Monarch butterflies travel between 1,200 and 2,800 miles from the United States and Canada to central Mexican forests.

Away.com editor Kate Chandler describes the annual monarch migration as "nothing short of a miracle. It takes several generations of butterflies to complete a single migration. Amazingly, the butterflies know their way every year, even though the butterflies returning are the great-great-grandchildren of the butterflies that left the previous year."

So … how often do you get to witness one of nature’s great fluttering mysteries?