Mexico’s migrating monarch mutterflies is a miraculous event that happens not only in Michoacán, but just outside Valle de Bravo in Estado de Mexico too! A visit to the Monarch Butterfly Sanctuaries of Mexico should be on every traveler’s bucket list.
The migration of the monarch butterfly is something that I have been wanting to see for a long time; and for some reason, I thought the only place to witness the phenomenon was in the State of Michoacán. After some planning to check it off my travel list this winter, I realized there was a Santuario Mariposa Monarca (Monarch Butterfly Sanctuary) at Piedra Herrada near Valle de Bravo, only about an hour drive away from where we live in Mexico City!
There are actually several Monarch Butterfly Biosphere Reserves in Mexico, all designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site. In case you don’t know, the reason the monarch migration is so spectacular is because between late October-ish and March, millions of these butterflies come to Mexico every year from Canada– and it’s not the one, same butterfly that makes the roundtrip– it is a span of four generations! The first three generations only live weeks, and the last generation (which is the one that is in Mexico) sustain six+ months. No one is sure how the last generation of butterflies know the way to navigate to the exact same place every year, but they somehow make it! You can read more about it here.