2021 Detailed Review of Sky Walk Monteverde

Several companies offer hanging bridges canopy tours in Monteverde, Costa Rica, and Sky Walk Monteverde is among the top. However, Sky Walk Monteverde comes with the highest price tag compared to the other hanging bridges tours in the area.

That begs the question; is Sky Walk Monteverde worth your time and money?

This is one of the most frequently asked questions I get from travelers who visit Monteverde, Costa Rica, so I decided to write this article with a comprehensive review explaining the pros and cons of Sky Walk Monteverde.

Here is the key takeaway from this review: 

Sky Walk Monteverde is totally worth it; this fantastic cloud forest tour combines nature trails with a series of six hanging bridges suspended above the canopy of the trees in the cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. Sky Walk Monteverde also features the longest bridge in Costa Rica, an impressive 236-meter long bridge (774 feet) with astonishing cloud forest views.

You can do Sky Walk Monteverde on your own with a map after paying the entrance fee to enter the park, or you can upgrade to do this tour with a local tour guide, who will share loads of information about the cloud forest flora and fauna and help you stop some of the local wildlife with their keen eye and spotting scope.

Keep scrolling for more details as I break down the pros and cons of Sky Walk Monteverde.

Nature Trails at Sky Walk Monteverde

Sky Walk Monteverde features 2.5 kilometers (1.2 miles) of hiking trails built inside the cloud forest of Monteverde, Costa Rica. The trails at Sky Walk Monteverde are very manageable, with a relatively easy difficulty level suitable for people of ages 6 and up.

There are three loops of trails you can do at Sky Walk Monteverde, with varying distances to suit the needs of different people; all of them have access to the largest bridge of the park, but all of them also have a shortcut to skip it if you’re so inclined.

First loop: The smallest loop of trails in Sky Walk Monteverde is about 1 kilometer long (0.6 miles). It goes through three bridges, and it should take you between 45 minutes and an hour to complete going at an easy pace. This loop goes to bridges number 1, number 2, and number 5 (the largest bridge at the park).

Second loop: The next loop of trails in Sky Walk Monteverde is about 1.2 kilometers long (0.7 miles). It goes through three bridges, and it should take you between an hour and 1.5 hours to complete going at an easy pace. This one does not go through the largest bridge of the park.

Third loop: The largest trail at Sky Walk Monteverde is about 2 kilometers long (1.2 miles). It goes through four bridges before you decide if you want to return to reception via the trail that goes through the park’s largest bridge or through a different trail that goes through a smaller bridge.

I recommend going through all of the trails loops at Sky Walk Monteverde if you can manage that much hiking. The total distance is approximately 2.5 kilometers (1.5 miles) and should take you about 2 hours to complete going at an easy pace.

I also recommend that you visit Sky Walk Monteverde with a local tour guide, which you can upgrade to at the time of booking online. Going with a guide is a great asset as they know the park very well and as explained at the beginning of the article, they will give you a throughout explanation of the local flora and fauna, as well as help you find animals (especially birds) that you probably would not be able to see without a guide.

What a blast the guided Sky Walk Tour was. Olger, our guide, was very informative, interesting and kind (my husband is afraid of heights). The bridges were well maintained, safe and exciting.” –Anastasia

The guided tour was beyond our expectations, the tour guide took his time to explain us every single detail about birds, trees and the area as a whole.” –Leonardo

The guided tour at Sky Walk Monteverde takes 2 hours

If you decide to go with a tour guide on Sky Walk Monteverde, they will dictate which loop or loops of trails you will cover on tour, and after the guided tour, you can continue to hike on your own until the park closes 4 pm. This is great because it means you get to see the entire park after the tour is over.

Sky Walk Monteverde Map

Sky Walk Monteverde Hanging Bridges

Sky Walk Monteverde features six hanging bridges, including the largest hanging bridge in Costa Rica.

The following table shows the distance of each hanging bridge at Sky Walk Monteverde:

*Note: Bridge number 5, named “Zapote,” is not only the longest hanging bridge of Sky Walk Monteverde but the longest hanging bridge in the country of Costa Rica. If you feel vertigo when you get to this bridge, skip it and take bridge number 6, “Bijagua,” to head back to reception.

The following table shows the height (from the ground level) of each hanging bridge at Sky Walk Monteverde:

Note: Even though some of the bridges are pretty high at Sky Walk Monteverde, the trees on the side of the bridges are just as high, so you actually don’t really feel like you’re so high up there. It feels like walking on a trail, which is why Sky Walk is also referred to as a “canopy walk”. You are literally walking above and next to the canopy of the trees.

Sky Walk Monteverde Prices

Transportation services include a group shuttle that will take you from your lodge in Monteverde or Santa Elena to Sky Walk Monteverde and then back to your lodge when you are done with the tour. The transportation fees include both ways.

Note: The road to get the Sky Walk Monteverde is unpaved and is generally in bad shape. This is one of the reasons why some people prefer to pay for transportation services even if they have a car. On the other hand, adding transportation also adds more time to the tour because shuttles need to pick up and drop off travelers at multiple hotels, so you can save the transportation fee and save up to 90 minutes in total if you drive to the park.

This is where you need to decide based on your needs. If you prefer to save time, drive. If you prefer to take it easy and just be picked up and dropped off, pay the extra fee and upgrade to include transportation services.

Sky Walk Monteverde is on real cloud forest

Most people travel to Monteverde under the assumption that the entire Monteverde region is a cloud forest, but that is not the case. Monteverde is a town in the mountain region of Costa Rica, and a significant part of this area is a cloud forest, but there is also rainforest in the area. 

Some adventure parks in Monteverde are in the cloud forest, but most parks are in the rainforest. Sky Adventures Monteverde, where Sky Walk Monteverde takes place, is located in the cloud forest. Customers love Sky Walk Monteverde for this reason because, in comparison with the rainforest, the cloud forest is more vibrant and gorgeous*

Suspension bridges are a great feature of the Sky Walk Monteverde tour. The trail between the 6 bridges are made for a beautiful and relatively easy hike through the forest, which is filled with beautiful plants and birds. The suspension bridges themselves are modern and stable. Such a fun and exhilarating experience as you take in spectacular views on bridges extending 50 to 150 ft. above the forest.” -Kathleen

*For more information on this topic, visit the article “Why the Monteverde Cloud Forest is famous and popular worldwide.”

Customer Reviews of Sky Walk Monteverde

Finding online customer reviews specifically for a hanging bridge tour in Monteverde is chaotic. The problem with huge websites like TripAdvisor is that anyone can list tours, resell them and earn a commission.

And TripAdvisor themselves are not good at reviewing and filtering those listings, so there are way too many listings offering the same services with different names, making it very challenging to find trustworthy online reviews for a specific tour.

On the other hand, Google listings do not evaluate services. They consider businesses as a whole, which is good to get an overview of a business at a high level but is not beneficial when you are only interested in one specific service.

For example, if you try to look for reviews on Google for Sky Walk Monteverde, you will have to spend a couple of hours filtering out reviews. You will need to look for the tour company, Sky Adventures Monteverde, and then you will need to manually look for reviews that talk about the Sky Walk tour.

If you go on Google and only look at the rating of Sky Adventures Monteverde, you will see the overall company rating, but you will not see the specific rating for Sky Walk.

The problem is that Sky Adventures Monteverde offers various services and experiences such as zip lines, animal exhibits, nature photography, restaurant services, and a souvenir shop, to name a few, and customers can only rate the park as a whole rather than rating each service on its own.

So if a customer had a 5/5 experience on the Sky Walk tour, but they had a 1/5 experience at the coffee shop, they might end up rating the park as a 3/5 or a 4/5, which does not tell you how the Sky Walk experience was unless you read the full comment.

Another problem is that more than 50% of ratings lack comments. So long story short, without a manual filter and a lot of analysis, the overall ratings on Google will not tell you how good or bad a specific service is.

So, I did a study to gather data specifically around Sky Walk Monteverde. I analyzed 1,976 online customer reviews and filtered reviews down to those where the customers only referenced the zipline experience.

I did not include the ratings where customers left no comments. Neither did I include the ratings where the customer evaluated multiple services with one rating.

I only considered those ratings where the customer specifically rated the Sky Walk Monteverde experience, and here are the results:

Data from January 1st, 2021 to September 12th, 2021.

Source: Click here to read the full report with the above reviews and comments.

Cons About Sky Walk Monteverde

Accessibility: Sky Walk Monteverde has been advertised on social media multiple times as wheelchair accessible, but this is partially true in all honesty. Unlike all adventure parks in Monteverde, Sky Walk Monteverde features trails without stairs, which is great. However, the ramps are too steep for someone in a wheelchair to get over them without assistance. Here is a one-star review comment from a customer with reduced mobility who came to do Sky Walk Monteverde and found out about this issue:

Attention to tourists with reduced mobility …… The company says that the route is completely accessible and it is not true, they leave you a wheelchair but the path is full of very steep ascents and descents, dirt with pebbles , it is not adapted.” -Cinzia

Note: The above comment was the only 1-star review of Sky Walk Monteverde posted on Google during 2021, which goes on to prove that Sky Walk Monteverde has a superb reputation. However, setting correct expectations is key, especially when you advertise a benefit in an ambiguous manner, such as saying that the trails are accessible and failing to mention that they are relatively steep, which would make it extremely difficult for someone to go on a wheelchair solo.

On the other hand, families with babies can take their baby trolley with them. It should not be a problem to push the trolley up the ramps, which is another differentiator for Sky Walk Monteverde because no other park with hanging bridges in the area is baby trolley accessible. Here is a comment from a customer who went in with one:

It’s great that you can take your baby trolley with you. We will definitely come back” -Saray

Wildlife: There was one 3-star review and one 4-star review due to little wildlife observation at Sky Walk Monteverde. Both of those reviews came from customers who expected to see more animals. Both of those customers did the Sky Walk Monteverde hike on their own, without a tour guide.

On the other hand, there were numerous positive comments from customers who had more luck and saw wildlife at Sky Walk Monteverde. In my own experience, I think this has to do with the unpredictability of nature. I have done dozens of tours in Monteverde, and there have been days where I have seen more wildlife for no obvious reason. Perhaps, I was just luckier those days.

Here is a comment from someone who was very satisfied with the variety of wildlife he spotted at Sky Walk Monteverde:

A very beautiful experience, walking through the forest, breathing fresh air, and feeling in total contact with nature is part of what can be enjoyed on this tour. We observe butterflies, different types of plants, flowers, and monkeys.” -Byron

The majority of customers who posted positive comments regarding their experience spotting wildlife at Sky Walk Monteverde recommended upgrading the tour t go with a tour guide, rather than doing the walk on your own, so if seeing wildlife is important for you, the data indicates that you have significantly more chances when you go with a tour guide, which as mentioned multiple times throughout this article, it makes sense as the local guides are the experts who know the park like the palm of their hand and they have spotting scopes that allow them to see what you would otherwise miss without that piece of equipment.

Weather: There were zero low ratings due to weather conditions at Sky Walk Monteverde. However, there were multiple observations from customers in this regard. The common theme across those comments was that the weather at Sky Walk Monteverde could get rainy, cold, and windy, so the recommendation is to bring warm clothing.

I can relate to those comments because I still remember the first time I went to Sky Walk Monteverde with my daughter when she was six. Even though we went in the middle of summer and the day was pretty clear, it got pretty cold out of nowhere, so I recommend that you dress in long pants and warm clothing, ideally with a lightweight rain jacket.

At the very least, take a small poncho with you and carry it into your back pocket just in case. This tip applies to all parks and activities in Monteverde, not just for Sky Walk. For more recommendations on what to bring for your visit to Monteverde, you can read the article 10 Things You Must Bring To Monteverde.

Is Sky Walk Monteverde For You? 

This ends my review on Sky Walk Monteverde. After reading the above information, if you consider that Sky Walk Monteverde is best for your specific needs, you can use this link to check real-time availability, book, and get instant confirmation. On the other hand, if you are not sure if Sky Trek Monteverde is the best option for your ideal zipline experience, you can check out this article to compare the top 4 hanging bridges tours in Monteverde.

About the Author

Daniel Lalinde

I am the founder of Monteverde Tours Online. I live in Monteverde, and I love nature, adventure, and Mountain Biking. My partner and I love spending time in the outdoors and dining out in Monteverde. We have more than 30 years of combined experience in the area, and there is no park, no coffee shop, and no restaurant we haven’t tried at least once!

We love helping visitors, connecting them with the different tours and activities to have a memorable experience in Monteverde.

If you need help planning things to do in the area, send us a message, and we will happily assist you!