Island by island
The Galápagos islands, one at a time
Eleven islands with visitor sites, four you can sleep on, and they are not interchangeable. What each one is for, what it costs you in boat time, and who should skip it.
Short answer
Only four Galápagos islands are inhabited, and only those four can be visited without a cruise: Santa Cruz (the hub), Isabela (the biggest and quietest), San Cristóbal (the easiest arrival) and Floreana (the strangest). Every crossing between them runs through Santa Cruz and takes about two hours by speedboat.
The four you can sleep on
Only these have towns, hotels and boat connections. Everything else is a day trip or a cruise landing.
Floreana
Floreana: the post barrel that has worked since 1793, the 1930s disappearances nobody solved, Devil’s Crown, and the honest problem of getting there.
What is there →
Isabela
The biggest island in the Galápagos and the quietest of the three you can stay on: five volcanoes, penguins at the pier, and a village with sand for streets.
What is there →
Santa Cruz
The hub of the archipelago: the Darwin Station, wild tortoises in the highlands, Tortuga Bay, and the airport that is on a different island.
What is there →
San Cristóbal
The island Darwin landed on first, the capital of the archipelago, and the only one where the airport is a ten-minute drive from your hotel.
What is there →The ones you visit but cannot stay on
No settlements, no hotels, no landing outside the marked visitor sites. Some are a short day trip from Santa Cruz; the western and northern ones need a cruise. Each page says which.
Española
The oldest island in the archipelago and the only nesting site on Earth for the waved albatross. Cruise access only, and a season that decides everything.
What is there →
Bartolomé
The most photographed view in the Galápagos, a 114-metre boardwalk climb, and a landscape that looks like the moon. A day trip from Santa Cruz.
What is there →
Fernandina
The youngest island in the archipelago, still erupting, and the largest pristine island on Earth: no introduced species have ever established here.
What is there →Genovesa
A drowned caldera in the far north with the largest seabird colonies in the archipelago, red-footed boobies, and a short-eared owl that hunts in daylight.
What is there →Santiago
Where Darwin spent nine days ashore, where the fur seals swim in eroded lava grottoes, and where a 130-year-old lava flow still looks a week old.
What is there →Santa Fé
A short day trip from Santa Cruz: a sheltered turquoise bay full of sea lions, a forest of tree-sized prickly pear, and a land iguana found nowhere else.
What is there →North Seymour
A flat slab of uplifted seabed twenty minutes from the airport, with the archipelago’s most accessible nesting colony of blue-footed boobies and frigatebirds.
What is there →And the ones nobody lands on
Marchena, Pinta, Rábida, Pinzón, Wolf and Darwin have no visitor sites open to the general public. Darwin and Wolf are the exception that matters: liveaboard dive boats reach them, and nobody else does. Pinta is where Lonesome George was found.
Straight answers
Choosing between the islands
How many Galápagos islands can you visit?
Thirteen major islands and over a hundred islets, but only four are inhabited — Santa Cruz, San Cristóbal, Isabela and Floreana — and only those four can be visited without a cruise. Everything else is a day trip or a cruise landing, and around 97% of the land area is national park where you may only go with a licensed naturalist.
Which Galápagos island is best to stay on?
Santa Cruz if you want connections, choice and the wild highland tortoises. Isabela if you want quiet and the best easy snorkelling. San Cristóbal if you want the least tiring arrival and Kicker Rock. Floreana only if you specifically want somewhere almost nobody stays.
Can you island hop in the Galápagos?
Yes, and it is what most land-based trips do. Public speedboats connect Santa Cruz with Isabela, San Cristóbal and Floreana — roughly two hours each, generally twice a day. Santa Cruz is the hinge: there is no direct service between Isabela and San Cristóbal, so every crossing routes through it.
Which Galápagos islands need a cruise?
Fernandina, Genovesa, Española and the western coast of Isabela are cruise-only — there is no day service to any of them. Bartolomé, North Seymour, Santa Fé, Sullivan Bay on Santiago and Floreana are all reachable as day trips from Santa Cruz. North Seymour is the shortest crossing of the lot, around twenty minutes.
How many Galápagos islands have visitor pages here?
Eleven: the four inhabited ones — Santa Cruz, Isabela, San Cristóbal and Floreana — plus Española, Fernandina, Genovesa, Santiago, Bartolomé, Santa Fé and North Seymour. The remainder have no visitor sites open to the general public, with the exception of Darwin and Wolf, which liveaboard dive boats reach.