Do They Have Camels In Cabo?

Yes. Camels live year-round at working ranches in the Los Cabos municipality, and camel rides are one of the area's most-booked shore excursions and family activities. The animals are kept at specific bases: the Cactus Tours base at Migrino on Highway 19, the Cabo Adventures Tierra Sagrada ranch on the Pacific coast road, and Wild Canyon Adventures in the El Tule canyon on the Tourist Corridor.

That is the short answer, and it surprises plenty of first-time visitors. The Baja peninsula is cactus, dust and Pacific swell, about as far from the Sahara as a landscape can get, yet the camels are permanent residents here, not seasonal props flown in for the winter. They have handlers, feeding routines, veterinary care and, in one documented case, a breeding program that produced a calf born in Los Cabos. The question behind the question, the one people actually type after seeing a friend's vacation photo, is usually some version of: how did they get here, where exactly do they live, and can I go see one. This article answers all three, using what the operators themselves publish and what the listings state.

The practical part matters too. Not every camel ride in Cabo is the same product. One runs on a Pacific beach, one runs inside a canyon because of how salt water affects camel skin, and one bundles a boat trip to the famous Arch at Land's End. Prices start at $74 per person before a separate park fee, and ratings range from 3.8 to 4.9 depending on the listing. Knowing which ranch the camels live at tells you a lot about which ride fits your day.

For readers who want to go straight to booking, these are the three listings most worth a look first: the big buffet-and-tequila beach ride, the Cactus Tours beach encounter, and the Wild Canyon combo that adds water slides.

Do They Have Camels In Cabo?

Yes, they do. Camels are permanent residents of the Los Cabos municipality, kept at ranches and adventure parks that run camel rides daily as paid excursions. The largest operator, Cabo Adventures, lists its beach camel ride at 4.9 across 9,298 reviews, and roughly a dozen camel listings trade across the area's tour operators.

The camels are not wild and were never wild here. Camels are not native to the Americas at all, though the camel family's ancient relatives actually originated on this continent before spreading across the Bering land bridge. The animals you will meet in Cabo were brought in as working ride animals by tour companies, and they live at the same bases where the tours start. When you book a camel ride, you are visiting the animals' home.

There are three main homes. The Cactus Tours base sits at kilometre 100 on Highway 19 near Migrino, roughly 20 to 25 minutes from downtown Cabo San Lucas, and its camels work the sand of Migrino Beach nearby. Cabo Adventures keeps its camels at the Tierra Sagrada ranch on the Carretera Cabo San Lucas to Todos Santos, about 45 to 60 minutes from the marina. Wild Canyon Adventures keeps camels at its park in the El Tule canyon on the Tourist Corridor between Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo. A handful of other operators, including FunCabo, Baja Discover, Gray Line and One Way Mexico, run camel products that use these same ranch networks rather than keeping herds of their own.

The herds are small and visible. A group maximum of 100 riders on the biggest Cactus Tours listing and 70 on the main Cabo Adventures listing gives a sense of scale: these are dozens of animals, not hundreds, and they are the same individuals day after day. Guides know them by name, and repeat visitors often ask for a specific camel. That familiarity is part of why the welfare story, covered below, is taken seriously by the operators who publish their animal-care practices.

Where Do The Cabo Camels Live?

The camels live at three bases: the Cactus Tours base at Migrino (Highway 19 Km 100, about 20 to 25 minutes from Cabo San Lucas), the Cabo Adventures Tierra Sagrada ranch on the Pacific coast road toward Todos Santos, and Wild Canyon Adventures in the El Tule canyon on the Tourist Corridor. Each location shapes the ride you get.

The Cactus Tours base is the closest to town and the most logistics-friendly for cruise passengers and short-stay visitors. Its address is Carretera Federal 19 Km 100, Migrino, and the listing states hotel pickup is included on its three-hour Beach Camel Ride and Encounter, from $95 per person plus a $25 park entrance fee, rated 4.6 across 847 reviews. From the base, riders travel to Migrino Beach, a roughly 4.3 kilometre stretch of fine pale sand on the Pacific side. The beach has strong surf and currents and is not a swimming beach, which suits the operators fine: the camels walk the sand while the ocean provides the backdrop. Cactus Tours states its camels are part of a specialized rescue and care program, and its page names Choyerito, described as the first camel born in Los Cabos, at its Wildlife Conservation Center, a registered SEMARNAT program. That is the operator's own wording, and it is the only rescue claim any Cabo operator makes on its own page.

The Tierra Sagrada ranch is the home of the Cabo Adventures camels and, in practice, of several partner operators. It sits at kilometre 72 on the Carretera Cabo San Lucas to Todos Santos, about 40 kilometres from the marina, which means a longer transfer but a fuller day. The flagship listing here is the Cabo Beach Camel Ride, Mexican Buffet and Tequila Tasting, 5 hours, rated 4.9 across 9,298 reviews, from $74 per person plus a $25 park entrance fee that is half price for kids. The beach camel ride with buffet and tequila is the most reviewed camel product in the area, and the Gray Line Outback Camel Ride and the Cabo Adventures Todos Santos tour also use this ranch as their departure point.

Wild Canyon is the different one. Its park sits in the El Tule canyon at Km 19.5 on the corridor, and it deliberately rides its camels in the canyon rather than on the beach. The operator's page explains why: beach salt irritates a camel's sensitive skin, so the canyon environment is the better choice for the animals, and guides may pause or end a ride for the animals' wellbeing. The park states it has an animal sanctuary of rescued animals on site, though it does not say the camels themselves are rescued. Its camel-and-water-slides combo runs 4 hours, rated 4.8 across 196 reviews, from $115 per person plus the $25 park fee, with a 100 kg rider weight limit and a minimum age of 4, the youngest of the tours covered here.

Which base suits you depends on your day. Short on time or arriving from a cruise ship at the marina tender pier? The Migrino base wins on transfer time. Want the longest, most inclusions-heavy day with a buffet and a tequila tasting? Tierra Sagrada. Travelling with children under 5 or curious about the sanctuary? Wild Canyon's canyon setting and minimum age of 4 make it the family fit, and the park's own camel page lays out its animal-care reasoning directly.

Which Camel Rides Can You Actually Book?

Around a dozen camel listings trade in Los Cabos at any time, from $74 to $175 per person before separate park fees of $15 to $25. They split into three families: pure beach rides, ranch safaris with lunch and tequila, and adventure combos that pair the camel with an ATV, UTV, boat or zip line course.

The table below compares the main listings by operator, duration, from-price and each listing's own rating and review count. Review counts are per listing and are never combined: a 4.9 across 9,298 reviews describes one product's history, not the whole scene. Note too that every from-price excludes a park or ranch entrance fee unless a row says otherwise, and the booking page shows the live price.

Three patterns jump out of the numbers. First, the cheapest listing is also the most reviewed: the $74 Cabo Adventures buffet ride sits at the bottom of the price range and the top of the review pool, which is unusual in any excursion market. Second, price tracks format more than quality. The $175 CAN-AM combo costs more than double the basic buffet ride because it adds a side-by-side off-road machine, not because the camel segment is longer. Third, review counts vary wildly, from 9,298 down to single digits, so a rating on its own tells you little. A 4.8 across 155 reviews is strong evidence; a 4.4 across 3 reviews is a handful of families' opinions.

One honest caveat every buyer should hear: saddle time on these shared rides is short, roughly 10 to 30 minutes depending on the operator. Cactus Tours states about 25 minutes of riding on its beach encounter. The rest of the advertised duration is transfers, the ranch itself, the meal and the tequila tasting. That is the normal shape of a Cabo camel day, and it is a good day, but anyone picturing an hour-long trek across the dunes should recalibrate before booking.

How Did Camels Get To Baja California Sur?

Camels are not native to Cabo. They were imported as ride animals for the excursion industry, and today's herds are working ranch animals with handlers, feed programs and, at Cactus Tours, a SEMARNAT-registered conservation program that has bred camels in Los Cabos. The deeper irony is that the camel family's earliest ancestors actually arose in North America.

Paleontology gives the story a twist most visitors never hear. The camel lineage, the whole family, not the modern one-humped species, originated on this continent millions of years ago and spread to Asia and Africa via land bridges before dying out in the Americas. So in a very long-view sense, the animals walking Migrino Beach are distant relatives returning home. Nobody at the ranch puts it that way on the tour, but it is the true answer to "why are there camels here at all".

The modern history is simpler and commercial. Los Cabos built a cruise and resort economy on water sports, and operators looking for family-friendly, land-based products that did not depend on ocean conditions found one in camel rides. Camels handle the Baja climate well, walk slowly and calmly with riders, and photograph beautifully against Pacific sand. If you want the longer version of this story, our article why are there camels in cabo traces it in detail.

What the herds are like day to day is documented by the operators themselves. Cactus Tours publishes the most specific animal-care statement of the group: its camels are part of a specialized rescue and care program, housed at a Wildlife Conservation Center registered under SEMARNAT's PIMVS scheme, with Choyerito named as the first camel born in Los Cabos. You can read the claims on the operator's camel page and judge the setup for yourself. Wild Canyon publishes its reasoning for canyon rides over beach rides on similar grounds. Neither the breed claims you sometimes see on third-party blogs nor the "retired circus camel" stories that circulate in reviews are confirmed by any operator page here, so treat those as folklore rather than fact.

Are The Camels Treated Well?

Operator-published care standards are real and specific: Cactus Tours runs a SEMARNAT-registered rescue and care program, and Wild Canyon moved its rides off the beach because salt irritates camel skin and empowers guides to end a ride for the animals' wellbeing. Weight limits of 100 to 125 kg per rider exist, the listings state, for the camels' welfare.

The honest answer to the ethics question has two layers. The first is what the operators publish, which is more than most animal-excursion industries offer: registered conservation status, deliberate environment choices, per-rider weight caps and stated policies on pausing rides. The second is what you can observe as a visitor, which is the animals' condition, their handling, and whether the pace looks calm. Camels walk at a slow pace on these rides, riders go tethered in single file, and the ride segment is short by design.

Questions like whether camels feel pain when ridden, or how the welfare economics of ride animals work, deserve their own treatment, and we give it in the guide is camel riding in cabo ethical. The short version for a booking decision: the established operators publish limits and enforce them, the rides are walking-pace and brief, and the animals return to the same ranches and handlers every day, which is the structure most animal-welfare inspectors prefer over transient operations.

Do Cruise Passengers Get To See The Camels?

Yes, and easily. Cabo San Lucas has no cruise terminal, so ships tender passengers to the Marina Cabo San Lucas tender pier, and camel tour pickup points sit within reach of it. The tightest fit is the 3 hour Cactus Tours beach ride, since its Migrino base is only 20 to 25 minutes from town.

Cabo San Lucas runs 26 to 38 cruise calls a month through the winter season, and ships anchor in the bay, sending passengers ashore by tender to the marina. Operators pick up at marina-adjacent points, and the FunCabo listing states pickup from Cabo San Lucas and San Jose del Cabo hotels and cruise ships, departing from the marina and the cruise tender pier. That listing runs 2 hours, from $114 per person plus the $25 park fee, rated 4.6 across 12 reviews, which is a comfortable fit for most port days.

The math that matters is all-aboard time versus transfer time. The Migrino base is 20 to 25 minutes out; Tierra Sagrada is 45 to 60. A five-hour ranch day plus transfers can strain a port call that ends at 13:00, while a two or three-hour product leaves slack for shopping. We map the whole decision, pier by pier, in camel ride options for cruise passengers.

For land-based visitors the calculus inverts: the longer ranch days are the better buy, and the article you are reading is published by Cabo Camel Tours, a site whose whole purpose is comparing these listings. The most-booked cruise and hotel choice alike is the Cabo Adventures buffet ride, and it is worth pausing on whether it fits your own day before you commit.

Is five hours plus a ranch transfer the right shape for your schedule? The listing states free cancellation and hotel pickup, so the commitment is low and the booking page shows the live price and departure times.

What Does A Cabo Camel Day Actually Look Like?

A typical day is 2 to 5 door-to-door hours, of which 10 to 30 minutes are on the camel's back. The rest is hotel pickup, the drive out, a desert or ranch walk, a Mexican meal, and on most listings a tequila tasting. The cheapest full version starts at $74 per person plus the $25 park fee.

Take the flagship as the template. The Cabo Adventures day starts with hotel pickup, runs about 45 to 60 minutes west to the Tierra Sagrada ranch, and unfolds as an eco-ranch experience: a guided walk, the camel ride itself along the Pacific shore, a Mexican buffet lunch, and a tequila tasting, before the transfer back. Children 5 and up ride, the rider weight limit is 120 kg, and cameras are not permitted during the ride segment on that listing, a policy several operators share so handlers, not guests, control the animals' environment.

The Cactus Tours version is tighter and more taco-shaped: about 25 minutes of riding on the beach encounter, tacos and quesadillas, aguas frescas, a tequila tasting at its museum, an ecological desert hike and round-trip transport in roughly three hours. The Baja Discover safari splits the difference at 2.5 hours with lunch and tequila from $130.21 plus its $25 fee, rated 4.6 across 26 reviews. What to bring is a short list: closed shoes for sand and stable ground, sun protection since Migrino Beach has no shade or facilities, and cash for the park fee where it is collected on arrival.

What About Combining Camels With Other Adventures?

Camels pair naturally with Cabo's other land and sea activities. Bookable combos include camel plus ATV or UTV, camel plus a speedboat trip to the Arch, and camel plus a sky bike, ranging from $108 to $175 per person before park fees. Each combo shares one transfer and one ranch visit, which is the real efficiency.

The most common pairing is camel with off-road machines. Cactus Tours runs a beach camel and sky bike combo at 4 hours from $125 plus the $25 fee, rated 4.7 across 174 reviews, and a CAN-AM side-by-side and camel combo at 3 hours from $175 plus the fee, rated 4.8 across 155 reviews. One Way Mexico offers a UTV and camel ride in the Cabo desert, 2 hours from $111.09 plus a $20 ranch admission, rated 4.6 across 11 reviews, in groups capped at 10. Eco Xperiences runs a camel and UTV combo at 3.5 hours from $110.03 plus the fee, rated 4.1 across 199 reviews.

The sea pairing is the most photogenic: the Cabo Adventures boat ride to the Arch and beach camel ride, 4 hours, from $149 per person plus the $25 park fee and a $4 dock fee, rated 4.9 across 563 reviews, with a group maximum of 14. You get the famous rock arch, sea lions and Lover's Beach from the water, then the ranch and the camel. Our deeper comparison of the off-road pairings lives in the guide to the camel ride and ATV combo.

Choosing between a pure ride and a combo comes down to one question: is the camel the point, or one highlight among several? If the camel is the point, the pure beach and ranch rides give more time with the animals and the meal. If you are filling a single big day, a combo stacks three experiences on one transfer bill, and the Wild Canyon version stacks the most, canyon camel ride plus its water slides and snacks, from $115 plus the fee.

Families with younger children often land on that Wild Canyon listing precisely because its minimum age is 4, a year younger than the beach operators ask for, and because the aqua park gives non-riding siblings something to do.

When Is The Best Time Of Year To Meet The Camels?

Camel rides run year-round, but November to April is the comfortable window: desert highs in the 70s to 80s Fahrenheit, minimal rain, and the added bonus of whale season from December 15 to April 15. Midday summer heat in the desert regularly tops 95 F, so summer riders should take morning departures.

The climate record for Cabo San Lucas tells the story plainly. Summer average highs run 32.6 to 34.7 C (roughly 91 to 95 F) from June through August, while November through March sits at 27.0 to 30.4 C (roughly 81 to 87 F), with almost no rain from November into spring. September is the wettest month at about 114 mm, and the Eastern Pacific hurricane season runs May 15 to November 30 with its peak August to October. Storms in 2026 passed offshore without a direct landfall on the Los Cabos resort area, and the cancellations reported were boat tours and beach flags, not land-based camel rides, but the season is real and travelers booking late summer should know the pattern. Our month-by-month breakdown is in the best time to go to Cabo for outdoor tours.

The winter window has a second draw. Whale watching is federally regulated to December 15 through April 15, and some visitors build a day that pairs a morning on the water with an afternoon at a camel ranch, since both use pickups from the same hotel zones. The camels themselves do not migrate, hibernate or take a season off; the same animals work the same sand in July and January, just with more water breaks in between.

If a camel day is now on your list, these are again the three listings worth comparing side by side before you book.

Common Questions About Camels In Cabo

Do they have camels in cabo?

Yes. Camels live year-round at working ranches in the Los Cabos municipality, including the Cactus Tours base at Migrino, the Cabo Adventures Tierra Sagrada ranch and Wild Canyon in the El Tule canyon, and camel rides run daily as bookable excursions.

Are there camel rides in Cabo?

Yes, roughly a dozen listings trade across operators, from $74 to $175 per person before separate park fees of $15 to $25. They range from 2-hour beach rides to 6-hour ranch days and combos with ATVs, boats and zip courses.

Where are the camels kept in Cabo?

Three main bases: Cactus Tours at Highway 19 Km 100 near Migrino, about 20 to 25 minutes from Cabo San Lucas; Cabo Adventures' Tierra Sagrada ranch at Km 72 on the road to Todos Santos; and Wild Canyon Adventures at Km 19.5 on the Tourist Corridor.

How much do camel rides cost?

From $74 per person for the Cabo Adventures buffet ride to $175 for the Cactus CAN-AM combo, in every case before a separate park or ranch entrance fee of $15 to $25 per person. The booking page shows the live price.

Are camels aggressive towards humans?

The Cabo ride camels are trained, handled daily and walk at a slow tethered pace. Any animal can bite or spit, so guests follow handler instructions, and guides control the animals throughout. Our longer answer covers camel behaviour in detail.

Is it ethical to ride camels in Cabo?

The established operators publish specific care standards: Cactus Tours runs a SEMARNAT-registered rescue and care program, and Wild Canyon rides in the canyon to protect the camels' skin and lets guides end rides for the animals' wellbeing. Rider weight limits of 100 to 125 kg are stated for the camels' welfare.