Santa Cruz’s main town is Puerto Ayora, which is located on the island’s southeast side. The majority of land tours, scuba-diving tours, and adventure tours originate and/or are based here.

Visitors intending to arrange cruise tours locally will stay here waiting for availability on boats to open up. And virtually every cruise tour makes a day stop here—usually near the half-way point of an eight-day trip or at the extremes of the four or five-day trip—so that visitors can visit the Charles Darwin Research Station and highlands and stock up on medicine, film, batteries, and snacks if supplies were beginning to run low. Since Puerto Ayora caters to tourist activities, visitors can find virtually any item unintentionally left behind.

There is a wealth of hotels, restaurants, bars, stores, tour agencies, dive shops, internet cafés, and phone centers. There is also a post office, a TAME office, a basic public hospital, and a hyperbaric chamber.