Galapagos Islands - Galapagos Islands travel community

If you are visiting the Galapagos Islands for the right reason "WILDLIFE VIEWING, GEOLOGY AND NATURE ENCOUNTERS" the best way to see the most wildlife, to enjoy more time at visitor sites and obtain best value for your money is to take an 8 days cruise around the Islands.

Having mentioned the above, there are several options to visit the Islands and we will look into each, but first I would like to explain costs of travel to Galapagos and justify the above statement.

To get to the Galapagos Islands, you must get to Ecuador first. There are no direct connections with international flights, which means you stay 1 night in mainland Ecuador and you stay 1 night after (at least), it is worth while to visit the Andes, the Amazon or the coast of Ecuador, so do consider extending your trip. To get to the Islands from Quito or Guayaquil you have to fly there, the ticket pricing is $415 USD, to this you add $100 USD park tax, $10 USD transit card. To give you a ballpark figure you will be spending around $1500 USD just to get to the Islands. My question to you is: would you want to spend this much and stay only 4 days!!! ... unless you have another reason to visit Ecuador or you are doing an extensive land program visiting the Andes and the Amazon it is not wort coming to the Galapagos for less then 8 days (IMO). I know many of you may not want to spend 8 days on a liveaboard boat, but you can always extend your Galapagos vacation at the safari camp or enjoying the beach at Isabela Island, hiking sierra negra volcano etc.

Why do I recommend an 8 day Galapagos cruise?

First: Value. You are spending good money to get to the Islands, I think you should make the most of them and spend enough time to see as much wildlife as you can.

Second: Related to the first, to see as much wildlife and variety of landscapes, the easiest and in some cases the best way to get to the best visitor sites is by cruise. Some Islands and visitor sites are too far for a day trip from the populated Islands, the visitor sites used for day trips are close to the populated areas and get visited more, meaning more tourists and less wildlife.

Third: Your cruise ship or yacht navigates by night, you wake up each day at a diferent Island or visitor site, you make the most of daylight hours visiting nature trails, snorkeling and enjoying the landscape. You can only be on land from 6h00 am to 6h00 pm at visitor sites. When you do a day trip, your motor boat leaves port around 7h00 am, you reach the visitor site at around 11h00 am when the sun is hotest and you are heading back to port around 3h00 pm. You get 4 hours in the hotest sun, including your lunch time versus at least 4 hours more you get on a liveaboard cruise with less navigation.

Fourth: Guide and Service quality. The best guides are hired on board the liveaboard cruises, specifically the more pricier ones, yes it does cost more but you are more likely to get a better guide, better nature lectures, better food and better service.

Fifth: Most travellers end up saying " I wish I would have stayed longer ", 4 or 5 days is cutting it short. On an 8 day Galapagos cruise you get to see the Southern Islands which are a must (Floreana and Española, plus other added options) and the Central Islands (Santiago and Bartolome, plus other added options) or Western Islands (Fernandina and Isabela) or the Northern gem Genovesa. You get variety in wildlife because some animals are endemic to one Island only, example (Waved Albatross - Española, Red footed boobies - Genovesa, Flightless Cormorant - Isabela). In any case the 8 days offer variety.

CLARIFICATION: Another great option is to take a short 4 day or 5 day Galapagos cruise and extend your stay at Isabela, Santa Cruz or San Cristobal Islands if you do not want to spend so much time on a boat. This is also a highly recommended experience.

Below are the several options of touring the Galapagos Islands (they are listed in my favourite order):

1)  8 day cruise ( a list of cruise boats can be found at Galapagos Cruises )

2) 4 or 5 day cruise + a 3 or 4 day extension at San Cristobal, Isabela or Santa Cruz Islands. My favourite places to stay are the Galapagos Safari Camp in the highlands of Santa Cruz or La Casa de Marita on Isabela Island.

3) Galapagos Island Hopping, you can do an 8 day program which IMO is ok, not great. It is a nice experience altogether but you only get to see public sites, not Galapagos National Park official visitor sites since the speedboats do not have permits to visit Park sites. It means you will be at the towns of Puerto Ayora (Santa Cruz), Puerto Villamil (Isabela) and Puerto Baquerizo (San Cristobal) and maybe Puerto Velasco Ibarra (Floreana)... you will see some wildlife, but not as much as on a cruise, by far there is a big difference.

4) Doing day trips from 1 one of the inhabited Islands (Santa Cruz, San Cristobal or Isabela). You do get to visit Park sites if you happen to find space on either of the 2 only boats that have permits! beware of speedboats that offer visitor sites, first they are illegal and second they are not true visitor sites and you cannot disembark to see the animals. Also be carefull to not book into tours that look like: Day 1 Darwin Station Day 2 Santa Cruz highlands Day 3 Tortuga Bay Day 4 Las Grietas Day 5 Garrapatero... these are all public sites that you can visit on your own and do not need a guide!!! You will see wildlife, but in small numbers.

I hope to have given the best advice possible, I am biased torwards the cruise experience, but it is really based upon 20 years of experience guiding and organizing Galapagos Tours to each and every Island in the Galapagos archipelago and recieving opinions from very happy and very unhappy travellers.

In the next blog post we will talk about seasickness and will try to explain why you should not worry about it.