Land-Based Galápagos Tours

Adventure Tour

By Karey Fuhs

Combination tours, or land-based tours, are similar to navigable tours in that they combine visits to land and marine sites in the archipelago. The major difference is that combination tours include lodging on land and are limited to sites within a finite radius of the hub town, either Puerto Ayora or Puerto Baquerizo Moreno. These tours are based in certain hotels, which have partnerships with various tour agencies, dive centers, and transportation services.

Packaged tours may offer any combination of trips to local visitor sites. You can book individually (with one or a few companies) or you can book a weekly tour package comprised of a series of day trips, which can include land sites, snorkeling/dive sites, surf sites, or all three.

Daily tours to island sites range in price from $30 to $115 per person per day when booked individually, depending on the services provided by the tour company and the site visited. Daily tours to dive sites have less variable prices: most dive centers charge a standard $100 to $120 per person per day, according to the site. The price of combination tour packages range from $800 to $1000 per week, including guided trips, hotel, and meals. You can arrange these types of trips from your home country or from the mainland, following the same guidelines outlined for navigable tours.

The following companies offer land-based tours and or lodging: Aventour, contact Marcelo, E-mail: sales1@ecuadoradventure.ec Galacruises, contact Luce, E-mail: info@galacruises.com. Red Mangrove Inn, E-mail: info@redmangroveinn.com. Galápagos Safari Camp: contact Stephanie, E-mail: info@galapagossafaricamp.com. Package tours may offer any combination of trips to local visitor sites. You can book individually (with one or a few companies) or you can book a weekly tour package comprised of a series of daytrips, which can include land sites, snorkeling/dive sites, surf sites, or all three.

Land Day Trips

A typical island day trip begins at dawn, with a walk to the dock or a bus trip to the canal, where you meet the boat that will take you to your destination. You spend a short time-two hours maximum in a slow boat to Bartolome-sailing to the pre-determined visitor site. Once there you will spend the majority of the day touring the island with a naturalist guide, eating lunch, and (if available at the island site) swimming and snorkeling from the beach. You return to Puerto Ayora via the same route in the early afternoon.

There are plenty of day-trip operators in Puerto Ayora (fewer in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno) who will accept reservations until the day preceding the excursion. Day boats can vary in quality and comfort, but since most island sites are close and you spend a relatively longer time on-site, it is probably more important to shop for day trips by destination. Most day trip destinations from Puerto Ayora include visitor sites on the central islands of Santa Cruz, Santa Fé, North Seymour, South Plazas, and Bartolomé. Different boats visit different islands on different days, so plan accordingly.

Dive Day Trips

Most dive centers utilize the same general framework for the day dive tour and charge the same prices. Day scuba-diving packages include two immersions at one dive site, full equipment (6-mm wet suit, mask and snorkel, hood, gloves, boots and fins, weight belt, regulator, and BCD), snack and hot beverage between dives, and lunch.

Like most day trips, you will probably wake up early, meet at the dive center, and take pre-arranged transportation across the island to the canal, where you will board your boat. The trip lasts all day, since it requires navigation time (30 to 100 minutes to and from the site), immersion time (45 to 60 minutes per tank, depending on individual breathing rates) and surface interval (30 to 60 minutes). Divemasters will often have long secondary regulators, so that individual divers running low on air can buddy-up with the Divemaster and stay underwater longer. You will return to Puerto Ayora in the early afternoon to process your dive, look at your amazing underwater photos, and/or grab a beer with your new diver friends by the early afternoon.

The most common dive sites from Puerto Ayora are Gordon Rocks, Cousin's Rock, North Seymour, Daphne Minor, and Academy Bay. Dive sites are chosen by the scuba center a few days before the trip and change daily. If you have organized immersions within a packaged tour, you must dive with the scuba center contracted by your tour at the sites chosen by that center on the corresponding days of your tour.

Beware: because dive centers cannot predict which sites they will visit on a particular date, they will probably give you a list of all potential dive sites. Chances are you will not visit every site, just the most popular and interesting ones. Understand that a typical scuba-diving day tour provides two immersions at one dive site; although some sites (North Seymour, in particular) have two distinct immersion points (and thus two different dive possibilities), most do not. As a result, you have two opportunities to explore the same site, providing a second-chance to see any missed highlights, instead of getting to know two different sites.

Land-Based vs. Cruise Tours

There are certain benefits associated with land-based tours, the most important of which is the comfort of stationary hotel accommodations versus mobile staterooms. You are not limited to on-board facilities and services, gaining access to a wider variety of port town restaurants, nightlife, and shops. Finally, your community and associated social outlets extend to town visitors and residents, not just the other passengers on your boat.

There are downsides to land-based tours relative to navigable tours. A considerable time is spent sailing back and forth to visitor sites; you are limited to visiting the close, central islands; only one (versus two) site is visited per day; and there is no chance of visiting sites either very early or late in the day.