How to Get to the Galapagos Islands from the USA by Yourself

You will need some extra paperwork and logistical planning for this trip. Do not let this scare you off, as it is easier than it sounds and most of it you can do in person. I spent hours getting my itinerary together and printing out all my paperwork and receipts, as I thought I needed proof of everything to get into the Galapagos Islands. It turns out the only extra piece of paperwork needed was the TCT, which is the Transit Control Card you need to get into the Galapagos Islands.

You will need your TCT to enter the Galapagos, but you can fill that out at the airport the day of. I would recommend filling it out online and printing it out yourself, especially if you are traveling in a group; it will decrease your stress the day you're traveling to the Galapagos Islands.

For your reservations, I read that you need proof of reservations and your return flight to be allowed onto the Islands, but I never came across this. I would have proof at least on your phone to avoid any hiccups, as enforcement can change.

This is your boots-on-the-ground walk-through of what exactly to expect going to the Galapagos Islands, from flying to Ecuador to island hopping and so on. This is your complete guide, and you will walk away knowing exactly what to expect and how to plan out your trip. If you want more detail into planning out your trip and itinerary, you can check out my upcoming post, 12-Day Galapagos Itinerary.

I would highly recommend against self-transfers for going to the Galapagos Islands, but on the way back it is more realistic to conduct a self-transfer. I have never done a self-transfer and have avoided them. My friend did a self-transfer on the way back, had only a carry-on, and attempted to go straight to the next plane, but they did not let him. He went back to the States that day while the rest of the group continued on to Peru. For my flights from the United States to South America, I used Delta Airlines and then I used LATAM when flying around South America.

Before we get into what I did, let's get into safety for Quito, Ecuador. Some parts of Quito, Ecuador can be dangerous, and you should not hop into just any taxi. You can read more about Quito, Ecuador and how to be safe in my upcoming 2-Day Itinerary for Quito, Ecuador. Before leaving for Ecuador, I was very worried about arriving at night and how safe it would be, as Quito is an hour away from UIO. When you land, you will need to take a 45-minute taxi all the way into the city and then check into your hotel. I was super worried and debated about hiring a personal taxi beforehand where they stand out in the airport with your name on a sign. I will tell you that is not worth it, as all the taxis inside the airport are safe and official, and there are a ton of them when you exit the airport even at night. It is a $20–$25 taxi ride from the airport; they will try to upcharge you, and you will accidentally pay $35 like we did because we were already nervous and did not know how much it really cost. My upcoming main Quito post goes into much more detail of arrival procedures and what to expect and what to see in Quito, Ecuador.

What I did is stay in Quito, Ecuador for two days before heading to the Galapagos Islands, and it was 100% worth it. Quito is an amazing place to explore and helped me adjust to the altitude if you are continuing down to Cusco after the Galapagos. You can read more on what to do in Quito in my upcoming post, 2-Day Itinerary for Quito, Ecuador. I stayed at Hotel Altura for my two-day adventure in Quito, but if you are just transferring or having a rest day, we stayed at the airport hotel, which is ten minutes outside the airport and very nice and affordable.

I would recommend having at least one night in Quito, Ecuador, as you really need to have a full day to get to the Galapagos Islands. It is not just a flight and is logistically heavy, needing multiple modes of transportation to reach Puerto Ayora, the main town in Santa Cruz. You can read more about Puerto Ayora and Santa Cruz in my three upcoming posts: 2-Day Itinerary for Santa Cruz Island, Baltra Island, and Quito to Santa Cruz.

I spent two whole days in Quito, Ecuador and departed on the morning of the third day. This was a jam-packed day, and I actually did the needed transportation last minute. I would recommend figuring out your transportation before the day of, but it happened that way for me as I did not fully understand how complex and logistically heavy transiting to the Galapagos was.

Baltra Island is a small island that houses the Seymour Galápagos Ecological Airport (GPS); this is a separate island from Santa Cruz Island. You will need to transfer from Baltra Island to Santa Cruz Island after arrival.

The night before you leave for Baltra Island, you will ask your hotel to request a taxi for you at the time you wish to check out and depart from your hotel. It will be around a 45-minute taxi ride to the airport UIO. You will also need to make sure you have, at a bare minimum, $200 in cash, but I would bring $300 just in case. This is a cash-intensive trip.

By the end of your departure day, you will have waited in 6 lines if you include the TCT line. You will have taken 2 taxis, 1 airplane, 1 boat, and 1 bus. This can be made easy by reaching out to local contacts in the Galapagos Islands. I will list their information down below.

The taxi will drop you off at departures. At departures, you will go to the furthest door on your right. You will walk through those doors, and there is airport staff there to help show you the way if you get lost or do not know what to do in any step of this process.

I arrived way too early; in fact, I arrived 4–5 hours early as I thought there would be 3 super long lines and that the airport would be packed and we would have 4 people trying to get through a crazy airport process. I was completely wrong, and we sat there for hours as the process took 45 minutes in total and there were no lines or anything. You could get the process done in less than a half hour. I would recommend being there 1–3 hours early depending on security lines and business.

You walk through the door furthest on your right and enter. Directly on your left is the TCT office, and you will need to go wait in line and fill out your TCT so that you may enter the Galapagos Islands. You will need $20 to pay for the TCT. If you filled it out online and printed it, you can skip this step and proceed directly to the biosecurity line.

The biosecurity line is directly on your right when you walk in. This is a form you have to fill out there in the airport. Make sure your phone is charged, as you need to scan a QR code and fill out an Affidavit of Goods before proceeding into the line. This Affidavit will need your passport number as well, so make sure you have that handy. Once you and all your travelers fill out the Affidavit, you can enter the line where they will scan your checked bag but not your carry-on bags. For your checked bags, they will scan them for anything that will not be allowed onto the island, which is basically anything foreign that would disrupt the Galapagos Islands' protected environment like seeds, plants, etc. They will tie your checked bag shut with a red wire so you will not be able to access your checked bag after going through the biosecurity line.

After the biosecurity line, you are all done with the formalities of departing Quito, Ecuador for Baltra Island. You will go check your bags with the red wires through them and get your boarding passes. This is a domestic flight, so you will go to the domestic security line, which is all the way to the right near the biosecurity line; basically, you go all the way right and take a left down a big hallway. There was no security line for us, and we just walked right through security with no problems.

You do not need to do anything, but the flight to the Galapagos Islands from UIO is a little different. You take off from UIO and then land at José Joaquín de Olmedo International Airport (GYE), Guayaquil, Ecuador, where passengers going to Guayaquil, Ecuador will depart and passengers at Guayaquil, Ecuador going to the Galapagos will board, and you just stay seated. After new passengers board, you will take off again and then land again at GPS on Baltra Island.

You just landed in GPS and are now in the Galapagos Islands, but your hotel will be on Santa Cruz Island in the main town of Puerto Ayora. Congrats, you made it this far, but you have a complicated journey ahead of you; it is easier than you think and can be super enjoyable if you do what I did.

You just landed thinking all these airport lines were behind you; well, they are not. You immediately get in the park entrance line where you need $200 cash. They have ATMs there, but you will be waiting in another line. You will need your passport for this step as well. You will not receive an actual ticket; they just register you and you pay the entrance fee. Once you pay your entrance fee, you go collect your checked bags and exit the airport.

Let me walk you through the process and then give you some options to make this easier to plan for your own sanity. You exit the airport and immediately go into another line to buy a bus ticket; this is a $10 bus ticket and will drive you to Baltra Island Port, where you will take a short, calm boat ride over to Santa Cruz, unlike the super bumpy and seasickness-provoking boat rides between major islands. This is a very short boat ride, like 3 minutes over to Santa Cruz Island. You are looking at a 20-minute travel time to Santa Cruz Island. Once you get to Santa Cruz Island, you need to have a taxi there waiting for you to drive you 45 minutes to the main town where the hotels are in Puerto Ayora. We ended up staying at Hostal Puerto Ayora, who were very accommodating and a good budget location.

This sounds like a logistical nightmare and is over an hour of transit and logistics as soon as you land. My biggest worry was how I was going to contact a taxi once we arrived on Santa Cruz Island, as it is fairly remote and does not have a bunch of taxi people waiting that I could see. I would say getting the bus and boat ticket is simple, and then I have a local taxi you can reach out to so you can arrange a taxi if you decide to plan this leg of the trip yourself. You will land at Santa Cruz to Baltra ferry terminal on Santa Cruz Island.

This is a local contact and was a great taxi driver; he also works with some of the tour operators on the island. This brings me to the next option and the one I chose. I was able to get Samuel's number through María Antonieta Rueda, who is a local tour fixer that I cannot recommend enough. She turned my trip from a 7 into a 9–10. I prebooked tours through Grupo Galapagos Travel Agency as they had all the tours I was looking for and operated on all three islands I was going to. This was before being put in contact with the local tour fixer, who was able to work with me for what tours I wanted and got me several last-minute bookings. I read multiple times online to book far in advance, which you should, but I was also able to book last minute with María Antonieta Rueda. I booked either the day before or the day of the Transfer-In + Highlands of Santa Cruz – Tortoise Ranch tour. This elevated the trip and allowed us to do must-do items on the first day that we likely would not have gotten to otherwise.

Samuel, who I was originally just going to use as a taxi, also operated this tour, so he was there waiting for us as we exited the airport. He already had our tickets for the bus and made getting to Santa Cruz a stress-free experience. This added Lava Tunnels and Tortoise Ranch to this travel day, which was so worth it. These are must-see locations as you get to see the Giant Tortoises right away. This takes a stressful travel day of planning bus, boat, and taxi logistics and turns it into showing up with transportation already arranged and seeing highlights of the island, allowing time for the other tours you can sign up for.

I highly recommend utilizing these two locals to help book tours and plan your trip, as they were overwhelmingly helpful and able to get us those last-minute bookings, completely elevating the trip. You can read more about some of the last-minute tours I booked in my upcoming Santa Cruz Island and Isabela Island posts.

Here are their cell numbers that you can reach over WhatsApp. I highly recommend reaching out and supporting the local community. Please let them know The Lost Shepard sent you.

You have officially arrived at your hotel now, either through the Transfer-In Tour or coordinating your own taxi. I will cover itineraries and tours extensively in future posts. I will quickly touch on getting between islands yourself as well as getting back to the USA.

You have a variety of options on these islands but not unlimited, as these towns are smaller in nature. I stayed in budget places and spent $50 or less per night. I would say $20 a night is considered budget and $50 a night is still budget but a little nicer. I enjoyed all the hotels I stayed at, but every hotel had their quirks. This is where you can save a lot of money, no other location would I be consistently able to find lodging for under $50 a night. It is important to note that Ecuador is a developing country and specifically the Galapagos Islands are propped up by tourism infrastructure. Despite that, I would not expect an American budget hotel experience. I will say that the people running these hotels are super nice and awesome, and you should still expect cleanliness in these hotels, but maybe there is no hot water or you can't flush the toilet paper, etc. For me personally, the hotel quirks made it more memorable, and I would say they are part of the experience when traveling on a budget.

The family running this hostal is amazing and were so helpful. There was fresh water in a water jug so you could get water from this hotel and make instant coffee, which they provided. This was the hostal that let us keep our bags there while we explored the island more during our boat transfer. It had AC and I was comfortable staying at this hotel. I really enjoyed my stay.

The one quirk for this hotel was the shower. It is wired up to make the water hot, but it is usually lukewarm, which is better than cold, but looking at it looks wild. I could not imagine that passing any regulation in the US. I still talk about the shower, and it is super memorable.

This hotel was hard to find, as it would not pull up on my maps correctly for some reason. I have the map embedded here so you won't have that problem. This hotel was more furnished and had a shower and seemed closer to a hotel. We did have a hiccup with our reservations not showing up at first, but it ended up working out. There was AC and I was comfortable at this hotel. The staff member running the hotel was very nice and gave recommendations on what to do on the island. The hot water worked well when it worked, but in our room it would not work sometimes, and we would have to use a different room's shower to get a hot shower. This is still an affordable hotel but more expensive than Hostal Puerto Ayora.

The one quirk for this hotel was the hot water turning on and off for our room. Other than that, I enjoyed my stay.

This hotel was priced in between the other two. There are a few things to note: one is that this hotel is far from the port, one of our longest walks and uphill compared to the Isabela Island one. With that said, it has a rooftop area so you can look out over the town and island, which was very nice. We also had a working shower, and it felt so nice to have one. The owners also gave us the best restaurant recommendation where we ate at every day on the island. It was a minute walk from the hotel, and it was El Sabor Costeño.

On San Cristobal Island, you have the port area where all the nice tourist restaurants are. I would call that the tourist area, and it is 20 minutes away on foot from where we were. El Sabor Costeño was a local hidden gem for this island. It is the owner's house, and he just turned his front porch into a restaurant. Cheap, good local food that I would rather eat at any day of the week instead of a touristy restaurant that upcharges you. There is a cat there as well that is always hanging around and is part of the restaurant's charm. They are listed on Google, so you can read their reviews as well.

The one quirk with the hotel: you cannot flush the toilet paper. You have to put it in the bathroom trash can. This felt gross to me, and I verified with the owners — they said they take out the trash daily — but this was a shock to me when I first got there. It did not ruin the experience for me, and I still enjoyed the views from the hotel and felt comfortable in the room. You had a lot of space too, and a kitchen and fridge, etc.

Getting to the Galapagos is the hardest part, and with this guide, the logistical planning is almost done for you. Using the map embeds will allow you to know exactly where you should be for your arrivals and departures. Island hopping is the next biggest logistical problem you will have before your final departure.

There are two ways to island hop: one is by boat and the other way is by small prop plane. The inter-island flights are not your average commercial airline; they are small aircraft designed for only a few passengers. They also have weight limits for what you can bring. This led me to decide to use the boat option, as I had four travelers with checked bags.

Between the three islands, there are boats going between Isabela Island and Santa Cruz Island, and between Santa Cruz Island and San Cristobal Island. This means there is no direct boat from Isabela Island to San Cristobal Island. It is about a 2-hour boat ride in between each island and is super bumpy.

You can get tickets online for your boat transfer as well. I went through Galapagos Transfers and had no problem with them. You book the same boats most of the time, so even if you book through a different service, they are the same boats that go between the islands.

My biggest worry for these boats was how we would know where to get on them. In my mind, I worked it up that it would be hard to find and we would have to go hunting for the right dock. This was not the case at all; you go to the main port, which will be within walking distance of your hotel, pretty much no matter what. Our longest walk to the port was 15–20 minutes while in San Cristobal, and our hotel was far from the tourist street. We still walked without a problem.

When you leave for the port the day of your island hop, you need to show up 15 minutes prior, and there will be people waiting out at the port at tables and you will see a big line as well. You go check in at the tables to get your pass and then get in line. It is very obvious once you get to the port, so you just need to make sure you walk to the port in time.

There is no weight limit, and you can bring bags on with you. It was convenient, as there were four of us with checked bags and I did not know everyone's luggage needs, so I was worried about the weight limit on the inter-island flights.

For Isabela Island, it is a 2-hour boat ride to Santa Cruz Island, and you wait on the island for a few hours and you can check out the town even more or grab a bite. We went to 1835 Restaurant & Coffee and Galapagos Jewelry while making our way to the Charles Darwin Research Station. The Charles Darwin Research Station requires you to pay for a tour to access it; you cannot just walk in and check out some of the exhibits, so we skipped it as we did not know how much time it would take. We felt like having a tour to go see a museum, which you could easily walk around yourself, was just something that rubbed us wrong. I understand that there are live exhibits but for the museum part I feel we should have been able to check out without a tour. We ended up just going back to the boat to leave on time. It is then a 2-hour boat ride to San Cristobal; that is 4 hours on a boat and a full travel day. We were very thankful to Hostal Puerto Ayora, which let us keep our bags there while we continued to explore our final hours on Santa Cruz Island.

There is more biosecurity every time you change islands; you put your bags through the scanner, which is like the airport scanner, before you go board the boat and island hop. You leave your water out of your bags for the scanner. Just know you will have to run all your bags through the scanner.

The boats are rougher though and feel basic. I would not go to the bathroom while on the boat as it is super bumpy, and you will not have a good time. The bathroom on the boat was dark, cramped, and a mess. If you get motion sickness as well, I would not take the boats between islands; they are super bumpy, and you are stuck on there for 2 hours straight.

I did not do the inter-island flights as, again, I was concerned about 25-pound weight restrictions. This is definitely something to be aware of if you decide to utilize the small prop planes. There is also no official hotel forwarding service, so you will need to bring your bags with you wherever you go. If you pack light, the small prop planes should not be a problem, but it can become a problem with more people. I think I would use the inter-island flights next time I went and just try to keep luggage under 25 pounds and even if you pay for more weight needs to be 35 pounds or under, which is the maximum weight the aircraft can have.

After we had our 4-hour boat ride to San Cristobal from Isabela Island, we spent 2 days on San Cristobal Island. This is where we close the loop. We flew from San Cristobal Island back to Quito. The airport was small and easy to navigate, and the lines were not too long. We hopped on the plane, and it is the same process of landing in GYE and then taking off again.

When we landed in Quito, my friend conducted the self-transfer. He was forced to leave and reenter the airport no matter what. He had only a carry-on and attempted to go straight to the next plane, but they did not let him. He went back to the States that day while the rest of the group continued on to Peru, where we stayed in Cusco. You can read my upcoming posts about Peru, Rainbow Mountain, Salkantay Trail, Inca Trail, and Sacred Valley adventures. We did not do a self-transfer as we had checked bags, and the stress of trying to self-transfer with so much going on would potentially ruin the enjoyability of the trip. We stayed at Hotel Alpachaca Quito Airport. This was so worth it, and we ate at Tabela Wings BBQ & Express, and it was a great restaurant. We really enjoyed the food to the point where I got two entrees. This was a great way to relax and recover. I would recommend not self-transferring, as it helps create breaks and allows you to recover, and there is nothing for you to do except enjoy a meal, relax in the hotel, and get ready for the flight in the morning.

This is the complete guide to going to the Galapagos Islands. This place was really something else, and I loved this trip so much. Have questions about the TCT, the biosecurity lines, or island hopping? Reach out using my contact page! I also offer paid services including custom itinerary building and itinerary reviews. And if you are ready to plan your daily activities, check out my upcoming post, 12-Day Galapagos Itinerary.