Backpacking Galapagos

Touch down in San Cristobal — your Galapagos adventure starts here! Take the day at your own pace: wander into town, hunt down your first sea lion (trust us, they are everywhere), or park yourself on the beach and soak it all in. In the evening we'll gather for a welcome meal, meet your new crew and run through the plan for the week ahead. Seven days of island hopping, wildlife spotting and sunset chasing start right now.

Please note: a $200 USD Galapagos National Park entrance fee and a $20 USD Transit Control Card are payable locally and are not included in the tour price. Your guide will send you full details before you travel.

Ease into the day with a slow morning — hit the beach, take a swim, or explore the local town. In the afternoon we head to the San Cristobal Interpretation Centre to get to grips with the islands' natural and human history, then it's on to Cerro Tijeretas for our first proper snorkel. This is where it gets real: playful sea lions, sea turtles, rays and shoals of tropical fish, all within arm's reach. We'll finish at Punta Carola for sunset — grab a chair, order a cocktail and toast to our first full day in paradise.

Island-hopping day! We take the boat from San Cristobal across to Santa Cruz and head straight for the Charles Darwin Research Station. Here you'll learn how these islands reshaped our understanding of the natural world, and meet the Galapagos land iguana and the giant tortoise — the largest tortoise species on Earth — at every life stage, from unhatched eggs to fully grown adults. Conservation work here has taken the tortoise population from around 3,000 in the 1970s to roughly 20,000 today. After lunch we hop another boat to Isabela, the biggest island of them all.

Today is all about getting in the water. Your morning is free — your guide will have a long list of optional extras if you want to fill it, or you can do very little, very well. In the afternoon we head to Concha Perla, a sheltered natural lagoon reached by a boardwalk out through the mangroves. Fingers crossed for sea lions, turtles and rays. We'll round the day off with dinner and a full review of everyone's GoPro footage.