Authentic and Amazing - Amazing, was a great tour! Our guide Antonio was professional, engaging, intelligent, insightful. Also very respectful of local culture and traditions. This was the very best introduction for us--all of our questions were answered thoughtfully and without prejudice. We wanted an authentic experience, and this tour hit it in all the right places for us.

Awesome trips around Huatulco - We booked two tours with Homietours - the 3 Levels of Huatulco and the Waterfalls. Both tours were amazing (the landscapes and the coffee - just wonderful) - our guide Javier was very knowledgable about the region and took so much time for us! We enjoyed both trips a lot and can only recommend to book a tour with this operator. We hope to come back again soon and do another tour with them.

A Great Day in The Stunning Mountains with EDGAR E. - Edgar was an amazing guide. He was casual, friendly and an open book. We enjoyed his down-to-earth approach and willingness to take his time. He was especially careful on the winding mountain roads. His driving skills are impeccable-- probably the best driver we have ever been in a car with in a foreign country. The mountain village and coffee growing plantation were absolutely beautiful and unique. It definitely felt like we were going beyond the typical tourist hub and getting to see a stunning side of Mexico that most tourists never get to see. Also, the day was nicely paced. We left around 9am right from our rented condo, picked up another couple, had a driving tour of the town of Santa Maria Huatolco, started up the winding mountain road, stopped at a coffee plantation/peaceful oasis-like mini-resort with a museum-type space, walked around surveying and learning about local fauna and coffee plants, relaxed in hammocks overlooking the vast mountain ranges, ate a simple, freshly prepared lunch, then drove a few mins further into a tiny mountaintop village to taste and purchase coffee beans and see an old church, and were delivered back to our rented condo around 3pm. Our guide offered to stop at a Mezcal factory where we could see how if it made but nobody in our group desired to make another stop. It was a generous option though. Overall, we highly recommend Edgar and this tour!! You won't regret taking a day to go "off the beaten path"!

See where shade grown, bird friendly coffee comes from! - Javier was our guide. There were five guests, two Spanish speakers and three English speakers. Javier did a good job providing the information in both languages. He picked us up on time and we set off for Santa Maria Huatulco where we visited a beautiful church and a municipal building with a large mural depicting the history of the region. Then it was time to begin the trip up into the mountains to reach Pluma Hidalgo. The road was damaged in recent years by a hurricane and resulting landslide, and is currently under repair. Javier was a careful driver and his van was up to the challenge of the steep and winding road. We reached Pluma which is a picturesque town of about 5000 people. Tuk-tuks were everywhere! Just on the edge of town was the hillside coffee plantation owned and operated by Pablo and his family. Pablo is a young man with impeccable English, and he and Javier walked us through the plantation and taught us the life cycle of the coffee plant. Then it was time to visit Pablo’s home/cafe where we tasted their coffee and enjoyed delicious snacks made right then and there by his mother. It was a very relaxing visit, with lots of time to enjoy the conversation and refreshments, and purchase ground or whole bean coffee to take home. We then piled back into the van and Javier took us back down the mountain and back to our hotel by late afternoon.

Fantastic tour: local history, sights and coffee! - Fantastic day with our guide, Javier. It ended up being a private tour in his very comfortable and clean vehicle. He added local stops to provide us more history of the region, giving us more context to appreciate this beautiful area. And the coffee plantation he chose to show us was excellent: local, friendly and meaningful! Pablo and his family gave us a tour of their plantation, made us a local lunch and furnished us with us a coffee tasting - very smooth and delicious. Overall fabulous way to spend a day and I recommend Javier and Pablo to anyone who wants to spend some time with them!

Wonderful experience with Alberto - Alberto from Homietours does the 3 Levels of Huatulco tour for more than 15 years. His enthusiasm shows and his knowledge is phenomenal, especially everything plant related, as he has a background in biology. The first stop (1st level at sea level) of the tour is at a Vista point overlooking Santa Cruz Bay and the harbor. Here, Alberto explained the Huatulco National Park and the restrictions it puts on the land development in Huatulco. The next stop (2nd level at 300m) is at the Zocalo in Santa Maria Huatulco. Here you will visit the central plaza, the church (closed on Mondays) and City Hall where Alberto will explain a beautiful mural. The 3rd level of Huatulco at 1500m has multiple stops. First, Alberto will pick and peel a coffee berry to expose the beans, then you will see how they are dried. Next is a stop at a land parcel that Alberto owns and where he used to roast coffee beans. The land and his oven were damaged during the last hurricane and he is rebuilding it. This part of the tour involves hiking down a short but steep and narrow dirt path. If you can't do this, then you can stay back. During the hike, Alberto's biology background comes to shine when he shows young and not yet mature plants of ginger, avocado, grapefruit, licorice, lemongrass, banana, and vanilla that he has planted and he invites you to smell their leaves. The views of the mountains from here are fantastic. The next stop is at the Zocalo in Pluma Hidalgo, where the famous Pluma Hidalgo letters are. There, he will bring you to one of the roasters, where you can see the roasting equipment and learn how the different roasting levels influence the color and flavor of the beans. And you will understand why people in Oaxaca prefer mid-level roasted beans over the dark-roasted beens that we consume in the US. I have come to think of it as a medium vs a well-done steak. Of course, a free tasting of the mid-level roasted and ground coffee is included and you can buy coffee beans or ground coffee. The last stop will be at the famous Finca Don Gabriel where you can eat a late lunch. There is a small exhibit room and the views from here on the mountains and the ocean on the horizon are breathtaking. Alberto is very communicative, knowledgeable and speaks excellent English. I had booked a group tour, but as another couple had canceled last minute due to illness, Alberto honored our reservation and gave us a private tour for the agreed-upon price. Our tour took about 7h and we were very happy with it and strongly recommend Alberto at Homietours. You can book a tour via his homepage or Viator. I contacted him via his homepage and he always responded within a few hours. Definitely 5 stars.

Breathtaking and Enriching - This tour was the highlight of our recent trip to Huatulco. Alberto was a phenomenal guide and provided tons of insight and interesting facts not only about the towns we visited but about all the flora and fauna of the area. We went to Santa Maria first and visited the government building, and a beautiful church that was still decorated for the Celebration of Our Lady of Guadalupe. We got to learn about all different kinds of plants native to Mexico, and plans that were native to other areas but the story about how they got to Mexico! He took us for a hike on his private trail and pointed out all kinds of plants that are predecessors to modern plants we know today (like licorice, lemongrass, anise, etc). After the hike we went into Pluma Hidalgo and got to visit a coffee roasterie. Alberto is friends with the owner so it was a very personal experience! We learned all about how coffee goes from growing on a bush to the caffeinated drink we all love. We got to try some freshly ground coffee and a lot of other products that the roasters make the beans into. We had the opportunity to buy coffee beans and other products. (We packed half a suitcase full!) He then showed us around Pluma Hidalgo a little more and drove up to the mountaintop to a phenomenal restaurant that overlooks the start of the Sierra Madre mountains and the ocean. The views were breathtaking, the coffee was phenomenal, and the guide was second to none. Would 1000% recommend this trip to anyone interested in learning about the rich culture of this area of Oaxaca, and trying some new foods!

Great value! - This tour is really good value for the money. Alberto picked us up in his A/C van in time for a 9:00am start and we drove out to Santa Maria Huatulco, then on up into the cloud forest in the mountains. He dropped us off again at our place late afternoon. We saw beautiful views of the coastline below, had a super lunch at a restaurant with gorgeous views, peppers roasting on a fire outside. We saw vanilla and coffee growing. Alberto offered tastes and smells of native plants on a small plot of land he owns. He is university educated, speaks perfect English, is interested and interesting. Loved the tour. A highlight and a nice way to catch some cooler Sierra Madre air and learn something about Oaxaca.

A Great way to spend a day! - If you love coffee and Mexican culture or want to learn about it at all, take this tour. You won't be disappointed. Our tour guide, Manuel, spoke goid English and was full of knowledge concerning the places we went. The route on the website appeared as if you only saw the coffee plantation but there were a couple of other stops as well. Very fun and educational!

Great tour, excellent guide! - We would like to thank Javier Gomez for the great time and the really good experience we had during this tour, First we appreciated that the tour wasn’t cancel even if the other couples canceled, so we were lucky to get a private tour with our guide, Javier. He is really a passionate person who was able to provide a lot of history details during the Santa Maria town visit and even during the 1.5h one way drive which we loved. We had great conversation about the environment and the Oaxaca culture, very interesting. Second, Arriving to pluma hidalgo, Javier took the time to explain all the coffee process from the seed to the drink, making sure we understood all the steps and take advantage to be in the plantation to show the traditional process used but also some special trees such as banana trees, canela tree, vanilla, etc. During this tour, he “proposed” a lunch with the local family, it was really great experience and the food was typical Oaxaca tamales, but the point too improve was this lunch was pretty expensive for just tamales. In conclusion, we highly recommend to take this tour with Javier as a great guide. You learn a lot with him. Just the surprise aspect of the lunch was more expensive than what we expected.