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Mexico - Visiting the monarch butterfly reserves in Michoacan

I am going to Mexico City in March and would love to visit the monarch butterfly reserve, but I have read that Michoacan has become fairly unsafe and I see that the region is listed as "do not travel" on many travel advisory websites. I am imagine the biosphere reserve is frequented by many tourists, but I am not familiar with the area so I am not sure if this is a recent change in the safety or if it has always been listed like that. Does anyone know the current situation and if it would be worth making the trip?

Posted Nov 27, 2023, 1:18 AM UTC

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notahorseindisguise•

I visited one of the reserves back in January on a bicycle tour between Mexico City and Guadalajara and crossed the state both on the main highways and back roads. I had zero issues and to my understanding most of the violence occurs on the other side of the mountains near the coast. The reserve is also the only place I saw gringos between CDMX and Guadalajara. Met a local cyclist on a mountain pass in Michoacan and stayed with him and his grandmother in Morelia, where I likewise saw no gringos despite being a city.

The reserves are absolutely worth visiting and going out of your way for. I've never seen so many butterflies in my life and it's just one of those things you need to see with your own eyes. Let me know if you have any questions, I've bike toured in Mexico a few times and feel I have a decent understanding of how things work there.

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fzt26 countries on 4 continents•

The Angangueo reserve is safe. Another smaller buttlerfly reserve that could be built into a multiple-day trip is Piedra Herrada, close to Nevado de Toluca, Valle de Bravo and Avándaro which are worth visiting, too.

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