How To Visit the Galapagos Islands Without a Cruise

If you know me, and the way I travel, I like to do things independently when I can. For example, a lot of people visit Alaska by taking a cruise, but not me — my friend Megan and I rented a car and spent a week driving nearly 2,000 miles through the state’s wilderness.

When it was time to plan our trip to the Galapagos Islands in Ecuador, I felt the same way. A lot of the information out there related to visiting the Galapagos is about what cruises you can take. I had to work harder to find what I needed about visiting on our own. It wasn’t easy, but I’m here to share with you to make it easier to plan your trip to the Galapagos Islands without a cruise.

1. What You Need To Know About the Galapagos Islands

The Galapagos are made up of 13 major islands and many smaller ones — some of which are just rocks. At first, it can be overwhelming trying to decide which islands to visit. But there are a few things that can help narrow it down.

Like the fact that only four of the 13 major islands are inhabited by humans: Santa Cruz, San Cristobal, Isabela, and Floreana. That means you know you wouldn’t need to consider staying overnight on any of the others. However, if you want to visit Floreana without taking a cruise, you may have to either take a day trip from Santa Cruz or hire a private boat, as you may not be able to find regularly-scheduled ferries.

We spent a week in the Galapagos and decided to visit just two of the inhabited islands: Santa Cruz (Puerto Ayora) and Isabela (Puerto Villamil). We decided on Santa Cruz pretty easily since we were flying into GPS airport from Quito via Guayaquil (more on that in a mintue). And we read that Isabela was home to a lot of wildlife, so we wanted to check that out as well.

When choosing which islands to stay on during your trip, read about the four inhabited islands and see which scenery and activities appeal to you most.

2. Booking Your Flights

If you’re not arriving to the islands by boat, that means you’ll need to fly in. There are only two really major airports in the Galapagos: Seymour Airport is on Baltra Island, just north of Santa Cruz (GPS), and the other is on San Cristobal Island (SCY). Isabela does have a small landing strip, but chances are that you won’t be flying in there on a commercial flight.

The only way to fly into the Galapagos Islands is from mainland Ecuador — Quito and Guayaquil. Seymour Airport (GPS) is by far the busier of the two Galapagos airport, so it’s most likely you’ll want to fly into GPS. Also, Santa Cruz is one of the most central islands, meaning you can get to the others more easily than if you make San Cristobal, in the far east, your home base.

*As of March 2022, travelers must be fully vaccinated in order to enter the Galapagos Islands.

3. Booking Your Lodging

There are plenty of hotels and hostels on the inhabited islands, and many are fairly affordable. I booked our overnight stays through Airbnb. If you’re planning to visit multiple islands, be sure to book somewhere to stay on each island.

For us, we arrived on Santa Cruz on a Saturday. We stayed there four nights, checking out on Wednesday morning and heading to Isabela. Then we stayed on Isabela for two nights and most of the next day before going back to Santa Cruz for the last day, before flying back out of GPS airport.

*A note on lodging. You’ll probably get what you pay for. Our Airbnb in Puerto Ayora, Santa Cruz, was very well-located with an adorable outdoor patio area. But we had to deal with geckos on the walls and ceilings of our room… and some very undesirable bugs as well. But the good part is that the places we stayed all had air conditioning! Trust me, you’re going to want it.
 

4. Booking Your Inter-Island Transport

Once you’ve got your places booked, make sure you book your transportation between the islands. In general, inter-island ferries leave early in the morning and in the middle of the afternoon. Here’s a sample schedule, through Ferry Galapagos, which we traveled with:

Santa Cruz – Isabela: 7:30 am and 3pm
Isabela – Santa Cruz: 6am and 3pm

Santa Cruz – San Cristobal: 7am and 3pm
Sant Cristobal – Santa Cruz: 7am and 3pm

These schedules are subject to change, so be sure to do your own research while booking. Also, keep in mind that there is no direct ferry between Isabela and San Cristobal. If you want to get from one to the other in one day, you’ll have to take the ferry to Santa Cruz and then to your island of choice.

In order to get a spot on the ferry, you’ll want to book it at least a few days in advance — but the earlier you can, the better. Tickets usually run about $25-$40 per person one-way, but it just depends on the group you book through. With Ferry Galapagos, it was $60 per person round-trip, taking us from Santa Cruz to Isabela and back to Santa Cruz. The ferry wasn’t the most comfortable experience of my life. But luckily, it was only about 1.5 hours each way.

It looks like Ferry Galapagos does offer transport between Santa Cruz and Floreana, though I’m not sure how regular this is. Here’s the schedule:

Santa Cruz – Floreana: 8am
Floreana – Santa Cruz: 3pm

Of course, you can also book day trips to some of the islands that aren’t as regularly visited! For example:

• Day trip + snorkeling at Pinzón Island
• Day trip + snorkeling at Floreana Island
• Day trip to Bartolome Island

5. Planning Your Activities

I didn’t really know much about what to expect from the Galapagos before we left. I’d never really taken an island vacation before — though I’d been to Palma de Mallorca and Santa Cruz de Tenerife in Spain, it was an entirely different type of experience mostly focused on the city and the nearby beach.

So I didn’t book anything before we got to the Galapagos. I thought it might be easier to decide what to do once we were there and could see all our options. And that honestly ended up being fine. I know we were there in the low tourist season (February) but we didn’t have any problem booking the things we wanted to do just a couple of days in advance.

Like, we went snorkeling on Isabela Island. We booked it online two days ahead of time with Viator. And we had a great time! But you can also book activities in person at any of the many tour operator offices in any of the towns. On our last day on Isabela, we decided to rent electric bikes for a couple of hours on a whim.

The main point is that there are plenty of things you can book in advance, but in many cases, you can also just do things on a whim.

 

And here’s Matt’s video about our first day in the Galapagos:

Okay, I think these are all the major things you need to know when it comes to planning your trip to the Galapagos Islands without a cruise! Keep an eye out for probably at least 4-5 more posts on the Galapagos. Can’t wait to keep sharing with you all!

Find more things to do during your Galapagos Islands trip.

Are you planning a trip to the Galapagos Islands without a cruise? What are you most looking forward to? Let me know in the comments!

-Cathy

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Originally Published on March 28, 2022.