Mariposa Nature Tours specialise in butterfly and botany holidays throughout Europe and beyond.
Founded in 2023 by a small team of naturalists with over 20 years combined experience of leading wildlife tours, we know what works best in a holiday of this kind.
Our tour leaders have intimate site knowledge, having spent years in the field exploring and refining their knowledge of the regions we visit, and the wildlife to be found in them. Many of our European butterfly holidays record in excess of 100 species in the space of a week, and our European orchid tours several dozen species – and in both instances, the sheer numbers of insects and plants as a whole makes every day the best sort of treasure hunt. We want to immerse our guests in the finest butterfly and botanical experiences Europe has to offer.
We are a friendly crew – we know you’re on holiday, so while we will do our very best to ensure you see all the wildlife you hope to, we also place emphasis on the quality of the experience as a whole. Our days are well-paced, and there is no need to rush – our itineraries are calculated to ensure we make the most of the week’s potential. Our evenings are convivial affairs in comfortable hotels as we look back on the highlights of the day just gone. We keep our group sizes deliberately small and generally no more than a dozen people on any holiday – if the group exceeds six people, there will be two guides for the group, ensuring everyone is well looked after.
We firmly believe in supporting local businesses wherever we travel but, moreover, we recognise the important role we all have as ambassadors for the natural world – we think it’s vital that we demonstrate that biodiversity has local economic value for, alongside education of the next generation, this helps to give impetus for communities to value and conserve the biodiversity they live amongst year round, and which we visit only fleetingly.
Above all, we know our guests want to see some wonderful things. We think that if we enjoy the butterflies or botany of an area, you probably will too! We look forward to you joining us on our travels someday soon.
