I wasn’t sure that we could make the Galapagos work without breaking the bank. Most foreign tourists are seeing the islands on small “liveaboard” cruise ships. But those cruises are running about $1000 per day per couple for the 4-8 night cruises. The Ecuador political crisis this year caused a lot of people to cancel their vacations, so there were some last minute deals around $600 per day per couple. That was still not going to work with our budget. If we were going to make this work, we needed to look at land based Galapagos itineraries. (tbh – we also weren’t sure we’d love the small cramped spaces of a liveaboard, so that compounded our thinking on prices).
There were tour companies that would organize a land based itinerary for us, but those were also going to be a lot of money. We are experienced travelers and know how to find the best options for transportation and lodging ourselves. So we needed to do a lot of research. We had some travel books, but our favorite resource was a post in the Trip Advisor forum from a few years ago. The prices are a bit dated, but it really helped us out on what we wanted to see at each location.
One of the big costs is just getting there. We were able to find roundtrip Avianca flights from Guayaquil for $250. This included paying for our carry on bags that were less than 10kg (I hate Avianca). Before getting on the plane in Guayaquil you needed to by a TCT (Transit Control Pass) for $20 so they can track how long everyone is in the islands. When you arrive on Baltra Island (one of 2 big airplane airports, the other is on San Cristobal), we paid a $100 National Park Fee. On August 1, 2024 this will be raised to $200 per person. (After experiencing the focus on conservation, and the overall passion for the amount of national park land, we were more than happy to pay this, even the new increased price!) From Baltra, you need to take a $5 bus to the ferry dock to Santa Cruz island. You can’t stay on Baltra Island, the only real accommodations are in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz. The ferry to Santa Cruz was $1 per person (typical boat taxi fee). Then we took another $5 bus to get to the Puerto Ayora bus station. And then we shared a $3 taxi to get to our hotel. I felt like we were handing out money all day….but really it wasn’t all that much.
There are 3 major islands that you can stay on in the Galapagos. Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island is the biggest one with the most restaurants, tours and accommodation options. But it isn’t really my favorite place. Cristobal Island and Isabela Island are more my style but those take both take a 2-3 hour $30 boat ride. The ferry ride can be really rocky in these 30-40 person boats that have limited windows. We heard that sea sickness and vomiting is really common so we wanted to take less ferry rides. So, we decided to stay for a week on Santa Cruz, and then ferry to Isabela for a week before returning for our flight back to Guayaquil. Because our our fear of vomit boats… we decided to skip Cristobal. There is currently no boat from Isabella to Cristobal so from Isabella you have to go 2 hours Santa Cruz and then another 2.5 hours to Cristobal which seemed horrible. That was probably a mistake… our ferry rides were rocky but really weren’t that bad. No one got sick, and we felt just fine. If we were to do it again, I would stay 4 days on Santa Cruz, 7 days on Isabella and then 7 days on San Cristobal.
So, transportation is expensive and a pain, but lodging is much easier and affordable. On all 3 islands you can find hotels starting at $50. Pay a little more to get a free breakfast and a little bit more to get a swimming pool. It can be hot and muggy in the islands and it is really nice to hop in the pool at the end of a walk or excursion. We opted for a pool and free breakfast hotel on each island. There were not many Airbnb’s available on either island. We ended up not going super cheap on lodging. We stayed at the Maidith Galapagos Inn in Puerto Ayora and really like the breakfasts and the owner. The pool was a bit small and it could use some more outside seating but overall it was pretty comfortable. On Isabela we stayed at the Hotel La Laguna. We had a cheaper place booked but we saw that they had a bed bug problem so we switched a couple days before we got there. The breakfasts were pretty boring but we loved the flamingo views from our room. The pool was OK.
There are quite a few tours you can do from Santa Cruz but I would recommend that you stay with the cheap and easy ones. You can walk to the Darwin Research Center and get a $10 tour of their tortoise breeding facility. We enjoyed the tour a lot and we also swam with the marine iguanas at their little beach (playa estacion). The snorkeling wasn’t great but it was a great place to cool off if you don’t have a pool. We also would recommend walking to Tortuga Beach to see some white sandy beaches for swimming (not snorkeling). The first beach is beautiful but waves are too big. Walking further gets you to the protected swimming beach. It is a long hot hike out there but you also have the option of taking a water taxi for one or both directions at $10 a ride. (note: from Puerto Aroyo, the water taxi to Tortuga beach is sold from a stand on the malacon by the main dock). We also liked the $40 highlands bus tour we did to see the tortoises in the wild as well as hiking the lava tubes and seeing the Gemelas volcanic craters. It probably would have been less money if we just hired a taxi for the day and had them wait while we saw the sites. We also took a $45 bay tour that we would not do again. Snorkeling was not great and we didn’t really see anything, although the walks on the land and to Las Grietas was kinda cool. We also took a $130 snorkeling tour to Pinzon island that had some pretty good snorkeling and a fun trip, however it was a long boat ride both ways (some folks were seasick, this is a good one to take preventative meds). If budget is a concern, I would save your money and do snorkeling on the other islands. The other boat tours all seemed to be $120-$150 and after reading reviews, I don’t think you miss much by waiting to do boat tours on other islands.
On Isabela, the beaches for swimming are right next to the town. It is a little too rough for snorkeling but it is a beautiful beach and a great place to hang out. Near the ferry dock there is a Concha del Perla swimming area which is absolutely amazing – this is an easy 15 min walk from the main town, or a cheap taxi ride. We went there several times. You can snorkel with sea lions, turtles, iguanas, penguins, sharks, rays and of course, fish. It is different animals at different times during the day. Additionally, we took a $50 3-hour Tintoreras boat tour near here where you can get a little further out in the little islets by the ferry dock. The guides ensure you can find all the animals to swim with. We would recommend this trip. The best tour that we took in the Galapagos was the Tunneles boat tour for $120/person. It is a lot of money but it is really worth it. It is amazing to see the cactuses growing on lava arches over some fantastic snorkeling areas. We saw about 50 sea turtles and we got used to swimming with them. You can also walk to another tortoise breeding facility from the main town – we took a tour there for $10 each and learned a lot from the personal guided tour even though we had already been to the tortoise facility on the other island. There are some other tours to see caves, or volcanos and some sulfur vents, but after reading reviews, it didn’t seem worth it. I would be happy on Isabela, just spending my time doing free things like hanging out on the beach or at the snorkeling bay at Concha del Perla. By the way… we were told there wasn’t an ATM on this island but there is at least one.
We didn’t go to San Cristobal but we heard a lot about it from other travelers. There are several free beaches that you can walk to where you can snorkel or swim with the wildlife. There is another tortoise breeding center to check out. One of the old volcanic craters has a lake inside that you can get to with a taxi. Beautiful views of the crater “lagoon” and of the island. This island also has some good snorkeling tours and highland tours but I have seen mixed reviews if they are worth it. I think I would spend a lot of time swimming with the playful sea lions instead.
Overall, our two weeks in Galapagos was about even cost for food/lodging per day, compared to the rest of our time in central/south America, for food/lodging. In addition, over the two weeks, we spent an additional $1165 for tours, ferries, and national park fees. Yes, that is a splurge for many full time travelers, but if you can average it in with some cheaper weeks in Ecuador and Colombia, it should be doable. We could have spent a lot more if we had done the liveaboard cruises. The boats are able to get to a lot of places in the islands that are not possible on day trips. We did not see the albatross or red footed boobies that are on the further away islands. Cruises are also a no stress vacation with the crew taking care of food and what you are doing all day. There are some drawbacks to the liveaboards. Some people get seasick after being on a smaller cruise ship in a small cabin that long. You lose a lot of freedom on a cruise in what you see and eat. It would be fun to make friends on a boat, but there is usually some people on a tour that eventually just get a bit annoying. Reading trip reports of people that did cruises, I don’t think we really missed out on too much wildlife but doing a land based tour. We saw all the big ticket wildlife and had the Galapagos experiences we wanted. All in all, we feel like we did a great job experiencing the Galapagos at a reasonable cost, and really loved our time there. The Galapagos were on our bucket list but I never really expected being able to see them at a reasonable price. We have been able to use our long term traveling skills to make it possible.