Logistics for Galapagos with kids & no cruise

Photos from our 3 weeks on the Galapagos here!

Notes for people wanting to avoid the big cruises but still have great adventures in the Galapagos:

There are 4 islands that you can stay on: Isabela, Santa Cruz, San Cristobal, and Floreana. We spent a week each on the first 3 of these. If I went back, I would skip Santa Cruz and just spend a week each on Isabela & San Cristobal.

Getting there

• Flights: You’ll first fly into probably Quito or Guayaquil on the Ecuadorian mainland. From Quito you’ll have to go through Guayaquil to get to the Galapagos. From Guayaquil it’s a direct flight to the islands.
• You can only fly into 2 islands – Santa Cruz or San Cristobal. If you fly to Santa Cruz then you actually land on Baltra, a small island to the north, and then take a bus/boat to get down to Santa Cruz town. The airport for San Cristobal is just 5 mins from town. We flew into Santa Cruz and out of San Cristobal on Avianca for $200 each.
• You’ll have to pay $20 per person when leaving the Ecuadorian mainland, and you’ll pay $100 per person ($50 per kid) when arriving in the Galapagos.
• Don’t bring fresh fruit/veg – your bag will be checked many times for this!

Getting between the islands:

• You can travel between the islands on ferries which take about 2 hours and cost about $30 each. They leave every morning early (6 or 7am) and every afternoon (2 or 3pm). I get seasick and the ferry had me feeling a bit queasy.
• There is also an inter-island plane which is much more expensive.

Sleeping there

There are hotels, hostals, rental houses that you can book in your normal way – airbnb/booking.com or whatever you like to use. Our friends were flying in from the US and only had available Easter week, which is a very busy time, so we booked lodging in advance for that week. The subsequent 2 weeks, however, we booked nothing and just found places on arrival without any problem.

• On Isabela you definitely want to stay right on the gorgeous beach. (eg. we stayed at Hotel Isabela Paradise for $90/night for a room with balcony over the beach, or $60/night for room without that view – this was over Easter week so rates should be lower normally)
• On Santa Cruz you can stay in town or on the other side of a 2 minute boat taxi ride near playa de los alemanes for a more remote location and closer to a beach.
• On San Cristobal you can stay in town, we stayed just a few blocks west of town right by Playa Mann which was great for swimming/playing/sunsets.

Eating there

There are plenty of restaurants on these 3 islands. You can always get an “almuerzo” lunch of soup, some meat with rice, and usually a juice for $5 each.  (This same meal is $2.50 on the mainland).  There are also lots of tourist restaurants with much more selection and much higher prices.  You can also cook for yourself like we did, if you rent a place with a kitchen, but it’s hard to find fresh produce.

Seeing everything

We planned nothing in advance. We arrived and did lots of non-tour things like renting bikes to explore or walking to free, local snorkeling areas. Then we picked 1 or 2 tours per island and walked into a few operators to book the day before. There are many options for tour operators – go on tripadvisor to pick one with the best reviews.

Our top picks for each island:

Isabela:

Note1: there’s a random $10 tax to pay upon arrival at the ferry!

Note2: No ATMs and credit cards rarely/never accepted so bring lots of cash with you.

• ($) Tintoreras tour (more fun by kayak but also can do on a boat) for snorkeling with penguins & turtles.
• ($) Tuneles tour for snorkeling with turtles, seahorses, white tipped sharks, and walking on crazy lava rocks to see blue-footed boobies.
• (free) Bike on the trail to the wall of tears, but don’t bother with the second half of the ride – it’s long & hot and dusty and the wall itself is not very interesting.  On the way you’ll pass a lovely beach for swimming, several lagoons, a lava tunnel, and probably see giant tortoises on the path.
• (entrance fee) Walk to the tortoise breeding center, past the flamingo lagoon.
• (free) Walk/bike/taxi to the pier where you arrived on the ferry to see lots of sea lions on benches, and to snorkel in Concha y Perla (sharks, rays).

Santa Cruz

• (free) Hang out at the pier where you arrived on the ferry, especially at night – rays, seals, turtles, sharks, pelicans.
• (free) Visit fish market to see the sea lions and pelicans vying for fresh fish.
• (almost free) 2 minute boat taxi over to playa de los alemanes – rent kayak and go explore the bay, or walk to Grietas for snorkeling in a chasm.
• (free) Walk to Tortuga Bay first thing in the morning before the boats arrive (you can rent kayaks once there).
• (entrance fee) Walk to the Darwin Center to see giant turtles, iguanas, and learn about the island’s animals.
• I wouldn’t bother doing any paid tours on Santa Cruz.

San Cristobal

• ($) Isla Lobos tour (in kayak or boat) to snorkel and to walk around the island seeing nesting blue-footed boobies and frigatebirds.
• (free) Walk to Tijeretas bay for snorkeling with curious sea lions & turtles.  Also viewpoint slightly further up.  Pass through the Interpretation center on your way – interesting to learn about the history of the islands.
• (free) Swim at playa Mann for fun, sunsets, and swimming with sea lions.
• ($) Do the Kicker rock tour if you want to see hammerhead sharks and can scuba dive.  You can also snorkel through the gap in Kicker rock which is really cool.
• (free) Walk along the ocean after dark to watch the sea lion colony get really active and then pass out all over town.

This website has a good map with highlights marked here.

Thoughts on Cruise vs. Day trips

For us, the land-based Galapagos visit was ideal. We much prefer being on our own schedule, deciding where to go at the last minute, staying or leaving a place depending on how we like it, rather than being held to someone else’s schedule. Also, we prefer being away from large groups, whereas a cruise is instantly a large group wherever you are! We had so many experiences of biking/walking/kayaking with no one else around and it’s such a different and heightened experience.  The few tours we did were great, but, we were always in a group of 8-12 people which changes the experience.  And, we spent very little time on big boats traveling around – much more time swimming, snorkeling, kayaking, biking, hiking!

Usually when we did a local tour from one of the islands, the guide at the end would announce to the group “thank you for doing a tour with local guides which supports the people who live here instead of big companies”. There was even a sign in the Interpretation center on san cristobal showing what % of your tourist dollars goes to the islands if you do local day-by-day tours vs. going with a cruise, so they seem to be trying to encourage the local day tours.

But, if you don’t have much time (eg. one week) and really want to make sure you see all the famous creatures, and don’t want to have to figure things out on your own, then a boat cruise is great.  (eg. We never saw the red-footed booby because we didn’t want to travel that far to the island where they were.)  We heard all good things about boat cruises from people we talked to, just a different experience.

Photos from our 3 weeks on the Galapagos here!