The Galápagos Islands are a group of volcanic islands in the Pacific Ocean, on the equator, that belong to Ecuador.
The Galápagos archipelago is one of the Seven Underwater Wonders of the World and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Giant tortoises, marine iguanas and the finches of the Galápagos helped inspire Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection.
The Galápagos Islands are in the Pacific Ocean, on the equator, about 1,000 km (621 mi) west of mainland Ecuador in South America.
The equator runs across the north of Isabela Island, in the west of the archipelago. Wolf Volcano and Ecuador Volcano, on northern Isabela, both lie directly on the equator.
Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, on San Cristóbal Island, is the capital of the Galápagos. Puerto Ayora, on Santa Cruz Island, is the largest town in the Galápagos and the base for most tours. Most visitors to the Galápagos stop in Puerto Ayora during their trip.
The Galápagos are made up of 127 islands, islets and rocks, of which 19 are large islands.
Isabela is the largest Galápagos island, about 132 km (82 mi) long, and covers more than half of the land area of the archipelago. Santa Cruz is the second-largest island.
People live on four of the Galápagos Islands, which are Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Isabela and Floreana. Baltra, a fifth island, has an airport and a military base, but doesn't have a town.
The rest of the Galápagos Islands are uninhabited. The uninhabited islands include Fernandina, Santiago, Española, Genovesa, Pinta, Marchena, Pinzón, Santa Fe and North Seymour.
Many of the Galápagos Islands also have an older English name, given by pirates and sailors. Isabela was once Albemarle, Santa Cruz was Indefatigable, and San Cristóbal was Chatham.
To get to the Galápagos Islands, fly from mainland Ecuador, then travel between the islands by boat or small plane, using the following options.
To get to the Galápagos from Quito or Guayaquil, take a morning flight to Baltra or San Cristóbal with one of the airlines that fly to the islands, such as Avianca or LATAM.
Most flights from Quito to the Galápagos stop in Guayaquil for 40 to 50 minutes on the way. Flights to the Galápagos leave Quito between 6.30 am and 7 am, and leave Guayaquil between 8 am and 9 am.
Visitors who don't live in Ecuador can't buy a one-way ticket to the Galápagos, so book a return flight.
Before you check in for a Galápagos flight at Quito or Guayaquil airport, you need the following documents and checks.
To get from Baltra Airport to Puerto Ayora, take the airport bus to the Itabaca Channel, a ferry across the channel to Santa Cruz, then a taxi or bus across Santa Cruz to Puerto Ayora.
The airport bus costs USD 5 and takes about 10 minutes to reach the Itabaca Channel, the narrow strip of sea between Baltra and Santa Cruz. Board the bus for the Itabaca Channel, because a second airport bus runs to the boat dock on Baltra.
The ferry across the Itabaca Channel costs USD 1 on the large public ferry, or USD 2 on a smaller private boat. The crossing takes 5 to 10 minutes.
From the Santa Cruz side of the Itabaca Channel, Puerto Ayora is 42 km (26 mi) away, over the highlands of Santa Cruz. Taxis on the Itabaca side are pickup trucks that take up to 4 people for a flat fare of about USD 25. The taxi ride takes about 45 minutes. The public bus to Puerto Ayora costs USD 5 and takes about 1 hour 15 minutes.
To travel between the Galápagos Islands, take a public speedboat ferry, which costs about USD 30 to USD 35 a trip, or a small plane, which is faster but costs about six times as much.
Ferries run twice a day in each direction between Santa Cruz and Isabela, and between Santa Cruz and San Cristóbal. Each ferry crossing takes about 2 hours. Ferries leave Santa Cruz for Isabela at 7 am and 3 pm, and leave Isabela for Santa Cruz at 6 am and 3 pm.
The ferry crossing between Santa Cruz and San Cristóbal is often rougher than the crossing between Santa Cruz and Isabela.
Ferries don't run directly between San Cristóbal and Isabela. The ferry trip from San Cristóbal to Isabela takes two crossings, with a change of boat in Santa Cruz.
Emetebe, a Galápagos airline, runs small planes between the islands. A flight from San Cristóbal to Baltra, via Isabela, takes about 1.5 hours and costs about USD 200 to USD 240.
Water taxis carry ferry passengers between the ferry and the dock in each port.
Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, and Isabela, the three islands on the ferry routes, all formed from volcanoes that rose from the floor of the Pacific Ocean.
The Galápagos Islands are the tops of volcanoes that rise from the floor of the Pacific Ocean. The Galápagos landscape is made of lava flows, craters, and cliffs, on the slopes of shield volcanoes, broad volcanoes with gentle sides built up by layer after layer of lava.
The volcanic peaks of the Galápagos were bare of plants and animals when the peaks first rose above the sea. Every native plant and animal on the Galápagos Islands arrived across the open ocean, by flying, being blown on the wind, swimming, or floating on rafts of tangled vegetation.
Reptiles and small rice rats probably reached the islands on rafts of vegetation from South or Central America. Reptiles survive weeks at sea in salt and sun better than other land animals, which explains why the Galápagos have many native reptiles and few native mammals, and lack native amphibians.
The Galápagos Islands were formed by volcanoes erupting over the Galápagos hotspot, a place under the seafloor where molten rock keeps rising, while the Nazca Plate, the slab of the Earth's crust under the islands, carries each volcano slowly east.
Each Galápagos volcano grew from the seafloor through eruption after eruption, building layer upon layer of lava until the volcano broke the surface of the sea. Each major Galápagos island is a single large volcano, except Isabela. Isabela formed when six volcanoes joined above sea level.
The Nazca Plate moves east, toward South America, at about 37 mm (1.5 in) a year. As the Nazca Plate moves, each Galápagos volcano drifts away from the hotspot, stops erupting, and slowly wears down.
The Galápagos hotspot has built a cluster of islands, without the single straight line of islands that the hotspot under Hawaii has built. The Galápagos Spreading Center, a ridge on the seafloor where two plates pull apart, lies just north of the islands. The Nazca, Cocos, and Pacific plates all meet on the seafloor near the Galápagos.
The Galápagos Islands are geologically young, with the oldest islands in the east and the youngest in the west, because the Nazca Plate carries the older volcanoes east, away from the hotspot.
Fernandina and Isabela, the westernmost islands, are less than one million years old. Fernandina is the youngest Galápagos island and sits at the center of the hotspot that built the islands. Some parts of the western islands are only hundreds of thousands of years old and are still forming.
Española and San Cristóbal, in the east, are the oldest of today's Galápagos Islands, at between three and five million years old. Española, about four million years old, has worn down into one of the flattest and lowest islands in the archipelago.
Older Galápagos islands once stood further east and have since sunk below the sea. Underwater seamounts east of the islands formed islands between 5 and 9 million years ago, according to a geological study published in 1992. The sunken islands help explain how so many species had time to evolve in the Galápagos.
Yes, several Galápagos volcanoes are still active, mainly on Isabela and Fernandina, the western islands closest to the hotspot.
Wolf Volcano, on Isabela, is the highest point in the Galápagos and last erupted from January to April 2022. The longest lava flow from the 2022 eruption of Wolf Volcano ran 18.5 km (11.5 mi) and stopped 150 m (492 ft) to 200 m (656 ft) short of the coast.
Fernandina, the most active volcano in the Galápagos, has erupted nearly 30 times since 1800, most recently in 2024. The summit crater of Fernandina is about 6.5 km (4 mi) wide. During a 1968 eruption, the floor of Fernandina's summit crater collapsed by about 350 m (1,148 ft).
Five of Isabela's six volcanoes are still active. Ecuador Volcano, in the far north of Isabela, is the only extinct volcano on Isabela.
The volcanoes of Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal and Española, further east, are extinct.
Wolf Volcano also produced the first eruption in the written history of the Galápagos Islands, seen in August 1797.
The Galápagos Islands stayed unclaimed for almost 300 years after their discovery, while pirates, whalers and seal hunters used the islands as a base.
Pirates raiding Spanish ships and ports along the coast of South America sheltered in the Galápagos in the 17th century and ate the giant tortoises. William Dampier, an English buccaneer, wrote the first English account of the Galápagos, published in 1697.
Whalers hunted sperm whales around the Galápagos from the late 1700s. Between 1784 and 1860, whalers took more than 100,000 giant tortoises from the islands as fresh meat for their voyages. Seal hunters killed so many Galápagos fur seals that the fur seal was commercially extinct by 1890.
Ecuador annexed the Galápagos Islands on 12 February 1832. The first colonists settled on Floreana Island the same year. Ecuador also ran penal colonies on Floreana, San Cristóbal and Isabela. The last Galápagos penal colony, on Isabela, closed in 1959.
During the Second World War, the United States built an air base on Baltra Island in 1942 to help guard the Panama Canal. The US closed the Baltra air base in 1946. The Baltra airstrip, the first airport in the Galápagos, is now the islands' main airport.
Fray Tomás de Berlanga, the Bishop of Panama, discovered the Galápagos Islands when ocean currents carried his ship off course on a voyage from Panama to Peru; he arrived on 10 March 1535.
Berlanga's letter about the voyage is the first written record of the Galápagos. Berlanga described the giant tortoises, the cacti, the harsh lava landscape, and the struggle to find fresh water on the islands. Berlanga named the islands Las Encantadas, "the Enchanted".
Some writers claim that the Inca ruler Tupac Yupanqui reached the Galápagos before Berlanga, based on a Spanish account from 1572. The claim of an Inca visit has since lost support among historians.
Charles Darwin visited the Galápagos Islands in September and October 1835, as the naturalist on board HMS Beagle, a British navy ship charting the coasts of South America.
HMS Beagle reached the Galápagos on 15 September 1835, on the way home across the Pacific, and spent about five weeks in the islands. Darwin went ashore on the following islands, with the dates of each stay.
While Captain Robert FitzRoy and his officers mapped the islands, Darwin collected rocks, plants and animals, and spent as much time on geology as on wildlife.
In the Galápagos, Charles Darwin discovered that closely related but different kinds of mockingbirds and giant tortoises lived on different islands, a pattern that later helped lead him to the theory of evolution by natural selection.
Darwin found three different kinds of Galápagos mockingbirds on different islands. Nicholas Lawson, the English acting governor of the islands, also told Darwin about differences among the giant tortoises on different islands.
Darwin did not grasp what the differences meant while he was in the Galápagos. After leaving the islands in October 1835, Darwin realized that separate kinds of mockingbird lived on separate islands, and wrote that "such facts would undermine the stability of Species".
The Galápagos finches, now known as Darwin's finches, followed the same pattern, which Darwin saw only later. Because Darwin had not labeled all his own bird specimens by island, he used other men's collections on HMS Beagle to check the differences between islands.
On the Origin of Species, the book in which Darwin set out his theory, came out in 1859. In On the Origin of Species, Darwin used the many Galápagos species found nowhere else as evidence against the belief that each species was created separately.
The Galápagos Islands are protected by the Galápagos National Park, which covers 97% of the land, and the Galápagos Marine Reserve, which covers the sea around the islands.
Ecuador first protected key Galápagos species by decree in 1934. The Galápagos Islands became a national park under a new law on 15 June 1959, except for land already owned by settlers. The towns and farms of the four inhabited islands sit on the remaining 3% of the land.
The Charles Darwin Foundation, an international scientific charity, was set up on 23 July 1959. The Charles Darwin Research Station, the Foundation's base on Santa Cruz, began work in the islands in 1960.
The Galápagos Marine Reserve was created in 1986. A special law for the Galápagos, passed in 1998, extended the marine reserve and banned commercial fishing inside it. The Galápagos Marine Reserve covers 138,000 sq km (53,282 sq mi).
In January 2022, Ecuador created a second marine reserve, the Hermandad Marine Reserve, of 60,000 sq km (23,166 sq mi), to protect the migration routes of hammerhead sharks and other species. Together, the two marine reserves protect 198,000 sq km (76,448 sq mi) of sea around the Galápagos.
The Galápagos World Heritage Site was extended in 2001 to include the marine reserve. The Galápagos were on UNESCO's List of World Heritage in Danger between 2007 and 2010. The main threats to the islands are invasive species, growing tourism, a growing population and illegal fishing.
The entrance fee paid by every visitor funds the running of the national park and services on the four inhabited islands.
Invasive species brought by people, such as goats, rats, cats and fire ants, have done great harm to Galápagos wildlife by eating native plants, eggs and young animals.
The Galápagos Islands are home to animals and plants found nowhere else on Earth, including giant tortoises, marine iguanas, land iguanas, Darwin's finches and flightless cormorants.
All 36 native reptile species of the Galápagos are endemic, which means they live wild only in the Galápagos. Eleven of the 12 native land mammals of the islands are endemic. About 180 of the roughly 500 native plant species of the Galápagos are endemic.
The sea around the Galápagos is home to 2,909 known marine species. Of the Galápagos marine species, 18.2% are endemic.
Cool ocean currents, the Humboldt Current from the south and the Cromwell Current from the west, flow past the equatorial Galápagos Islands. The cool currents let penguins and fur seals live alongside tropical animals such as sea turtles and reef fish.
Galápagos marine life is so used to people that sea lions, sharks, and fish swim alongside divers in the Galápagos Marine Reserve.
Galápagos giant tortoises are the largest tortoises in the world, reaching up to 1.8 m (6 ft) long and up to 260 kg (573 lb), with 13 living species spread across the islands.
Galápagos giant tortoises have either domed or saddleback shells. Domed tortoises live in the archipelago's cooler regions. Saddleback tortoises live in dry coastal areas. The shell of a saddleback tortoise flares at the front, letting the tortoise stretch its neck to reach tall cacti.
Giant tortoises graze on grass, leaves, and cactus, and rest for nearly 16 hours a day. A slow body and large water stores let a Galápagos tortoise survive up to a year without eating or drinking.
At least 250,000 giant tortoises once lived in the Galápagos. About 15,000 Galápagos tortoises live in the wild today, after centuries of hunting by pirates, whalers and settlers for meat and oil.
Isabela has more wild giant tortoises than all the other islands put together, with a separate species on each of its volcanoes.
Breeding programs have brought some Galápagos tortoise species back from the edge of extinction. The Española giant tortoise grew from just 14 survivors in the 1960s to more than a thousand. A Fernandina giant tortoise, a species last seen in 1906, was found on Fernandina in 2019.
Galápagos giant tortoises live for more than 100 years on average, which puts them among the longest-lived land animals. The oldest Galápagos tortoise on record lived to 175.
Galápagos giant tortoises live up to 150 years, according to Britannica.
A Galápagos tortoise grows up slowly and reaches adulthood at about 20 to 25 years old. A female tortoise lays 2 to 16 eggs in a hole dug in dry, sandy ground. Galápagos tortoise eggs hatch after about 130 days.
Whether a baby tortoise is male or female depends on the temperature of the nest. Warmer nests produce more female tortoises.
Marine iguanas are the only lizards in the world that live and feed in the sea, and are endemic to the Galápagos Islands.
Marine iguanas dive into the sea to graze on seaweed, then bask in the sun on the black lava rocks of the shore. In some places, hundreds of marine iguanas cover the coastal rocks.
Adult marine iguanas are black for most of the year. In the mating season, from January to March, male marine iguanas change color. On Española and Floreana, male marine iguanas turn bright red and green. Marine iguanas on Española are the only ones that stay brightly colored all year.
Marine iguanas live on Isabela, Fernandina, Española, Floreana, Santa Cruz and the islets around them. Eleven kinds of marine iguanas live on different islands. The marine iguanas of Isabela and Fernandina are the largest.
An adult marine iguana is usually about 0.7 m (2.3 ft) long. The largest marine iguanas grow to 1.5 m (4.9 ft).
El Niño, a natural warming of the eastern Pacific Ocean, cuts the supply of seaweed that marine iguanas eat. During El Niño years, the marine iguana population falls by up to 85%.
Blue-footed boobies are large seabirds with bright blue feet, and one of three kinds of booby that nest in the Galápagos, with the Nazca booby and the red-footed booby.
The name booby comes from the Spanish word bobo, meaning foolish or clown, because of the birds' clumsy walk on land.
A male blue-footed booby shows off his feet to a female in a courtship display. The male presents the female with a small stick or stone, points his beak, tail, and wing tips to the sky, whistles, and high-steps around her. Female blue-footed boobies prefer males with brighter feet, since bright feet signal good condition.
Blue-footed boobies mate in the Galápagos between June and August, the best time to see the birds up close on land. North Seymour is one of the best places to see blue-footed boobies. Large colonies also nest on Española, Fernandina, Floreana, Isabela and Santa Cruz.
Blue-footed boobies hunt fish such as sardines and anchovies by diving into the sea from heights of 20 m (66 ft) and more. A diving blue-footed booby hits the water at up to 97 km (60 mi) an hour.
The number of blue-footed boobies in the Galápagos fell from about 20,000 breeding birds in the 1960s to an estimated 6,400 birds in 2012, probably because of a drop in the sardines the boobies need to breed.
The Galápagos penguin is the world's most northerly penguin. Galápagos penguins nest entirely in the tropics, and some colonies live on the northern tip of Isabela, in the Northern Hemisphere.
Galápagos penguins are one of the smallest kinds of penguin, about 49 cm (19 in) tall and 2.5 kg (5.5 lb). Galápagos penguins live and breed on the islands year-round.
Galápagos penguins live mainly on the coasts of Isabela and Fernandina, where the cold, upwelling water of the Cromwell Current makes the richest feeding grounds in the archipelago. Cold-water fish such as anchovies, sardines and mullet, the main food of Galápagos penguins, live in the Galápagos thanks to the cold Humboldt Current.
Galápagos penguins also live on Floreana, Santiago and Bartolomé.
Galápagos penguins nest in caves and cracks in the coastal lava. The close relatives of the Galápagos penguin, such as the Humboldt and Magellanic penguins, dig burrows in soft ground, which the Galápagos Islands lack.
The Galápagos penguin is an endangered species, with an estimated 2,000 birds left. In 1982, a strong El Niño killed 77% of Galápagos penguins through starvation.
Galápagos sea lions are the most common marine mammal in the Galápagos, and often sleep on the beaches or swim close to shore.
The Galápagos sea lion breeds almost only in the Galápagos, with a few breeding colonies on Isla de la Plata, an island off mainland Ecuador. Galápagos sea lions live on the islands year-round and are widespread along the coasts.
Male Galápagos sea lions weigh about 250 kg (551 lb), roughly three times as much as the females, and have a bump on the forehead. Each dominant male, or bull, guards a stretch of beach where females live, and chases off rival males.
Galápagos sea lions dive to depths of almost 600 m (1,969 ft) when hunting sardines, their main prey. On land, a Galápagos sea lion runs over rocks faster than a person.
The mating season of Galápagos sea lions usually runs from July to December, but differs from island to island. The Galápagos sea lion is an endangered species. El Niño, which causes sharp falls in the fish and other sea life that sea lions feed on, is the main threat to Galápagos sea lions.
The Galápagos fur seal, the other seal of the Galápagos, lives in small colonies on islands such as Genovesa and the west coast of Isabela.
Darwin's finches are 17 species of small land birds that live only in the Galápagos, famous for the different beaks they evolved to suit different foods.
Darwin's finches all descend from one kind of bird that reached the Galápagos from South America. The closest known relative of Darwin's finches is the dull-coloured grassquit of the South American mainland. Darwin's finches are not true finches, and belong to the tanager family.
After reaching the islands, the ancestors of Darwin's finches spread into different habitats and became separate species. Each species of Darwin's finch has a beak suited to its food, from the large, short beak of the large ground finch, which cracks big seeds and nuts, to the short, curved beak of the small tree finch, which feeds mostly on insects.
The woodpecker finch uses a twig, stick, or cactus spine as a tool to dig insects out of trees. The vampire ground finch, on the remote islands of Wolf and Darwin, often drinks the blood of boobies and other large seabirds.
The mangrove finch, found only in a small area on Isabela, is critically endangered, with a population of about 100 birds.
The Cocos finch, an 18th species of Darwin's finch, lives on Cocos Island, off Costa Rica.
Yes, sharks live around the Galápagos Islands, one of the few places on Earth where scalloped hammerhead sharks gather in schools of several hundred.
Scalloped hammerhead sharks school around Darwin and Wolf, the remote northern islands of the Galápagos, and sometimes around Kicker Rock off San Cristóbal. Hammerhead sharks live in the Galápagos Marine Reserve all year, and are most common in January and least common in May. The scalloped hammerhead is a critically endangered species, and Galápagos waters are one of the places where young hammerheads grow up.
Whale sharks, the largest fish in the sea, are most often seen near Darwin and Wolf, between June and November.
Sharks have bitten snorkelers in the Galápagos a few times, including a British snorkeler off Santa Fe in 2018, a woman near Mosquera Islet in 2023, and an Austrian snorkeler on a guided tour in 2026, who lost her lower leg.
White-tipped reef sharks rest in shallow channels and crevices near the inhabited islands, where snorkelers see them on day trips from the towns, at sites such as Tintoreras off Isabela.
The main sights of the Galápagos Islands are the wildlife, volcanic landscapes, and beaches of the visitor sites, each known for its own scenery, plants, and animals.
Each Galápagos visitor site has a marked trail, mostly less than 1.6 km (1 mi) long and often over rough lava or boulders. Sea lions, marine iguanas, lava lizards and shore birds such as herons and plovers turn up at most Galápagos visitor sites.
Some sights on the four inhabited islands lie close enough to the towns to visit on your own. You can visit the uninhabited islands on cruises and day trips.
Santa Cruz Island is the main tourism hub of the Galápagos, in the center of the archipelago. Santa Cruz is also the only Galápagos island where you can easily reach the highlands in the middle of the island.
Puerto Ayora, on Academy Bay on Santa Cruz's south coast, is the base for most Galápagos tours. Sailboats fill Academy Bay, and marine iguanas dot Puerto Ayora's shore. Puerto Ayora has the most hotels, restaurants, and services in the Galápagos, including a hospital and banks.
The road across Santa Cruz from the Itabaca Channel climbs through the highlands and a cool forest of scalesia trees, a kind of giant daisy found only in the Galápagos, to the villages of Bellavista and Santa Rosa. Trails from Santa Rosa lead to the Santa Cruz tortoise reserve, where giant tortoises live in the wild.
Lava tubes, long tunnels left behind when the outside of a lava flow cooled while hot lava kept flowing inside, run under the farms around Bellavista and Santa Rosa. Most of the Santa Cruz lava tubes are on private land, where the farmers charge a small fee.
Las Grietas, across Academy Bay from Puerto Ayora, is a lava crevice between steep cliffs, filled with water and great for swimming. In Las Grietas, a layer of fresh water sits on top of the sea's salt water. To reach Las Grietas, take a water taxi from the Puerto Ayora pier across the bay, then walk the trail past the lagoons.
Tortuga Bay is a long white-sand beach on Santa Cruz, reached by a 2.4 km (1.5 mi) walking trail from the main street of Puerto Ayora.
The walk from Puerto Ayora to Tortuga Bay takes 30 minutes to an hour, through dry scrub where many land birds live. Tortuga Bay is open from 6 am to 6 pm every day.
Playa Brava, the long beach where the trail reaches the sea, faces the open ocean and has strong currents. Swimming is banned at Playa Brava, but surfers ride its waves.
Playa Mansa, a 20-minute walk further along the bay, is a calm, sheltered beach, safe for swimming. A large colony of marine iguanas lives at Playa Mansa. Whitetip reef sharks and sea turtles swim in the shallow lagoon at the end of Playa Mansa, and kayaks are for hire by the hour.
A water taxi runs from Tortuga Bay back to Puerto Ayora. The water taxi ride takes about 20 minutes and costs about USD 10.
The Charles Darwin Research Station is the scientific base of the Charles Darwin Foundation, a ten-minute walk from the center of Puerto Ayora, with a visitor center and a giant tortoise breeding center.
The visitor center at the Charles Darwin Research Station has exhibits on the climate and geography of the Galápagos, how Galápagos plants and animals evolved, and conservation work on the islands.
The Fausto Llerena Tortoise Center, at the Charles Darwin Research Station, breeds giant tortoises for release on their home islands. At the Fausto Llerena Tortoise Center, you see tortoise hatchlings, young tortoises, and full-grown giant tortoises.
The Fausto Llerena Tortoise Center began in 1965 to save the giant tortoises of Pinzón Island, and soon took in other tortoise populations. By 2008, more than 4,000 young tortoises bred at the center had gone back to the islands where their species came from.
Scientists at the Charles Darwin Research Station study Galápagos wildlife and advise the Galápagos National Park, whose headquarters is also in Puerto Ayora.
Isabela Island is the seahorse-shaped island in the west of the Galápagos, known for its volcanoes, its wildlife, and the quiet beach town of Puerto Villamil on its south coast.
Puerto Villamil has long, white-sand beaches lined with palms, and brackish lagoons where pink flamingos feed. Puerto Villamil is quieter than Puerto Ayora and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno.
Sierra Negra, a volcano 45 minutes by road from Puerto Villamil, has a caldera, the huge crater left when the top of a volcano collapses, about 10 km (6 mi) across. The Sierra Negra caldera is considered the second-largest volcanic caldera in the world. A trek to the Sierra Negra caldera takes several hours on foot or on horseback.
Tintoreras, a group of small lava islets just off Puerto Villamil, is reached by dinghy. On Tintoreras, marine iguanas nest on the lava, and whitetip reef sharks rest in a narrow channel of clear water. Sea lions, sea turtles, and rays swim in the calm bay at Tintoreras.
The Wall of Tears, a 6 km (3.7 mi) walk from Puerto Villamil, is a stone wall about 100 m (328 ft) long and 5 m (16 ft) to 6 m (20 ft) high. Prisoners at the Isabela penal colony built the Wall of Tears as work to keep them busy.
The west coast of Isabela, where the cold Cromwell Current wells up, has long been the best place in the Galápagos to see whales. Many Galápagos penguins live on the Mariela Islets, off Elizabeth Bay on the west coast, and flightless cormorants feed in Elizabeth Bay.
San Cristóbal Island is the easternmost of the large Galápagos Islands and the home of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, the capital of the Galápagos, with Kicker Rock, one of the best-known dive and snorkel sites in the islands, off its northwest coast.
Kicker Rock, also called León Dormido, "sleeping lion", for its shape, is a tuff cone, a cone of volcanic rock formed when hot lava exploded on meeting cold seawater, rising almost 148 m (486 ft) straight out of the sea. The sea has split Kicker Rock in two, leaving a narrow channel that small boats sail through. Snorkelers and divers at Kicker Rock often see manta rays, sea turtles, and sharks.
Sea lions sleep on the beaches and rocks of the Sea Lion Rookery, about 10 minutes from San Cristóbal airport.
Punta Pitt, at the eastern tip of San Cristóbal, is the only place in the Galápagos where blue-footed, Nazca and red-footed boobies all nest together. Frigatebird Hill, near Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, has magnificent frigatebirds and great frigatebirds nesting in the same colony.
El Junco, a lake in the crater of an extinct volcano in the highlands of San Cristóbal, is one of the few permanent freshwater lakes in the Galápagos. Frigatebirds bathe in El Junco's fresh water to clean their feathers.
Tongo Reef, west of Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, is one of the best surfing spots in the islands.
Floreana Island has one of the most interesting human histories in the Galápagos, home to the whalers' barrel post office at Post Office Bay and the scene of the 1930s mystery known as the Galápagos Affair.
Floreana was the first Galápagos island settled by Ecuadorians. Most people in Floreana live in the small port of Puerto Velasco Ibarra.
At Post Office Bay, whalers set up a wooden barrel in 1793 as a post office, where passing sailors left letters for other ships to carry home. Visitors to Post Office Bay still leave postcards in the barrel and take home any postcard addressed near where they live to hand over in person.
Devil's Crown, off the north coast of Floreana, is a volcanic crater worn away by the waves, with jagged rocks sticking out of the sea in a half circle. Snorkelers at Devil's Crown swim among coral, sea lions, reef fish, sea turtles and sharks, in strong currents.
At Cormorant Point, flamingos feed in a brackish lagoon behind a beach of green sand, coloured by crystals of the volcanic mineral olivine.
Floreana is the Galápagos island most changed by people and introduced goats. The Floreana mockingbird now survives only on two small islets off the coast of Floreana.
Española Island is the only breeding ground of the waved albatross, where nearly the whole world population of 25,000 to 30,000 adult waved albatrosses gathers between April and December.
Waved albatrosses mate for life. A waved albatross pair courts with a display of stumbling, honking, and beak-fencing that lasts up to five days. At Punta Suárez, on the western cliffs of Española, waved albatrosses waddle to the cliff edge and launch themselves into the wind. In January, the waved albatross colony leaves Española for three months at sea.
Española is the southernmost Galápagos island. Because Española lies so far from the other islands, many of the animals of Española live nowhere else, such as the Española mockingbird and the Española lava lizard.
At Punta Suárez, sea lions lie on the landing rocks. Blue-footed boobies and Nazca boobies nest right beside the Punta Suárez trail. A blowhole at Punta Suárez sprays seawater nearly 30 m (98 ft) into the air at high tide.
Gardner Bay, on Española, has a white-sand beach about 2 km (1.2 mi) long, crowded with sleeping sea lions. Española mockingbirds at Gardner Bay often land on visitors' heads and shoulders, looking for food.
Fernandina Island is the most untouched of the Galápagos Islands, with a single visitor site at Punta Espinosa, on the northeast coast.
Fernandina is uninhabited. Introduced mammals such as rats, goats, and cats haven't reached Fernandina, one of only two large Galápagos islands free of introduced mammals. Two species of endemic rice rat, a small native rodent, survive on Fernandina, while most rice rats on other islands died out after black rats arrived.
At Punta Espinosa, marine iguanas lie on the black lava, beside flightless cormorants, seabirds that have lost the power to fly. Sea lions, Galápagos penguins, and Sally Lightfoot crabs, bright red crabs of the lava shore, also live at Punta Espinosa.
Lava cactus, one of the first plants to grow on new lava, grows on the young lava fields of Punta Espinosa. The inland trail at Punta Espinosa crosses smooth pahoehoe lava to a wall of rough, broken aa lava.
Bartolomé Island is the most visited and most photographed island in the Galápagos, a small, barren islet off the east coast of Santiago, known for Pinnacle Rock, a tall spire of volcanic rock beside its beach.
A trail of about 600 m (1,969 ft), with a wooden staircase built by the national park, climbs to the 114 m (374 ft) summit of Bartolomé. From the summit of Bartolomé, you see Pinnacle Rock, the black lava flows of Sullivan Bay on Santiago, and the islands of Daphne Major and Daphne Minor.
Pinnacle Rock is a volcanic cone, made of many thin layers of basalt, formed when the sea cooled erupting lava, and the lava burst apart. Pinnacle Rock appears in the 2003 film Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World.
Snorkelers swim with sea lions, reef fish, and Galápagos penguins around Pinnacle Rock. Galápagos penguins nest in a small colony in a cave behind Pinnacle Rock. Green sea turtles nest on the northern beach of Bartolomé from January to March.
Bartolomé is named after Bartholomew James Sulivan, a friend of Charles Darwin and an officer on HMS Beagle.
Genovesa Island, known as "the Bird Island", is a horseshoe-shaped island in the northeast of the Galápagos, where more than 200,000 red-footed boobies nest in the trees and bushes.
Genovesa is the rim of a volcano whose crater collapsed on one side and filled with the sea, forming Darwin Bay. Seabirds nest on the steep cliffs around Darwin Bay.
Red-footed boobies, the smallest of the three Galápagos boobies, have bright red feet and blue bills. Most red-footed boobies on Genovesa have brown feathers, and about one in twenty is white. Genovesa is one of the few places in the Galápagos where red-footed boobies nest in large numbers.
Swallow-tailed gulls, the only gulls in the world that are active at night, nest beside the trail at Darwin Bay Beach, along with great frigatebirds and red-footed boobies.
Prince Philip's Steps, a steep stairway up the cliffs of Genovesa, is named after Prince Philip, who visited the Galápagos in 1965 and 1981. Short-eared owls hunt storm petrels along the eastern cliffs of Genovesa, near the top of Prince Philip's Steps.
North Seymour Island is a small, flat island just north of Baltra, with the largest colony of magnificent frigatebirds in the Galápagos, nesting blue-footed boobies and land iguanas.
North Seymour formed from lava on the seafloor that was pushed up above the sea, along with Baltra. A loop trail across North Seymour passes the frigatebird and booby colonies. Swallow-tailed gulls and common noddies, a kind of tern, also nest on North Seymour.
Land iguanas are not native to North Seymour. In the early 1930s, a scientific expedition moved about 70 land iguanas from Baltra to North Seymour because goats were destroying the iguanas' habitat on Baltra. North Seymour had nearly 2,500 land iguanas in 2014, according to a count by the Galápagos National Park.
Mosquera, a sandy islet in the channel between Baltra and North Seymour, has one of the largest groups of sea lions in the Galápagos.
A visit to North Seymour, like a visit to any uninhabited Galápagos island, takes place with a licensed naturalist guide.
Visiting the Galápagos Islands means following the rules of the Galápagos National Park, which protect the wildlife and keep new plants and animals out of the islands.
The Galápagos National Park rules for visitors include the following.
Motorized water sports, mini-submarines and flights over the islands for sightseeing are banned in the Galápagos National Park and the Galápagos Marine Reserve.
The best time of year to visit the Galápagos is any month, because the islands sit on the equator and the air and water temperatures stay fairly steady all year. The choice of season depends on the wildlife and weather you want.
In the Galápagos warm season, December to May, the water averages about 25°C (76°F) and the air 22°C (72°F) to 30°C (86°F). The sea is usually calmer in the warm season. Short showers fall most days in the warm season, with sun for the rest of the day. The warm season is the time to see birds mating and sea turtles nesting on the beaches.
In the cool season, June to November, the Humboldt Current brings colder water, averaging about 22°C (72°F), and cooler air of 19°C (66°F) to 26°C (79°F). Clouds and a misty drizzle called garúa cover the islands in the cool season. Winds are stronger, and the sea is rougher.
The cold water of the cool season carries food that draws fish and seabirds. In the cool season, albatrosses arrive on Española, penguins are easier to find, and blue-footed boobies mate. Experienced divers prefer June to November for the richest marine life.
The busiest times in the Galápagos are mid-June to early September and mid-December to mid-January. Book flights, cruises and hotels well ahead for the busy times.
You should spend at least five days in the Galápagos. A week in the islands gives you time to see a good range of islands and wildlife without rushing.
The first and last days of a Galápagos trip are cut short by the flights to and from the mainland. A four-day trip, the shortest Galápagos cruise, leaves only two full days on the islands.
Five days on land gives you time to stay on two different islands. Galápagos cruises last from 4 days and 3 nights up to 12 days and 11 nights.
Visiting the Galápagos costs about USD 200 to USD 450 per person per day on a land-based trip, or about USD 3,000 to USD 7,500 and up for a 5- to 7-night cruise, plus flights and the island entry fees.
Every foreign adult visitor pays USD 220 in Galápagos entry fees for the national park and the Transit Control Card. The Galápagos National Park entrance fee for foreign adults doubled from USD 100 to USD 200 in August 2024.
Visitors from the Andean Community and Mercosur countries of South America, such as Peru, Colombia, Argentina, and Brazil, pay a lower national park fee of USD 100.
A return flight from Quito or Guayaquil to the Galápagos costs about USD 350 to USD 550.
Take a cruise if you want to see the most islands and wildlife, and stay on land if you want a cheaper trip with more freedom but fewer islands within reach.
A Galápagos cruise boat sails between islands at night, so each day starts at a new visitor site. Galápagos cruise boats carry 12 to 110 passengers and offer economy, tourist, first-class, and luxury service.
A land-based trip means staying in hotels on Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, or Isabela, and taking day trips by boat to nearby uninhabited islands. A land-based trip usually costs less than a cruise, but the islands and wildlife within reach of a day trip are more limited.
Day-trip operators in the Galápagos vary widely in comfort and safety standards, so choose a reputable, licensed operator. For a group of 12 or more people, chartering a whole cruise boat sometimes costs less per person than joining an organized tour.
Yes, you need a naturalist guide licensed by the Galápagos National Park to visit almost all of the protected visitor sites in the Galápagos, on both cruises and day trips.
The Galápagos National Park coordinates group visits to more than 60 visitor sites, and plans tour routes to limit the number of visitors at each site. Every cruise and reputable day-trip operator includes a licensed guide.
You don't need a guide for a few sites close to the towns. On Santa Cruz, Tortuga Bay, Las Grietas, El Mirador lava tube, Playa de los Perros, and Garrapatero beach are open without a guide.
You can snorkel and dive at the following Galápagos sites, which are among the best for marine life.
Diving in the Galápagos Islands is restricted to operators authorized by the Galápagos National Park, so check that your dive company has a park permit before you book.
Use the following travel tips to get the most out of a trip to the Galápagos Islands.
Most visitors to the Galápagos who sleep ashore stay in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz, which has the widest choice of hotels in the islands. Puerto Villamil on Isabela and Puerto Baquerizo Moreno on San Cristóbal also have hotels.
A few lodges stand outside the towns, on the beach or in the highlands of Santa Cruz. Cruise passengers sleep on board their boats.
The following budget hotels are small, highly rated places to stay in Puerto Ayora.
The following mid-range hotels have swimming pools, two in Puerto Ayora and one on the beach at Puerto Villamil.
The following luxury lodges on Santa Cruz each run their own yacht for trips to the other islands.
Galápagos means "tortoises", from galápago, an old Spanish word for a tortoise. Spanish sailors named the islands after the giant tortoises they found there in huge numbers.
Fray Tomás de Berlanga, who discovered the islands in 1535, wrote about the thousands of large galápagos he saw. Gerard Mercator's world map of 1569 marked the archipelago as the Ysolas de los Galopegos, the islands of the tortoises.
Ecuador's official name for the Galápagos Islands is the Archipiélago de Colón, the Columbus Archipelago, given when Ecuador annexed the islands in honour of Christopher Columbus.
The Galápagos Islands belong to Ecuador, and form the Ecuadorian province of Galápagos.
Galápagos became the 20th province of Ecuador on 18 February 1973, with Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, on San Cristóbal, as the provincial capital. The province of Galápagos is split into three cantons, or districts, named San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz and Isabela.
The Galápagos special law of 1998 also controls who settles in the islands, sets quarantine checks on goods from the mainland, and limits tourism through permits and quotas.
The Galápagos Islands use the US dollar, the currency of Ecuador.
Yes, about 30,000 people live on the Galápagos Islands, mostly Ecuadorians, in the port towns and highland farms of the inhabited islands.
Santa Cruz has the largest population, about 12,000 people, most of them in Puerto Ayora. San Cristóbal has about 6,000 people, mostly in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. Isabela has about 1,800 people, and about 100 people live on Floreana.
Tourism, fishing and farming are the main ways of making a living in the Galápagos. Farms in the highlands of Santa Cruz grow crops such as avocados, coffee, sugarcane, bananas and oranges.
The Galápagos Islands are famous for their unusual wildlife, found nowhere else on Earth, and for helping to inspire Charles Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection. UNESCO calls the Galápagos a "living museum and showcase of evolution".
The Galápagos Islands are one of the Seven Underwater Wonders of the World, chosen for their beauty, marine life, scientific value and importance to the environment.
The islands are also reference number 1 on UNESCO's World Heritage List, among the first sites listed.
Yes, the Galápagos Islands are safe to visit. Ecuador as a whole is at Level 2, exercise increased caution, on the US State Department's scale. The Galápagos lie outside the higher-risk areas of mainland Ecuador.
The UK Foreign Office advises against all but essential travel to Guayas province, which includes Guayaquil, except for airside transit at Guayaquil airport. If your Galápagos flight goes through Guayaquil, stay airside.
Serious illness or injury in the Galápagos usually means medical evacuation to the mainland, which costs USD 60,000 or more. Take out travel insurance that covers air evacuation.
Lonesome George was the last Pinta Island giant tortoise, and his death on 24 June 2012 marked the extinction of his species.
Lonesome George was found on Pinta Island in 1972, when Pinta tortoises were thought to be extinct. The last Pinta tortoise spent the rest of his life at the breeding centre on Santa Cruz, where every attempt to breed him failed. George was about 100 years old when he died.
After taxidermy at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, Lonesome George returned to the Galápagos in 2017. The preserved tortoise is now on display at the Galápagos National Park headquarters on Santa Cruz.
Darwin's Arch collapsed in May 2021, when the top of the natural rock arch fell into the sea. Ecuador's Environment Ministry reported the collapse on 17 May 2021, and blamed natural erosion of the rock.
Darwin's Arch stood less than 1 km (0.6 mi) from Darwin Island, in the far north of the Galápagos. Before the collapse, Darwin's Arch was 43 m (141 ft) high, 70 m (230 ft) long and 23 m (75 ft) wide. The arch isn't reachable by land.
The waters around Darwin's Arch are a popular dive site, known for schools of hammerhead sharks.
The Galápagos Affair is the unsolved mystery of a group of European settlers on Floreana Island in the 1930s, which ended with two people missing and two dead.
German settlers began arriving on Floreana in 1929, among them Dr Friedrich Ritter, Dore Strauch, the Wittmer family and Baroness Eloise Wagner de Bosquet. In 1934, the baroness and one of her partners disappeared. Ritter died of food poisoning, and another settler was found mummified on Marchena Island.
The Galápagos Affair is the subject of the 2013 documentary The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden, and of Eden, a 2024 film directed by Ron Howard.
No, Komodo dragons don't live in the Galápagos. Komodo dragons live only in Indonesia, in Southeast Asia, on Komodo and the nearby islands of Komodo National Park.
The large lizards of the Galápagos are the marine iguanas, which graze on seaweed in the sea, and the land iguanas.
The mix-up probably comes from the Galápagos and Komodo both being volcanic islands famous for large, prehistoric-looking reptiles. Komodo dragons are also of great interest to scientists studying evolution, like the animals of the Galápagos.
The Galápagos Islands are in Galápagos Time, UTC-6, one hour behind mainland Ecuador, which runs on Ecuador Time, UTC-5.
Ecuador, including the Galápagos, doesn't use daylight saving time. Galápagos Time is the same as US Central Standard Time, and two hours behind Washington, D.C., during US daylight saving time.
Remember the one-hour difference when you fly in from Quito or Guayaquil, and set your watch back an hour on landing in the Galápagos.