Hot Air Balloon Adventure over Teotihuacan, Mexico

If you visit Mexico City, a day at Teotihuacan is a must! Teotihuacan is the site of Mesoamerican ruins and pyramids dating back to approximately 400-100 BCE. At its height, the city covered 8 square miles and had a population of about 125,000-200,000, making it the largest city in North and South America at the time. Quite impressive! 

And if you’re going to visit this ancient city, we highly recommend paying extra for a bird’s eye view. It’s simply stunning watching the sunrise as you soar over the 2,000+ year old ruins below. Few experiences can compare. 

If you’d like more information specifically on Teotihuacan, check out our Tour of Teotihuacan article here. 

This article focuses on our hot air balloon ride over the ruins!

Flight Company & Cost

First off, there are several hot air balloon companies to choose from and they generally offer similar experiences. It’s pretty much going to come down to price and reviews. When we went earlier this year, we booked with Aventura en Globos.  

Currently, Aventura en Globos has 4 different flight options:

• Traditional Flight (the most affordable option, where you are placed with other parties)
• Private Flight (just your group)
• Family Flight (private group with discounts for children)
• VIP Flight (celebratory flight banner and cupcake with breakfast)

We chose a private hot air balloon ride for our party of three, allowing us to have our own balloon, which I think was nice because the traditional flight looked pretty crowded. 

The total cost was $9,850 MXN or $3,283 MXN / person ($162 USD / person). Guests are required to provide an advance payment of $800 MXN / person through PayPal, and the rest is paid the day of the flight.  

How did we get to the flight location?

For convenience, we decided to arrange transportation through Aventura en Globos. Normally, taking Ubers in Mexico City is totally fine. But in our experience, it’s hard to get Ubers there at 5:00 AM. So it’s best to arrange transportation in advance and to avoid traditional taxis that may scam you. 

Round trip transportation to and from our Airbnb, which was about 1 hour away from Teotihuacan, was $450 MXN / person ($22 USD / person).  

Our driver picked us up bright and early at 5:00 AM. So we had plenty of time to get to the launch location, go to the bathroom, and enjoy a coffee and snack before we went.  

Normally, if you book the hot air balloon ride without tickets to Teotihuacan, round trip transportation would be from your hotel/Airbnb to the hot air balloon site and back. But we negotiated with our driver to take us to Teotihuacan after, even though we had only purchased the hot air balloon ride and not the combined ticket. (We wanted to do a private tour of the ancient city on our own rather than as part of big group.) And for a relatively small fee, he also waited for us at Teotihuacan until we were finished with our tour.

What was included?

After arriving at the launch location, we had approximately 45 minutes to check in at the front desk, use the restrooms, and enjoy some coffee, tea, and snacks before taking off. 

You are not allowed to take backpacks or extra gear on the hot air balloon, but lockers were provided for free.  

The view from the balloon was absolutely stunning. You get a view of the whole archeological complex, the city, and the surrounding mountains. And it was equally cool watching a sea of multicolored balloons float around us as the sun rose.  

Once we returned to home base, we were greeted with complimentary champagne and received a flight certificate to commemorate the occasion. And if you chose, you could purchase photos taken from a GoPro attached to your balloon. We chose just to go with our own though! 

Following our celebratory drinks, a song to commemorate the experience, and our certificate presentation, we were taken to a large banquet hall for a buffet breakfast, which was a pretty big spread. They had pancakes, eggs, pork, chilaquiles, mixed vegetables, corn, different kinds of fruit, and a whole table of desserts. I was actually quite impressed with it! 

The breakfast also included entertainment with dancers wearing indigenous Teotihuacan garb. The overall experience at the restaurant is a bit touristy, but honestly pretty good for what it is. Plus, it gave us the fuel for our tour through the archaeological site afterward.

Itinerary

For those of you who like seeing things in a schedule, here’s an hourly breakdown of our itinerary. 

5:00 – 6:00 AM – Transportation to Globopuerto (launch location)

6:00 – 6:45 AM – Registration and Coffee Brake

6:45 – 7:00 AM – Time for Photographs and Boarding

7:00 – 8:00 AM – Balloon Flight

8:00 – 8:30 AM – Transfer from Landing Point to Globopuerto

8:30 – 9:00 AM – Delivery of Certificates and Traditional Toast

9:00 – 10:00 AM – Breakfast

10:00 – 11:00 AM – Transportation back to Mexico City

If you purchase the Combined Flight + Teotihuacan Ticket, then your excursion would also include the following after breakfast:

10:00-11:00 AM – Artisan Shop 

11:00-1:00 PM – Visit Teotihuacan

1:00-2:30 PM – Transportation back to Mexico City 

At the Artisan Shop, guests are provided with a short presentation on obsidian and agave, as well as tequila tasting. It was a nice little stop for souvenirs and I walked away with some handmade earrings. 

Final Tips

• Even if you’re there during warm months, it can still be chilly in the morning. So we recommend wearing layers that can easily be removed and packed into a backpack later in the day. I think I wore leggings with a zip-up hoodie and a compressible down jacket. That said, it was warmer once we got up in the balloon. Presumably, because you’re moving with the wind and have the heat from the flame. 
• Wear a hat. My mom’s head got hot from the flame. So it’s good to bring a hat to provide a barrier between your head and the heat. 
• You can choose to do a combined balloon and Teotihuacan tour, but we decided to do them separately, so we could go at our own pace. It looked like most of the combined tours spend about 2 hours at the ruins, but we ended up spending 3 hours there. So we’re glad we went on our own. We had a great guide and learned a lot about the people and history.
• Check out our post on Teotihuacan if you’re interested in visiting the archaeological site after your balloon flight!