Great experience exploring the Peten with Tikal VIP tours! - I had a great experience with Tikal VIP Tours. Elmer, the owner and guide is very knowledgeable (a university trained historian), very gracious and an overall good person with great pride in Guatemala’s history and culture. I saw some of the other tour groups rushing through the main sites, but Elmer took me to some hidden gems, and really made my trip special. I also loved the door to door service in a private new SUV. Definitely recommend booking with Tikal VIP!

Excellent - Excellent guides, very good attention and very good shared information. I went with a group of students from Turilos and the experience helped a lot in their training.

Great guides! Yaxha Ruins and Shuttle Transfer - Very knowledgable guides, very friendly and helpful. Tour of Yaxha Ruins and a shuttle from Flores to San Ignacio. Bi-lingual guide, great for us as we only speak a little spanish. Lots of monkeys, birds, and other wildlife in Yaxha. Guides helped us through border crossing, very generous. Thanks guys, for making Guatemala a great visit for us!

Elmer is the best Guatemalan tour guide! - We stayed in Guatemala for a week and a half and did several different tours—Elmer was by far the BEST tour guide we had! Despite Tikal being the #1 destination in the region, Yaxha should not be missed! It is a less crowded park so the vibe is calm and more intimate. Elmer is incredibly kind and knowledgeable, we were very curious and he answered all of our questions not only about Yaxha but about the surrounding nature and Guatemala as a whole.

Exceptional Elmer - Normally I do not write a review if I am only going to repeat what others have said. However, I am making an exception in the case of Elmer Omar Alvarado, of Tikal VIP Tours, because he is exceptional and fully worthy of the praise bestowed upon him. I got to know Elmer through WhatsApp messages that began a month before the date of our tour, when I was looking for a tour guide for Yaxha. The adjectives applicable to Elmer throughout the WhatsApp communications and on the day of the tour include friendly, responsive, courteous, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, humorous, empathetic, self-effacing, accommodating (in all cases, exceedingly so). I could go on, but I think I have made the point. To put my extolling of Elmer in context, I am not known for being lavish with praise. And I am also not a newcomer to international travel. While this was my first trip south of the US border, since 1969, when I joined the US Peace Corps, I have spent years living, working and/or traveling in places other than my native New York (including Europe, the Middle East, India and Asia/Pacific). I have come across very few people who so love what they do and are so good at it as Elmer. Our WhatsApp communications gave me high expectations that could easily have been unfulfilled. However, from the moment that Elmer arrived (on time!) he lived up to those expectations. Bravo, Elmer!

Amazing visit to Yaxha, the lost Mayan city - This tour is a must if you are visiting Peten. Do not just visit Tikal if you want to have a full idea about the Mayan culture. Elmer is an amazing tour guide, he knows a lot and have pleasure explaining everything you want to know. Yaxha is "the lost city", very different than Tikal since just 5% have been dug. The forest covering most of the temples and archeological area gives an "Indiana Jones" feeling. Elmer will climb to every pyramid (I've seen other tour guides waiting down), and will transmit all the time the passion he feels about the Mayan culture. They picked me up with his brother from my hotel, drove 90 minutes to Yaxha, and we walked and climbed almost 4 hours around the ruins. He was not in any rush at all. He took effort to spot wild animals too, and we had luck to see hauling monkeys and a beautiful bird (cousin of the holy Quetzal) called Straight Tailed Trogon. After the tour we had lunch in a local place with greta food, I tried the Chicken Ramon, which is the speciality (Ramon is a nut that just grows in this area). They dropped me off in Isla de Flores in our way back, which is a nice tiny island with colorful architecture, worth to visit. Thank you Elmer for this pleasant experience

Fantastic Yaxha VIP Private Day Tour with Elmer! - The Yaxha VIP Private Day Tour with Elmer was a great value and seamless day trip to Yaxha! Elmer is a fantastic guide who very much enriched my experience at Yaxha with insights and information that really brought the experience alive for me. He picked me up at my hotel in Tikal park in a comfortable air conditioned van- navigated us along the "free massage" road to Yaxha :) and got us though and around the few crowds that were around so that it was a very personal and uncrowded experience. I'm also very grateful that Elmer is a patient man with folks like me who are scared of heights and not accustomed to high temperatures and humidity. After our tour at Yaxha- we stopped for lunch at a fantastic restaurant with mayanut /romannut chicken and soup- and the BEST handmade tortilla. So delicious! Elmer also arranged a tour for me the next day at Tikal with his colleague Jeovanni. I was equally satisfied and recommend both!

Highly Recommended - This was my favorite tour of our 10-day trip! Our guide was the BEST! So knowledgeable and fun and the food was so yummy!

Beautiful views! - Beautiful site not as crowded as Tikal but equally interesting. Absolutely stunning views with lots of rainforest wildlife to see!

Under rated place to visit, along with Tikal. VIP is the best - I visited both Tikal and Yaxha with VIP tours. Elmer is absolutely a phenomenal tour guide. You cannot go wrong booking Elmer, as his knowledge is outstanding and he really gives people a VIP treatment with hotel pick up, flexibility, and the small touches. As far as the park itself, it was well worth the visit. Smaller than Tikal. The day I went, there was literally 1 other group in the entire place, so it felt like I had the entire place to myself. Maybe this was due to COVID and/or going mid-week. Either way, it was awesome to go. One tip - do the sunset tour. It overlooks two lakes & you can see for miles.