Helicopter trip to El Mirador in the heart of the Guatemalan jungle

Nature
The wow factor for nature - does it show nature at its best? Doesn't need to be the wildebeest migration or diving with hundreds of hammerheads. Rather make you pause as you realise just how awesome the natural world can be
7
Culture
How much does this experience showcase some of the better and finer things that us humans can offer? Sure, it can be ancient ruins and renaissance churches, but it can also be festivals or soaking up some of the great modern cities of the world
8
Fun factor/activity
Very simple - was it fun? This is usually linked in with doing some kind of activity - i mean, walking along some cliffs is nice, but paragliding from them, now that is fun. Its a vastly underrated factor in a truly great experience
9
Avoid the crowds
Big tour groups and being surrounded by loud fellow tourists can sap the life out of even the greatest of travel experiences. This score is to reflect just how much you can avoid this. But. . . The score also takes into account if the crowds actually add to the experience, such as with a party town or a bustling local market
10
World famous
How world famous is the experience?
1
unique
How hard is it to have a similar experience in other places round the world?
10
Overall TE Score
The overall travel experiences score:  fun factor + avoid the crowds + (best of nature or culture) + (best of world famous or unique). Then convert into a score out of 100
92 *What the scores mean and where do they come from
RANKING
How this travel experience ranks compared to all the other experiences on this site, based on the travel experience (te) score
5th/454
Top 1%
continent
North America
country
Guatemala
Length of time
1 day or less
Typical daily price
This gives you a rough idea of the daily price based on 2 people travelling where they can split costs like accommodation. It excludes travel there and back, and factors in inflation the numbers in brackets show the price range for the full time of the experience (so not necessarily daily). It is a range to reflect different budget vs higher end
$920 ($600-$800 in 2019 prices)
Time of year visited
June
Primary Tags
Click on any of the tags to see all travel experiences with the same tag
Ancient ruins Helicopter Mayan
All Tags
Adrenaline rush Jungle Pyramids Temple complex
Wow Factor
The wow factor reflects just how much you’re likely to say “wow”. As there’s a lot of experiences in the world, and a lot of wows, i’ve gone with a simple ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ to ⭐️ score, and a separate category for the truly "gash"
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Summary

Helicopter trip to El Mirador was Wow Wow Wow.  For most, seeing glimpses of the Classical Mayan period – places like Tikal – is incredible.  But El Mirador takes everything another level:

🤯 Chichen Itza is Post Classical.  Tikal is CLASSICAL. El Mirador was PRE-CLASSICAL – a good 500 years before Tikal.  For context, you’re talking about a start before Ancient Greece and Rome.

🤯 The scale is staggering.  It contains the largest cluster of monumental structures of any Mayan city, and, in the La Danta pyramid, the most massive  pyramid complex in the world by volume.

🤯 What makes it even more remarkable is how little of it has been excavated, and how few people ever make it here.  The only people you’ll bump into are archaeologists.

There’s a multi-day trek to reach El Mirador on foot, but if you’re short on time and want to turn up the wow-factor, get the helicopter over the vast jungle.  You arrive not to disney-style crowds or gift shops, but to towering ruins emerging directly from the forest, with the rare freedom to explore at your own pace.  Maximum Wow-factor.  Do it.

 

Helicopter trip to El Mirador in the heart of the Guatemalan jungle

Table of Contents

Highlights of a Helicopter trip to El Mirador

Helicopter trip to El Mirador in the heart of the Guatemalan jungle - #1 Seeing the ancient pre-Classical Mayan Ruins almost all to yourself. In this case the magically situated El Tigre

#1 Seeing the ancient pre-Classical Mayan Ruins almost all to yourself. In this case the magically situated El Tigre

Helicopter trip to El Mirador -

#2 Helicopter ride over the dense Guatemalan jungle and a fantastic view over the other-worldly pyramids of El Tigre and the La Danta

Helicopter trip to El Mirador -

#3 Climbing up to the top of La Danta, the most massive pyramid complex in the world and being in amazed when you realise just how big the base is

Helicopter trip to El Mirador -

#4 Wandering through the dense jungle - far, far away from any recent human development, so almost completely untouched

Helicopter trip to El Mirador -

#5 Being in awe imagining the vast city around you . . . and why it collapsed

Helicopter trip to El Mirador -

#6 As the area is still being excavated, you get to have access to the ancient sites as they are being unearthed and discovered. Very cool

Background to El Mirador

 

To give a bit of context to this fascinating place and the area around it:

 

  • El Mirador was one of the city states that made up the Mayan “empire”, but it was at its height (600BC – 100AD) far before the classic Mayan period (150AD – 900AD) of the more famous sites such as Tikal

 

  • It collapsed primarily due to the sheer pressure the early Mayans put on the environment – they chopped and burned so many trees to produce mortar for their huge building works that this in turn led to deforestation and a chronic shortage of water

 

  • The sheer scale is vast.  Just one of the pyramid complexes, La Danta, is 72 metres tall, but the platforms it is built on blows the mind – the bottom one is 180,000 square metres and 2.8 million cubic metres, making it the biggest pyramid structure in the world.  And there are multiple pyramid complexes – we visited another 3 which were slightly smaller, but at the same scale.

 

Helicopter trip to El Mirador in the heart of the Guatemalan jungle - the El Tigre Pyramid

 

  • El Mirador was first discovered in 1926, but the remoteness meant detailed investigation only started in 1978 and thorough promotion to the outside world in 2003. Whilst there was no one there when we visited, a team of 300 archaeologists arrived in a week to crank up the excavation.

 

  • Because of just how recent the discovery is and that many of the sites are still to be excavated, no one has really heard of this place. Look at top lists of archaeological sites, even top Mayan sites and you won’t see it there.  I suspect that will change as people realise what a spectacular place it is.

 

Helicopter trip to El Mirador in the heart of the Guatemalan jungle

Rough Itinerary

 

Pretty simple:

 

  • Check in for the Helicopter trip to El Mirador at Flores airport at around 8am
  • Roughly 50mins to El Mirador (around 70km to the north)
  • Spend roughly 5 hours at the site, including visiting the major pyramids and having a packed lunch
  • Return to Flores

Helicopter trip to El Mirador in the heart of the Guatemalan jungle

 

Travel Tips of a Helicopter trip to El Mirador

 

Logistics: 

  • We booked everything through El Mirador Helicopter Tours and they were fab – very clear instructions, good lunch and the guide Noah was fantastic.  Website: El Mirador Helicopter Tours.
  • The archaeologists – they arrive around the start of the July and stay for the Summer. Because the site is so vast, I doubt having them there would reduce the enjoyment of the place.
  • We stayed at the Las Lagunas Boutique Hotel just outside of Flores and it was fantastic.

 

On-site Experience:

  • Wandering – it won’t be hard as there are so few people there, but do make sure to get some time to explore on your own – we found checking out the Tiger Pyramid by ourselves a great experience.
  • Helicopter – see if can get the front seat of the helicopter for a great view and remember it gets bloody noisy!
  • Bring lots of mosquito repellent! 🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟🦟

 

For Context:

  • Visit Tikal, or another excavated Mayan site, first to get a feel for what the pyramids yet to be excavated would have looked like. Bear in mind that El Mirador was only relatively recently brought into the global view and was from the Pre-Classical period rather than the later Classical Period like Tikal.  For tips on Tikal, check out the Mayan ruins of Tikal and Itinerary for 10 wonderful days in Guatemala for the overall trip.
  • To get an idea of scale – look at the sign next to The Tapir Pyramid showing a representation of what it looked like. It is then that you realise that the hills you’ve been climbing were all built as part of the vast pyramid base … mind blown 🤯.
  • Books – I’d strongly suggest if any interest in Pre-Columbian American civilisations, to read 1491 by Charles Mann. It gives an insight into what these civilisations were like before Europeans arrive and just how impressive they were.
  • Movies – the Apocolyto movie isn’t a bad attempt at what it must have been like back in the Classical Mayan days (although ignore the arrival of Europeans at the end!)

 

Experiences Nearby

The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences

Other Jungle Adventures around the world

Camping in Corcovado National Park
⭐⭐⭐

Mayan ruins of Tikal
⭐⭐⭐

Semuc Champey all to yourself
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Trekking the mountains and jungle around Chiang Mai
⭐⭐

Diving and staying in guest houses in Central Raja Ampat
⭐⭐⭐

Hiking the 4 day / 3 night Inca Trail
⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Cycling around Angkor Wat
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Mekong tubing in Vang Vieng
⭐⭐⭐⭐

Sapa – taking a motorbike around the mountain scenery and hilltop villages
⭐⭐⭐

Score Detail

The scores above are the real point of this site.

Over 20+ years and 100+ countries, I’ve tried to rank the world’s best travel experiences — from genuinely mind-blowing ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ to the properly gash.

Every one of the 500+ places on this site has both a Wow Factor rating and a more analytical Travel Experience (TE) score based on the things that actually make travel memorable.

If you're curious about the thinking behind it, head to the About page.

Otherwise, explore the map above or on the Home page and see which places truly deliver maximum wow.

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