional Cuisine and Gourmet Picnics served on Table Linens Delicious regional cuisine is prepared from fresh ingredients and served on table linens. Appetizers and refreshments are served before the candlelit dinners and on some evenings we feature live entertainment by traditional music groups. Gourmet picnic lunches are cooked in the field and served in select natural areas on camping tables with table linens, china, wine glasses and under canopies if necessary. Breakfasts are alacart and include fruit plates and freshly squeezed orange juice. Beverages are included - top-shelf margaritas, wine, beer, soft drinks, and purified water and the vans always carry stocked beverage coolers even on train depot transfers.

Pricing Includes Exploring Natural Areas & Cultural Experiences Not Available to other Travelers Pricing includes: full time bilingual naturalist guides with a maximum of 14 persons, private lodges*, extensive sightseeing in vans and/or guided day hikes; a river cruise; live musical entertainment, regional dance presentations; 1st class rail service; all meals* & beverages; all transfers; table linens; fine bed and bath linens with terry cloth robes; spotting scopes on tripods; field reference books; assistance from our local field offices; satellite phone; a 24 hr. U. S. phone & a Mexico toll-free line and detailed trip documents including: 110 page color guidebook, pull-out rail & sierra maps, and flora & fauna lists. The only items that are not included are gratuities and airfares. *(also 2 other select lodges with special privileges - in Chihuahua City breakfast & happy hour only)

The Realities of Mass Tourism in Natural Areas There are crowds of tourists in Creel, a sawmill town with over 20 lodging establishments including budget accommodations for a younger clientele interested in the nightlife. In the other most popular destination, the Divisadero - Posada Barrancas area there are 4 lodges and they all cater to large tour groups besides large numbers of other tourists which may amount to several hundred visitors at a time. These "mass tourism" lodges have paved road access and consequently also the busy distractions of a popular destination: several daily passenger train boarding and detraining within a few hundred yards, tour groups arriving or departing in charter motorcoaches, schoolbus type transportation for sightseeing to unpaved areas, day trippers on sightseeing tours from Creel, tourists driving their own cars, daily scheduled bus transportation for local inhabitants, overnight groups in motorhomes riding on flatbed train cars, delivery trucks, rail crews and several daily cargo trains, vendors of all types including time-share salesmen and many lodge employees. Authenticity, privacy, tranquility, relaxation and the ability to observe nature up close are often sacrificed as a result. Independent Travelers who prefer individual travel arrangements and not to participate in a group tour may regret having to share dinning facilities and other lodge areas with 40 to more than 120 other guests. All U. S. or Mexico based travel companies that offer trips or make travel arrangements for individual travelers must rely solely on the group tour lodges to provide services like train tickets, local sightseeing, to explain the available options and to offer assistance with problems that may arise like delayed or cancelled train schedules. These lodges offer their preferential services to the large group tours which are their main source of income. The lodge managers are not only attending to the group tours but also to the many individual travelers from several travel companies with different itineraries and interests. The lodges do not have trained bilingual guides on staff, despite what their promotional literature boasts, because the group tours arrive with their own escorts or with step-on guides from Chihuahua or Los Mochis. The lodges mainly provide schoolbus type vehicles with drivers and maybe an occasional van. Ironically, travelers that choose independent travel arrangements are subjected to participation in group activities by being bunched together with other individual travelers and transported to popular sites. The travel experience is greatly diminished without the benefits of narrative in English, interpretive skills or cultural insights. If this were not the case, some of the better travel companies that make individual travel arrangements would not also offer more expensive escorted small group departures or optional private guides starting from Chihuahua or Los Mochis. Small group tours are also subjected to the same crowds, not only at the lodges but also at the all-too-popularly visited near-by attractions.

Comparisons in Service and in Value Canyon Travel's El Fuerte River float is 2 hours longer and includes: an expert birding guide, exploring the petroglyph site, visiting with a Mayo Indian family, and a stocked beverage cooler. CT's trips include wilderness areas and canyon overlooks not visited by other travelers. CT's guides dine with travelers and are a congenial source of insightful conversation. CT's itineraries include cultural exchanges with Tarahumara residents and other local community members that are not available to other travelers. CT includes live musical entertainment and authentic, culturally sensitive presentations of ceremonial dances. CT's vans always carry stocked beverage coolers even on train depot transfers. CT's Los Mochis airport transfers, to and from El Fuerte, are exclusively in vans or suburban type vehicles and not in compact cars. CT has two local field offices, a 24 hr. emergency U. S. phone line, a 24 hr. Mexico toll-free line, a satellite phone, spotting scopes on tripods and two new 2004 model vans. CT includes beverages while the commercial lodges sell margarita cocktails made with generic tequila for $4, beer for $3 and soft drinks for $1.50. Most travel programs offer optional sightseeing at additional costs. Most small group tours do not have the flexibility of choosing from guided vehicular sightseeing or guided day hikes. Most group travel programs do not offer guaranteed departures and they will cancel unless a certain minimum of persons sign on. Most independent travel arrangements do not include sightseeing with a bilingual guide. The best picnic lunch from any competitor is with paper plates and most others just offer a cold burrito with no seating. No other hotel or tour company has naturalist resident guides or even bilingual resident guides in all of the following locations: El Fuerte, Cerocahui-Urique, Copper Canyon (9 miles from Divisadero), and Cusarare-Batopilas.

Community Support and Conservation Canyon Travel's partnerships with local Communities and its continuing support for conservation are sound business practices that are representative of the logical evolution within the tourism industry. This industry truly is uniquely privileged with the responsibilities to protect the cultural and natural attractions that are the very foundation of its commercial endevors. Canyon Travel is one of the earliest supporters of the Tarahumara Indian Children's Hospital and continues annual donations averaging two thousand dollars. CT funded the drilling of a well for a community without clean drinking water and also provides funding for school supplies and sports equipment. CT contributes and provides support to: The Flying Doctors of Mercy, Los Medicos Voladores, and other medical volunteer groups that offer free services to the impoverished. CT donates to Planeta.com, the leading ecotourism website and virtual electronic library and underwrites the Colibri Ecotourism Award. CT contributes to the American Birding Association to advance Mexico's inclusion and thereby giving value to the country's birds and habitats. Canyon Travel's partnerships with local communities has gained the Tarahumara owners of the Uno Lodge, over fifty thousand dollars in funds and fifteen thousand in lodge improvements. CT funds the naturalist education, bilingual classes and other training to local residents and pays the highest salaries of any travel company. CT donates to the Sierra Madre Alliance, a conservation and environmental justice non-profit organization and Canyon's president, Emilio Kifuri, is a member of the non-profit's board of directors. Emilio is the leading advocate of true ecotourism development in the Sierra Tarahumara and in northern Sinaloa's tropical forest. CT's guides are participating in bird studies and they will be trained in watershed and riparian restoration.

We found another TRAVEL COMPANY that offers LOCAL GUIDES. How do YOUR ARRANGEMENTS DIFFER?

a) Most Copper Canyon travel companies rely on several subcontractors to provide even the most basic lodging and train ticketing services. Some companies promote trips with the assistance of local guides at each stop which are in effect not actual guides but drivers employed by the lodges. If the services of these companies do not include a full time escort, as most independent or individual travel arrangements omit, your travel experience will be greatly diminished. If this were not the case, why would these companies that promote independent or travel arrangements also offer more expensive escorted tour departures or optional escort services? Ask the companies boasting to have local guides in the sierra the following questions: if they will guarantee a bilingual guide on a daily basis, how many other travelers will participate in the guided activities, what are the guide's areas of expertise, how much time will the guides spend with travelers, if the guides are members of a local community and if travelers are introduced to the guide's family and community members. The facts are that with a few exceptions by hotels in Creel, the lodges do not employ bilingual guides. Travel companies in Chihuahua or Los Mochis have guides based in those cities and not as residents throughout the sierra. Also don't be deceived by some companies that boast superior services by being based in El Fuerte or Ahome because they are just new inexperienced entrants as tour operators. The company in Ahome just has one lodge there which pretends to be a bird watching lodge by hiding the fact that it is really a bird hunting lodge. b) Simply said, our services are the most flexible and in-depth Copper Canyon trips for individuals and small groups on the market. We challenge anyone to prove otherwise by matching all of the included features which are mentioned on this page.

HOW can your trips OPERATE DAILY?

a) Most of our trips can have daily departures or several departures per week but they are subject to availability with a maximum of 14 travelers per trip. Through our affiliated Mexico corporation, we have naturalist resident lead guides, assistant bilingual guides, drivers and lodge staff that work only for Canyon Travel. We also have two local field offices, a fleet of vans and suburban vehicles, river boats, and a stocked warehouse. No other travel company, in Mexico or the U. S., has our unique infrastructure to operate in-depth Copper Canyon trips for individuals and small groups. b) We have private lodges on the highest hill in El Fuerte, near Cerocahui on the way to Urique, near Divisadero with the only rim lodge view of the river and in Batopilas Canyon overlooking the river.

WHERE do your trips BEGIN?

a) At the LOS MOCHIS AIRPORT with round trip transfers to our Rio Vista Lodge in El Fuerte. TUCSON has daily flights, mid-day departures and arrivals, and the lowest international airfares to Los Mochis. Tucson flight schedules allow for easy, same day connections from anywhere in the U.S. International flights to Los Mochis also depart from: LAX, Phoenix, Las Vegas, El Paso and San Antonio. We know the lowest international fares and we also have special discounted fares to assist you. b) LAND-BASED ITINERARIES operate daily from El Paso and Presidio TX with secure parking facilities available. EL Paso itineraries includes round trip transfers from the airport, your hotel, or the Amtrak depot to the Juarez Bus Depot for scheduled executive-class motorcoach to - from Chihuahua City. Presidio itineraries include a private van transfer to Chihuahua City with a return by scheduled motorcoach. (Passenger rail service from the Texas - Mexico border has not been available for 10 years.) *These trips have at least 28 hours of total train travel in addition to the time and distance from the border to Chihuahua City round trip. The "Western Explorer" trips are the best designed itineraries and they are still competitively priced with the addition of international airfare to the Los Mochis airport.

What is the BEST SEASON to travel?

Although subject to each individuals travel criteria, the most popular or "peak" travel times are the December holidays and in the fall and spring months, with their relatively moderate temperatures and lack of rainfall. All seasons, however, have their distinctive and desirable characteristics.

Do your trips have MINIMUM and MAXIMUM participant restrictions?

We operate with only 2 persons and up to 14 persons and once confirmed all departures are guaranteed to operate with no additional charges. Canyon Travel also operates private custom designed trips for groups of up to 20 persons. Groups of 14 to 20 persons have the exclusive use of our lodges without any other guests.

How DIFFICULT are your trips?

Our trips are very flexible and allow members of the same party to share experiences together and still provide active persons guided hikes and less active individuals sightseeing in vans. Our lodges have full-time bilingual naturalist guides and full-time bilingual assistant guides. Our trips may be soft adventures that include easy or moderate walks, a tranquil river cruise and vehicular sightseeing in vans to natural attractions that are not visited by any other tourists. Active travelers will embark on half and full day guided hikes to remote wilderness areas or combine their activities with some vehicular sightseeing.

Why do you not promote CREEL more as a destination?

a) Creel at one time did not have a sewage treatment plant and we refused to contribute to the degradation of the environment. b) Creel is the largest town in the sierra and has the greatest number of bars, hotels, including many budget properties and, consequently, is overrun with tourists and young trekkers interested in late night drinking. c) The best hotels and lodges are actually just motels located on the main street, where cars drive right up to the rooms - no wilderness ambience here!