CRUISES AND TOURS TO GALAPAGOS

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27 enero 2023

The good and bad of a LandTour in Galapagos

An increasing number of tourists decide to visit Galapagos on a land trip. There are basically two types of these excursions; One in which you stay in the same hotel every night and do day trips to different islands that return to your hotel at the end of each day and visits to the islands where you stay in accommodation in different islands using a small boat to move between the islands. Although you will not see the largest amount of Galapagos in this type of tours, they are often less expensive than live on-board trips and can usually start on any day of your choice.

The Shore tours limit you to visit sites within a day of small boat trip from one of the three population centers: Puerto Ayora on the island of Santa Cruz, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno in San Cristóbal and Villamil in Isabela. Of course, you can combine two or more overnight stays in each of these population centers to increase your coverage area and the number of sites you would have access to. There is ferry service on small speedboats between the islands.

However, many of the depopulated islands, such as Genoese, Hispaniola, Santa Fe, Santiago and Fernandina, are beyond the limits of land operations. The Galapagos National Park has approved a rigid set of regulations regarding who can visit the various sites of land tours. Many of the naturalistic excursions sites are only accessible to tourists who decide to book their trip on a cruise/yacht. While some budget-bound tourists have opted to stay ashore, there are disadvantages in doing so. You will lose a lot of time traveling between your hotel and the sites every day.

You will also spend a lot of time dragging your luggage and taking advantage of the possible long ferry trips between the islands. While this can be added to the adventure for some, the biggest disadvantage is that you will not be able to visit many of the best terrestrial tours in the Galapagos and you will be able to see much less during the same period of time.