Tamarindo Night Turtle Nesting Tour: Witness Olive Ridley, Green Pacific Sea Turtles in Action

Experience the magic of witnessing Olive Ridley and Green Pacific sea turtles laying their eggs on the Tamarindo Night Turtle Nesting Tour. Don’t miss the chance to see baby turtles hatching and embarking on their journey to the sea!

Duration: 4 hours
Cancellation: 24 hours
Highlights
  • Native’s Way - Departing just after sunset, guests will gather at our office, and the guide will lead them to a protected beach situated 30 minutes away.
  • Playa Mina - Visitors will have the opportunity to witness Olive Ridley and Green Pacific sea turtles laying their eggs on a series of secluded beaches near Playa Grande. While sightings of…
What's Included
  • Private Tour: Pickup from various locations including Pinilla, JW Marriott, Tamarindo, Langosta, Conchal, Flamingo, Grande
  • Bottled water included
  • Driver/guide provided
  • Local taxes included
  • Shared Tour: Pickup and drop-off from Native’s Way Office
What's Not Included
  • Gratuities
  • Hotel pickup (Shared Tour)
  • Shared Tour: Pick up from Tamarindo/Langosta Hotels and Private Residences ($20 fee per booking)
Additional Information

On this Tamarindo Turtle Nesting tour, you will have the rare chance to see Olive Ridley and Green Pacific sea turtles, dig their nests, lay their eggs, and sometimes even see the babies hatching and making their way out to sea! The professional tour guide will take you walking along some remote beaches just North of Playa Grande in search of the…

Location
Native's Way Costa Rica - Tours and Transfers
Cancellation Policy

For a full refund, cancel at least 24 hours before the scheduled departure time.

Customer Ratings
4.2
(187 Ratings)
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Pjacksonmbe
Apr 13, 2025
Fantastic turtle nesting excursion - Turtle nesting tour. From booking to delivery the team at Natives way were excellent. They contacted me a few days before the tour to advise me that we were right at the end of the nesting season and the chances of seeing turtles was very low. They offered options to cancel and claim a full refund, book an alternative tour or proceed with the original tour on the understanding that me may not see anything. We decided to stick with our original booking and we were so glad that we did. 3 baby turtles heading to the sea and 3 adult females arriving to lay eggs. We were very pleased with our guides ethics when it came to conservation and avoiding disturbing the turtles. This allowed us to thoroughly enjoy the experience without the worry that we were impacting the wildlife.
Review provided by Tripadvisor
337andrewo
Mar 30, 2025
Great guide - amazing wildlife - We saw a large female turtle looking for a nesting spot, and multiple hatchlings making their way to sea. Aside from what we saw as in nature you can never be sure, our guide was great, knowledgable, thought about the wildlife itself, and gave us the best chance possible coordinating with other groups. If nothing else, the amount of stars visible in the sky from the beach are a view to behold
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Robbied795
Mar 29, 2025
Amazing sea turtle adventure! - Amazing experience. Our family was able to see several new born baby turtles making their way to the ocean, as well as a mother headed back after laying eggs.
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Brandy_l
Mar 4, 2025
Fantastic tour!! Ivan was... - Fantastic tour!! Ivan was a great guide and we got to see a mother turtle lay eggs and even some babies make to the water. Highly recommend!
Review provided by Viator
K9681xjjimd
Feb 27, 2025
Turtles turtles turtles - Fun trip about an hour from Tamarindo off the beaten track to an isolated beach where we saw four green turtles attempt to find a good spot to lay eggs but not successful. Filipe (I hope I got that right) were our guides and were great hosts. You also get a fantastic view of the stars which you can capture even on an old iPhone
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Ljubica_b
Feb 18, 2025
Awesome experience - Would strongly recommend. We saw a turtle digging the hole and laying eggs. Also saw a snake and scorpion on our walk to the beach!!
Review provided by Viator
Dawn_h
Apr 25, 2025
1 turtle. And we were lucky to see that. - This experience was good as was the company. We only saw 1 turtle as this was the end of the turtle nest season. I wouldn’t recommend going after the 2nd week of April as you may not see anything
Review provided by Viator
Missessixty
Mar 11, 2025
Mixed feelings - We were lucky in December to see a turtle burying its eggs in the beach. This tour is worth it. As far as the whole course of the night tour is concerned, I can only make a recommendation to a limited extent. We drove in a group of 20 people to a dark beach about 45 minutes away from Tamarindo where other groups were already. There the guide said goodbye for an indefinite period of time to go turtle hunting and then you stood there waiting and waiting and waiting and waiting. The beauty of the beach was that you could see the bioluminescence up close in the sand. While you waited, guides walked by with their red light bulbs, looking for the animals. If a turtle is spotted somewhere, the guide comes sprinting or gives a light signal from a distance and then the touris also sprint off to be with the animal first if possible. If it's a false alarm, it's command back. On our tour it was the case that no turtle was found at the stand section, so the search was extended to other, nearby beach sections. After more than two hours of waiting, finally came the very hint via walkie talkie that a turtle was found on another beach. So again all the groups sprinted off to the bus to go to the other beach. Our guide was nowhere to be seen. When he finally came back to the beach, we also drove to the other beach. Better said, we had to walk another kilometer to the beach. That would not be a problem in itself, but the gravel road was not quite easy, especially for the older visitors. You had to meander past many deep rain holes that stretched the entire width of the trail and you were only equipped with flashlights. You had to go back the way in the end. Arriving at the turtle, about 40 people stood around the individual animal and gawped at it burying its eggs. Several red light flashlights were aimed at the animal. It was stressed to tourists that no one should turn on a normal light, but of course this also happened more than once by accident. I can't imagine the animal not feeling disturbed by such a gathering of people. At any rate, we felt sorry for the animal at that moment rather than really enjoying the experience.
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Julia
Mar 8, 2025
Nice but too touristy - Very touristy. You are put in groups of 10 people on the beach where you wait until the tour guides find turtles. Then all groups (about 6 groups, which is about 60 people) run to a nest and crowd around to watch the turtles. Unfortunately, there are some tourists who can't turn off the flash light of the mobile phone camera, which stresses the baby turtles a lot. You can see a lot of turtles (babies and mother in our case) and the tour guides are super nice and effortful, but you have to be aware that it is very crowded there.
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Lucy
Feb 15, 2025
overall slightly disappointed - 1 hour drive there, 20 minutes hike to the beach just to see the turtle for 52 seconds (i filmed the whole time i was watching her and that’s how long it is), and then 20 minutes hike back and 1 hour drive home - so although we saw a turtle laying her eggs which was incredible, i can’t help but be a little disappointed with those timings. our group was quite big and there were also two other groups waiting to look at the same turtle so that’s why we got so little time. the guide told us that recently they’d seen babies hatching and it was normal to see them every couple of days so i hoped we’d go looking for the babies too! but instead we just went home. the guide was great though, explained everything and answered all our questions. however overall i just feel like it wasn’t good value for money as we didn’t even try to see more.
Review provided by Tripadvisor