Why is Fernandina Island special?

It is the largest island on Earth with no introduced species established on it — no rats, goats or cats have ever taken hold. It is also the youngest and most volcanically active island in the Galápagos, and it holds the densest marine iguana colonies anywhere.

How do you get to Fernandina Island?

By cruise only , on western itineraries — and not all of them include it. There is no settlement, no airport, and no day-tour service. Puerto Villamil on Isabela is the nearest town and there is no route across.

Is Fernandina volcano still active?

Very. La Cumbre is among the most active volcanoes on Earth, with more than twenty-five recorded eruptions, most recently in 2020 and 2024. In 1968 its caldera floor collapsed by around 300 metres in days.

What can you see at Punta Espinosa?

Hundreds of marine iguanas on the lava, flightless cormorants — a species found only here and on western Isabela — sea lions, Galápagos hawks and penguins. It is the only visitor site on the island.

Fernandina Island, Galápagos — The Youngest and Wildest

The thing people repeat afterwards

Fernandina has never been successfully invaded. Every other significant island in the archipelago has had rats, goats or cats introduced and then fought to remove them. Fernandina simply never let anything take hold, which makes it the closest thing left to what Darwin saw.

Fernandina at a glance

Also called	Narborough Island
Age	Under 1 million years — the youngest of the main islands
Volcano	La Cumbre, one of the most active in the world
Population	None, and no introduced species established
Access	Cruise only. Western itineraries
Visitor site	Punta Espinosa — the only one

A vast caldera floor of recent black lava in the Galápagos — Illustration, not a photograph of Fernandina itself.

Getting there

This is the part that decides whether Fernandina belongs in your trip, so it goes first rather than last. How you reach the archipelago at all →

Cruise: Western itineraries only, and not all of them. Fernandina sits on the far side of Isabela; there is no route to it from the inhabited islands.
Day tour: Does not exist. Puerto Villamil on Isabela is the nearest settlement and there is no service across.
Staying over: Nobody stays on Fernandina. There is one landing point and a single trail.

What is on the island

1

Punta Espinosa

A spit of black lava on the north-east tip, and the only place visitors land. Hundreds of marine iguanas piled on the rock, flightless cormorants drying stunted wings, sea lions, and the sound of nothing else. The trail crosses fields of ropey pāhoehoe lava.
2

Punta Vicente Roca

Across the channel on Isabela: a panga ride under collapsed tuff cliffs with mola mola, penguins and turtles in the cold upwelling. Usually paired with Fernandina on the same day.

The visitor sites on Fernandina, on real coastlines. Hover a pin or a row to match them up.

Punta Espinosa: A spit of black lava on the north-east tip, and the only place visitors land. Hundreds of marine iguanas piled on the rock, flightless cormorants drying stunted wings, sea lions, and the sound of nothing else. The trail crosses fields of ropey pāhoehoe lava.
Punta Vicente Roca: Across the channel on Isabela: a panga ride under collapsed tuff cliffs with mola mola, penguins and turtles in the cold upwelling. Usually paired with Fernandina on the same day.

The history, which is the point

Most Galápagos islands are wildlife and geology. Fernandina is those, plus two hundred years of people behaving strangely on a small piece of rock.

1825A recorded eruption of La Cumbre. The volcano has erupted more than twenty-five times since records began.
1968The caldera floor collapses by around 300 metres in a matter of days — one of the largest recorded caldera collapses anywhere.
2019A Fernandina giant tortoise is found alive, a species not recorded since 1906 and widely assumed extinct. The find prompts renewed searches for others.
2020 and 2024Further eruptions of La Cumbre. This is not a historic volcano; it is a working one.

What you see

Marine iguana — The densest colonies anywhere — hundreds on a single lava flow, piled on each other for warmth.
Flightless cormorant — Found only on Fernandina and the west coast of Isabela. Around 2,000 individuals exist. Its wings are too small to fly and it dries them anyway.
Galápagos penguin — The core of the world population lives on these two western coasts, where the cold upwelling is.
Galápagos hawk — Often perched on the lava, unbothered by people.
Green sea turtle — In the shallow bay, and nesting on the sand pockets.

Every species, with the exact sites →

Can you stay here?

No. Fernandina is uninhabited — there is no settlement, no accommodation and no landing outside the marked visitor sites. You come for a few hours and you leave. The four islands you can actually sleep on →

What we would tell you first

You cannot get here without a cruise, and not every cruise goes

Fernandina and the western Isabela coast are the least accessible part of the archipelago. If Punta Espinosa is on your list, check the specific itinerary — plenty of "western" cruises do not include it.

The biosecurity here is stricter, and it should be

This is the largest island on Earth with no established introduced species. Boots are inspected and bags are checked before landing. One pregnant rat would end four million years of isolation.

It is not comfortable walking

The trail is raw lava — sharp, uneven and hot. Closed shoes, not sandals.

The other islands you visit but cannot stay on

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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.

All eleven compared, side by side →

Trips that reach Fernandina

8-Day Galápagos: San Cristóbal, Santa Cruz & Isabela 8 days · from US$2,085
6-Day Luxury Galápagos 6 days · from US$3,595

None of them quite it? Tell us what you want and we build it →

Fernandina Island