First things first, decide your budget… Then the length of stay then what Islands you plan to visit. Your budget will determine what you can do and essentially whether or not you’ll have enough money to eat more than the menu del día 3 times a day.
Getting onto the Islands is pretty expensive. There are only 3 airlines that have authorization to fly to the Galapagos- Avianca, Latam and Equair. At the airport in Quito (or Guayaquil) you have to pay $20 per person for the tourist card and then an additional $100 per person (if you’re not a Ecuadorian resident $50 if you are, but not Galpagarian) when you get to the island. Then, depending on where you disembark, you’ll have to pay for a taxi, bus or water taxi or all three (some like San Cristobal, you can walk from the airport, but probably won’t want to it’s hot, muggy and un-shaded). We flew to Baltra Island from Quito during Christmas week and our tickets were about $220 per person, round trip. We didn’t book too far in advance either, I think we booked on the 13th December and arrived on the 18th, which is high season. When we landed we went through a customs screening point where you pay your “entrance fee” to the National Park and had our bags scanned again. We had to take a 10 minute bus ride, $5 per person, then a 5 minute water taxi to get to Santa Cruz Island $1 per person and we opted for a private taxi (40 minute drive) to take us directly to our hotel from the port $40. The bus ride I believe is $10 per person from the port (but don’t quote me on that), so it only cost us $10 more to get point to point service and not have to wait for a bazillion people with all their luggage (there were a lot of them).
So just to get onto the Islands with cheap airfare, it’s $356 per person. Most people we’ve talked to spent just that much on one round trip ticket. I’ve looked up flights to the islands from both airports and they’re all about the same, $240-$350/person round trip all year long whether you fly to Baltra or San Cristobal. Do take care though when booking your fare. Avianca usually doesn’t allow CARRY-ON luggage without a fee. Which is upwards of $80-100. You can usually take a personal item, which essentially is a 25L backpack. If you’re carrying snorkeling gear, that 25L gets filled pretty quickly. Sometimes Avianca checks your bag size and will not let you board without paying the baggage fee and paying at the airport costs more than paying pre-flight.
You can find lodging of all sorts and all price ranges, but, you get what you pay for… Mostly.
Food is expensive because, well, they’re islands. They have to have a lot of their food shipped in and imported from other areas and it all needs to be “inspected” as to avoid any invasive species from contaminating the islands. So, expect to pay a premium for food, if you want something other than the menu del día, which usually costs around $5 per person.
Before we knew any of this and by we, I mean Bronson, we decided that we’d stay for 3 weeks and travel to three different islands. To have a great experience was expensive. We spent the same amount of money for this 3 week trip as we would for a 2.5-3 month European back-backing trip or a 6 month South American trip.
Now let’s talk money matters… For foreign bank accounts (US specifically) we found that only one bank ATM on Santa Cruz allowed us to pull money, and that was Banco Pichincha. “The yellow bank” is what I call it, and there is only one. For all of the islands.
The other bank we found was on San Cristobal and it was Banco Pacifico, outside the actual bank. To be fair, it was the holidays, and the ATM’s were likely out of money, but instead of telling you that it’s out of money, it just says “transaction cancelled” or “out of service.”
Make sure you bring enough cash, most places either don’t accept cards, the internet isn’t working so they can’t charge your card or they upcharge you to make a card purchase and it ranges from 3%-15%. Many of the more modern restaurants will take cards and some shops too, but cash is king. Even some tour agencies don’t take cards, and the tours are expensive.
Transportation: Taxi’s, water taxi and buses… all are relatively cheap no matter which Island you’re on. Usually $1.50 for a ride anywhere around the town, or hire one for an entire day to take you to all the highlights for $40-50/day. Interisland ferries cost $30 per person one way and are larger vessels and enclosed, not like the water taxi pictured below. Ferries generally stop at each island and have set times they leave from each, but it’s really easy to find a spot on a ferry. They usually have a morning sailing (7:00) and an afternoon sailing (3:00) From Santa Cruz to either San Cristobal or Isabela is between 2-2.5 hour ferry ride, but the water is rough and makes for a somewhat unpleasant sailing. Definitely bring some anti-nausea medication, or pick some up at the pharmacy at least an hour before you embark. You’ll thank me later. If you want to get from Isabela island to San Cristobal or vice versa, you’ll stop in Santa Cruz and have a few hours to spend before the second leg of your ferry ride commences. You can also book inter-island flights if the ferry seems less than desirable and you have money to spare. They run about $250/ person one way and are direct.
Now onto communications… It seems that most establishments have Starlink, but because it’s not a priority area, they get really slow speeds. It’s likely your cell plan will probably work just as well as the Starlink there, which is to say, don’t plan on having decent connection, ever or at all. And if you need to work, good luck.
The one place we found with decent wifi was 1835 Coffee Lab. The Galapagos Deli has decent wifi also, but tends to get really loud inside. That being said, Wifi is getting better every year, so who knows? Maybe when you go, things will be better as far as connectivity. Though frustrating sometimes, it was really nice to not be connected. You’ll be able to make phone calls with a cellular plan, but don’t bet on being able to use data and if you plan on mapping to places, definitely download maps.me. It will save you the headache of feeling like you can’t navigate to anywhere because your map won’t load.
Sanitation… This is a big one, we’ve met so many people who have gotten sick while in the Galapagos. I don’t know if we were just really fortunate, but we didn’t get sick. This is what we did or didn’t do:
- Don’t’t drink the tap water.
- Wash your hands often.
- Don’t eat salad, they rinse salad in tap water.
- Swim in the ocean everyday but don’t drink the water, a little salt therapy does a body good!
- Shower after playing in the ocean.
- Rinse out all of your snorkel gear after every swim.
- Hydrate, hydrate, hydrate.
- Make sure your food is cooked thoroughly. (We went to a nice steak restaurant one night and the steaks were cooked rare to med rare and we were just fine, but I wouldn’t trust that to street food.)
- Limit your alcohol consumption. The heat and humidity is legit. The hotter and sweatier you are, the more electrolytes you lose. Depleting further by adding alcohol can be a recipe for disaster.
- Don’t touch the wildlife and use bug spray if you are prone to getting mosquito bites.
- Enjoy yourself, having fun is part of staying healthy.
If you want to find out more about Santa Cruz Island, click on the link or video below. Isabela and San Cristobal will be featured at a later time.