Pacaya

Spectacular! I paid 150Q in a tour from Antigua, including everything. The hiking is easy, the tour guide stop every 1km and there's horses for 100Q. The sunset is super amazing.

This is a fun, relatively easy hike. It took around 3 hours to do the whole thing. I went on a tour and you can roast marshmallows on the volcano. The views are amazing. The volcano can get dusty so I recommend bringing a cloth face covering. If acatenago is too hard, this hike is a nice compromise.

Amazing hike! We rented walking sticks from the local kids at the entrance to the park and we’re glad we did. It was a steep and long walk uphill and we weren’t used to the high elevation. Downhill the stick was really handy. Horses were available to ride whenever anyone got fatigued. Horses and dogs followed our group on the trail and the dogs enjoyed roasting marshmallows with us in the volcano’s vents. Happy we did the morning hike as it kept us from becoming overheated on the strenuous bits.

Pacaya is a great hike, but when we went the visibility was poor due to overcast skies so you could not see the full volcano (we did the morning hike). The trail is of medium difficulty, with some steep sections, but manageable. Our guide was friendly and knowledgeable, making the experience enjoyable. However, a strong smell of horse manure lingered for much of the hike, which was unpleasant. They also tried roasting marshmallows on the lava rocks which would have been a unique highlight, but the volcano seemed to be out of steam the day we went. Would recommend, but maybe try the afternoon hike for better views.

Great experience hiking the volcano. If you are driving there by yourself be careful, getting there was an adventure by itself. Do not follow google maps, it took us through sketchy neighborhoods with terrible roads and potholes that could fit a person. In the end I gave up on google maps when it told us to get through a bridge that was broken. Waze worked much better and took us there. However notice that the guide cost Q200 and the parking plus Q30. You also can't choose a guide and have to get the next one in line, no matter if he speaks english well or not. If your group is not big it might be worth it to just be part of a tour group from antigua and not have to worry about the drive, or about being lucky enough to get a good guide.

If by chance you want to experience a volcano hike near Antigua Guatemala, I recommend you the Pacaya hike

A relatively easier option re hiking to get close to hot water vapor coming out of the ground. Definitely No View of the lava. The approx 60 min hike is steep and mostly on soft powder lava dust, hence it is a harder walk. Of course you are climbing in altitude, which will also feel harder. Along the way you have nice views of mountains and the other two volcanoes. As the sun sets, you'll have wonderful colors all around. At the stop up top, there are a couple of guys who will bake you a pizza using thermal energy from the ground - cheesy, but cool. (We had a very poor experience using Old Town Outfitters Adventure Guatemala for Pacaya hike. Please consider not using them.)

A very scenic and historic hike!! I rode on horseback which was even better. We saw lava flows only 3 years old and ate pizza that was cooked on the hot lava rocks too.