Travel guides
The questions we get asked before anyone asks about a tour
These pages exist because the honest answers were not published anywhere. Each one carries a visible date, names its sources, and gets re-checked against the official advisories every month. If one goes stale, that is on us.
Is Colombia safe to travel to?
The US says Level 3 for the whole country; the UK names departments instead. Both are right — and the risk that general advice under-covers is not armed conflict.
Read the guide →When to go to Colombia
Cartagena, Medellín and Bogotá are at sea level, 1,495 m and 2,640 m — they do not share a calendar. Month by month, and the two windows that work for all three.
Read the guide →What do you need to enter Colombia?
No visa and 90 days — but a 180-day annual cap that leaving does not reset, and a Check-Mig form that most of the internet still calls mandatory.
Read the guide →Things to do around Cuenca
Cuenca is at 2,548 m and El Cajas at 4,085 m — a 1,537 m jump in a 45-minute drive. Every day trip with its measured altitude, and the order to do them in.
Read the guide →Birding in Ecuador
1,706 species and 136 hummingbirds in a country the size of Nevada — 6.87 per 1,000 km², four times Colombia’s density. Nineteen sites with their eBird list, altitude and fees.
Read the guide →Is Ecuador safe to travel to?
Province by province, with the current US and UK advisory wording — and the exception at Guayaquil airport that affects Galápagos connections.
Read the guide →What do you need to enter Ecuador?
The 90-day rule that is not per entry, passport validity, and the customs form introduced in July 2025 that most guides still do not mention.
Read the guide →Galápagos fees, permits and what arrival day looks like
The US$220 per adult that no tour price includes, the insurance question sources disagree on, and the biosecurity rules.
Read the guide →Darwin and the finches: what actually happened
He left the Galápagos without a theory and barely labelled the birds. It was the mockingbirds that unsettled him, and the insight landed in London two years later.
Read the guide →Snorkelling in the Galápagos
The sites ranked by who they actually suit — from a pool you walk to for free to open ocean with current — plus the cold nobody warns you about.
Read the guide →Galápagos turtles and tortoises: two different animals
One lives on land and cannot swim; the other crosses oceans. Which is which, where you see each, and why almost every guide muddles them.
Read the guide →Diving in the Galápagos
Hammerhead schools and cold water with current — not a coral holiday. The two kinds of dive trip, which sites need what certification, and the wetsuit nobody warns you about.
Read the guide →The Galápagos islands, one at a time
Only four of the thirteen are inhabited, and they are not interchangeable. Santa Cruz, Isabela, San Cristóbal and Floreana — what each is for and who should skip it.
Read the guide →The Galápagos visitor sites, one by one
You cannot walk where you like: the Park allows landings at a fixed list of sites, and your itinerary is built out of them. What each one is, how you land, what goes wrong, and who it is not for.
Read the guide →Floreana Island — what is there, and how to visit
The post barrel that has worked since 1793, the 1930s disappearances nobody solved, Devil’s Crown, and the honest problem of a two-hour crossing each way.
Read the guide →How to get to the Galápagos Islands
The only way in is a flight from mainland Ecuador. Which airport, which mainland city, why Quito is not a shortcut, and the 90 minutes after landing that nobody tells you about.
Read the guide →Best time to visit the Galápagos, month by month
Sea temperature for all twelve months, what each season is actually good at, the seasickness question answered honestly, and the one window we steer people away from.
Read the guide →Galápagos wildlife, species by species
What you meet and the exact islands and sites where you meet it — with a map of every site, and how big each animal really is next to a person.
Read the guide →Thirty facts about Ecuador, checked from inside it
Including the three that almost every list gets wrong — most biodiverse per square kilometre, highest constitutional capital, and the monument that is 240 m off the equator.
Read the guide →When to go, and what each season gives you
Two Galápagos seasons and what each is good at, the Andes rule nobody explains, whale dates, and the months we would avoid.
Read the guide →The Galápagos price index
What eight days actually costs, added up line by line: our own per-day rates, the flight nobody quotes, and why the tour price is two thirds of the total.
Read the guide →Galápagos cruise or island hopping?
A cruise buys access, not comfort. Which outer islands you can only reach by boat, the seasickness question, and the hybrid nobody offers you.
Read the guide →Being written now
Best time to visit Ecuador, month by month · How many days you need in the Galápagos · What a trip to Ecuador actually costs · Altitude in Quito and how to handle it · Choosing an Amazon lodge: Cuyabeno vs Yasuní · Galápagos wildlife calendar
Want one of these sooner? Tell us which and we will write it next.
Still deciding?
Reading is free and we would rather you arrive informed. But if you want the version that applies to your dates, your nationality and your routing, ask us directly.
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Straight answers
How we write these
How current is this information?
Every guide carries the date it was last checked, at the top, and lists the sources it draws on. If a fee or a rule changes and we have not updated a page yet, the date tells you to verify before relying on it.
Why do you publish fees that make your own prices look higher?
Because you are going to pay them either way, and finding out at a desk in the arrivals hall is worse than finding out here. The US$220 per adult in Galápagos charges is not something any operator can absorb.
Are these guides written by AI?
They are written in the office that runs the trips, by people who have stood at the desk where the park fee is collected. The numbers come from the authorities that charge them and are linked at the bottom of each page.
Can I use this information if I book with someone else?
Yes. It is published so that people planning an Ecuador trip get straight answers, not so that they only get them from us.
