Top Canopy Tours in the Amazon Rainforest

The Amazon Rainforest’s canopy is the richest level for forest life.

The trees can reach 145 feet (45 meters) into the sky, with some emergent species growing even higher.

They branch out in competition with other plants to get as much sunlight as possible.

As the trees spread out to catch the light, they forms a canopy over the forest. This canopy of leaves and branches creates many homes and habitats for an incredible amount of animals and plants.

The canopy is a great place to scout for wildlife and to get an angle of the forest seen by few others.

The canopy is the where many different birds spend their time. These include the Amazon’s most famous avian predator, the harpy eagle, which often wait high in the trees scouting for prey.

We have selected a few of the canopy tours in the Amazon Rainforest for exploring the canopy in a variety of different ways. These include canopy towers, canopy swing bridges and a canopy zipline.

Amazon Rainforest Canopy Towers

The luxury La Selva Lodge gives access to their 120 foot high (36 meters) canopy tower. This was built around a very large rainforest tree to provide 360° rainforest views for seeing monkeys and birds.

There are two trails that lead to the tower where you can find Amazon animals and medicinal plants. The lodge is nestled in connected rainforest with the Yasuni National Park and accessed from Coca in Ecuador.

The Refugio Amazonas Lodge is in a 200-hectare private reserve in the buffer zone of the Tambopata National Reserve. This is in southern Peru and accessed from the town of Puerto Maldonado. The lodge is a great choice for an intro to the rainforest or a family Amazon tour.

The Refugio Amazonas features a 30 meter canopy tower for fantastic views of the Amazon Rainforest. Guests frequently see toucans, parrots, macaws or mixed species canopy flocks.

The Refugio Amazonas also offers aerobotany activities to explore the rainforest canopy with a drone. This helps provide researchers with important rainforest information.

Another lodge accessed from Puerto Maldonado, the Posada Amazonas provides a 30 meter canopy tower. This provides wonderful views of the rainforest’s canopy and Tambopata River. The Posada Amazonas Lodge is community owned by the indigenous Ese-Eja of Infierno. And it's located in the communal reserve next to Tambopata National Reserve.

In the Brazil, the Cristalino Lodge features a 50 meter (165 ft) canopy tower for exceptional views out and over the Amazon Rainforest’s canopy. If one tower wasn’t enough, the lodge have built two gigantic galvanised steel canopy towers at different points within the Cristalino Reserve.

From the towers, you have spectacular views from the top of the tower, especially during sunrise and sunset. On the tops of the towers, you can see birds such as macaws, parakeets, parrots, tanagers and cotingas. You can also spot monkeys, such as the white-whiskered spider monkey (Ateles marginatus) and the white-nosed saki monkey (Chiropotes albinasus). The lodge is located in an incredible section of Brazilian Amazon Rainforest, accessed from the town of Alta Floresta.

Amazon Canopy Swing Bridge

For a fantastic way of experiencing the canopy, you can look at the canopy swing bridge of the Sacha Lodge.

The Sacha Lodge is located within a 5000-acre private ecological reserve in Ecuador’s Amazon region. From this fantastic rainforest lodge, you have access to a 940 foot (275-meter) long walkway. This stands 94 feet (30 meters) above the ground for an exciting way to experience canopy life.

Just take a look at the video below.

Here you can spot many different animals and epiphytes hard to spot from ground level. Guests can see hundreds of colorful birds and lucky guests also spot troops of monkeys making their way through the canopy. After walking across the bridge scouting for animals, you emerge onto a canopy platform. You can stop where you like with your guide to see animals with the bird-spotting scope.

Amazon Canopy Zipline

As an exciting way to experience the Amazon Rainforest’s canopy, you can whiz between different large Amazon trees on the Tahuayo Lodge’s canopy zipline.

The lodge is located 150 km from Iquitos, Peru, at the border of the wildlife-rich Tamshiyacu Tahuayo Reserve. The zipline is 100 feet (34 meters) from ground level and is the longest in Amazonia.

Built around old-growth emergent trees, canopy platforms are placed at different stages of the zipline. This allows you to rest and enjoy treetop life. When you are ready, you launch off again zipping through the canopy.

The zipline is very secure and was made by an American canopy company. The construction team was composed of scientists, arborists and construction specialists.

For an introduction, you can click the video below.

The zipline, guest satisfaction, private guide and custom itinerary helped us select the Tahuayo Lodge as one of the best Amazon Jungle Adventures tours in Peru.