The Galapagos Islands! This bucket-list trip can be overwhelming to plan to say the least. Located more than 600 miles off the coast of Ecuador, it is a difficult destination to get to. And with 127 islands in the archipelago (more than twenty of which can be explored), 9,000 wildlife species (many of them endemic to the islands), and other-worldly landscapes, the possibilities on the islands are endless. There is no way you can possibly ever see it all.
The first and most important decision to make when planning a Galapagos trip is “land vs sea”. Do you want to spend your days and nights on a boat visiting far flung islands in the archipelago? Or do you want a home base in a hotel or rental home to use as a springboard for your adventures? There are definitely pros and cons of both and there is no one right answer. Everybody has their own unique set of circumstances and priorities.
Some of the pros of a cruise include being able to reach the more distant islands, potentially seeing a wider variety of wildlife, and using your time efficiently since the boat moves to new locations overnight while you sleep. Some of the cons include the high cost, loss of flexibility, and potential sea sickness.
Some of the pros of a land-based trip include the space and comforts of having a home base, more choice in your itinerary, and exposure to local culture. Some of the cons include time/distance limitations on day trips, difficulty of travel between the inhabited islands, and exposure to a smaller variety of wildlife.
On the surface, a cruise seemed like a great option for us but upon further research, we decided it was not the right choice for our family. While our boys LOVED the two Disney Cruises that we went on, a 16 person yacht is a far cry from a 2,500 passenger cruise ship. We were concerned that they would get antsy on a smaller ship and feel out of place without other children on board. National Geographic offers some amazing cruises on some of the largest ships in the area (96 passengers). They cater to families and the size of the ship – while still much, much smaller than a typical cruise – emulates some of the activities and offerings of traditional cruises. Unfortunately, their cruises for a family of 4 also cost about as much as a new car so short of winning the lottery, they were not a viable option for our family.
One other major concern about a cruise for our family was the intense schedule. While our boys are great travelers and are used to keeping an active schedule on vacations, Galapagos cruises are next-level busy. Most make two stops per day, visiting one island in the morning and one in the afternoon with an activity (hiking, snorkeling, or both) on each island. While this offers an amazing opportunity to see more places and wildlife, I thought the kids would end up exhausted and miserable at the end of the day and eventually not want to participate in some of the stops. For us, I thought it was important that we could control our own schedule and have some flexibility to back off and rest if we needed to.
Once we settled on a land-based trip, I got started working on the itinerary. There are 4 inhabited islands in the Galapagos – Santa Cruz, San Cristobal, Isabela and Floreana. With roughly 7 days to work with, I decided that 2 islands would be the most we could fit in given the difficulty of travel between islands. Floreana is the least developed and the hardest to get to so I immediately eliminated it from the itinerary.
Based on my research, I knew Isabela was the priority for us. The sites and activities on Isabela fit our interests the best and I wanted to spend the most time there. Between the remaining islands, Santa Cruz seemed to be more convenient and offered more day tours that interested us. My impression is that San Cristobal focuses more on water-based tours (snorkeling and diving), while Santa Cruz has a better mix of both land and water based tours. You can fly into either Santa Cruz (Baltra) or San Cristobal but you cannot take a ferry directly from San Cristobal to Isabela; you have to take a ferry to Santa Cruz first. So it quickly became pretty clear that our two stops should be Isabela and Santa Cruz.
Because I was most interested in Isabela, I started there. Isabela is the largest of the islands (in fact, it is larger than all the other islands in the Galapagos combined) but is third in population size of the four inhabited islands. The town and tourist infrastructure is not nearly as developed as it is on Santa Cruz. The hotel options were limited and I knew immediately where I wanted to stay – Iguana Crossing. It was hands down the nicest hotel on the island.
Once I settled on Iguana Crossing, I started looking into tours on/from Isabela. I made a list of tours I was interested in, taking into account things like wildlife and landscape diversity, type of activity (hiking, snorkeling, biking, etc.), and logistics. I came up with a list of my top 4 or 5 tours and then happily discovered that the hotel offered a package that included all of those tours. Although I normally research heavily and pick my own tour guides or companies, for a trip this complicated, I liked the idea of simplifying things and having a single point of contact for everything on the island.
We settled on their 5 day, 4 night package, which included the following tours: Las Tintoreras, Muro de las Lagrimas, Sierra Negra, and Los Tuneles. Guides, snorkeling equipment, and several meals were included in the package.
I didn’t find anything equivalent on Santa Cruz. There were a lot more hotel options and the highest level ones that offered comparable packages were outside of our price range. We booked at Hotel Fiesta and started looking into tour options. I knew I wanted to explore the town, visit the Highlands and take one day trip to an uninhabited island. Although we couldn’t get a hotel package, I still liked the idea of a single point of contact for all our tours there and ended up booking everything through book-ec. The great thing about using them was that all our transportation logistics were handled as well. The agent booked our airport pickup and drop-off and inter-island ferries, in additional to our actual tours.
We were also able to use book-ec to plan our few days in Quito. We booked their “Quito’s Iconic Sites” tour, which included TeleferiQo, Colonial Quito, and Middle of the World.
So… our final itinerary ended up as the following:
Day 1 – arrive in Quito
Day 2 – Quito’s Iconic Sites tour
Day 3 – fly to Baltra, airport pickup and transportation to town, with stops at El Chato Tortoise Reserve and Los Gemelos (Twin Craters)
Day 4 – North Seymour day tour
Day 5 – 7am ferry to Isabela
Day 6 – Las Tintoreras tour in the morning, Muro De Las Lagrimas (Wall of Tears) bike tour in the afternoon
Day 7 – Sierra Negra tour
Day 8 – Los Tuneles tour
Day 9 – 6am ferry to Santa Cruz, flight to Guayquil
Day 10 – return flight to US
