Your family’s naturalist guide meets you at Baltra Airport. You cross the narrow Itabaca Channel to Santa Cruz Island, and then drive up to Galapagos Safari Camp. While you settle in, your guide captures your children’s imagination with an overview of the animal species they are soon to encounter.

After lunch, you may explore our 135-acre farm, pick local tropical fruit, harvest cacao seasonally, and spot local birds. Before sundown, visit the lava tunnels and search for giant tortoises roaming the National Tortoise Reserve adjacent to Galapagos Safari Camp.

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After breakfast, you visit a neighbouring organic coffee plantation to learn about responsible small-scale farming in the Galapagos, and your children have a chance to pick coffee beans if season allows. Then your guide takes you to the enormous Cerro Mesa crater for a short walk in the wetlands that is home to a wonderful variety of birds and the occasional bathing tortoise.

After lunch at a local restaurant, you jump on bikes for a downhill ride to Garrapatero Beach, where the contrast of mangroves, black lava, white sand, and turquoise water, along with its birdlife and flamingo lagoon, is magnificent. At the beach, you can explore the bay in sea kayaks, accompanied by marine iguanas, blue-footed boobies, and countless shorebirds. In the evening, back at Galapagos Safari Camp, you can relax while the children take a private art class with a local artist.

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Today you spend the day spotting wildlife and snorkelling on one of the uninhabited islands easily accessed by a day-yacht from Santa Cruz Island. The exact island location depends on travel dates, but options include North Seymour, South Plazas, Santa Fe, and Bartolomé, all of which are rich in wildlife and offer wonderful snorkelling opportunities. Please note this is a shared boat excursion unless requested otherwise. Destination will depend on your dates.

Bartolome Island: Our day starts with a hike up a 600-meter wooden boardwalk and stairway across ancient red, black and orange lava fields to the highest point on the island.  The panoramic view from the lookout surveys the iconic Pinnacle Rock in the foreground, Sullivan Bay in the distance, and Daphne Major and Minor on the horizon. Following the hike, we enjoy a dinghy ride around the coastline, looking for Galápagos penguins and hawks resting on the cliffs. In the afternoon, we explore the shore, where sea lions, Sally Light-Foot crabs, and marine iguanas greet us on the beach. This is a great place to snorkel, discovering the colourful underwater world of the islands amongst playful Galápagos sea lions, penguins, reef sharks and rays.

Santa Fe Island: This island is among the oldest in the archipelago, with underwater lava formations dating back 3.9 million years. Its visitor trails are bursting with animal activity. Santa Fe is home to a healthy population of terrestrial iguanas including the Santa Fe yellow iguana, as well as the inky-black marine iguanas. Other residents include Galápagos hawks and blue-footed boobies. Friendly sea lions line the shores and swim beside you when snorkelling, while marine iguanas bask in the sunshine on shoreline rocks, or dart quickly past under the waves. We can also hope to observe sharks, rays, and colourful schools of fish.

North Seymour Island: This island, brimming with life across its rocky surface, hosts blue-footed booby and frigate mating colonies. Land iguanas also frequent the area, seen along the 2-mile trail that loops around the southern section of the island. As we begin our walk, we come across nests of comic-looking blue-footed boobies.  Galápagos mockingbirds and yellow warblers are often spotted. As we draw near to the frigate colony, the remarkable birds seem to be nesting in every surrounding tree. Males inflate their red, basketball-sized pouches to attract mates. Back in our dinghy, we head to Mosquera islet, in the channel between Baltra and North Seymour. Here we can find a large sea lion colony, full of pups, bulls and females of different ages.

South Plaza Island: While en-route to Plaza, we stop at Punta Carrión. The shallow waters of the sheltered cove make a fun place to snorkel with schools of fish, rays and if you are lucky, reef sharks. The dock at South Plaza is usually overrun with sea lions, but we can manoeuvre around them to start walking along the trail that winds its way past yellow land iguanas resting in the shade of groves of prickly pear cactus trees. The landscape is vibrant, the black lava outcrops and ground carpeted with the reds and yellows of sesuvium cactus. At the island’s southern cliff edge, we can observe all sorts of birds swirling in the currents, including dazzling red-billed tropic birds. Following the trail round to the west, we come to a busy sea lion colony.  South Plaza’s other residents include land and marine iguanas, Nazca and blue-footed boobies and swallow-tailed gulls and other species of birds.

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Today you have an excursion with local fishermen, the favourite among children visiting Galapagos! This excursion is both a wildlife experience and a cultural exchange opportunity. Galapagos Safari Camp is involved in a program with the National Park Service that aims to engage local fisherman in tourism activities as an alternative means of income, with the added benefit of protecting local fisheries from depletion. The fishermen have very safe and modern speedboats, which are chartered privately for the day. With your guide acting as translator, the fishermen share anecdotes from a lifetime at sea, and the children learn local fishing tricks.

After fishing, you land on a deserted beach and may snorkel in a spot known only to locals. If you prefer to limit fishing and enhance the snorkelling or beach experience, your guide is there to adapt the day to your preferences.

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Today you visit the famous Charles Darwin Research Station to learn about its preservation efforts and scientific research. Your children have an up-close experience with the tortoises that are the islands’ namesake. You (parents) can enjoy free time to wander around Puerto Ayora, while your guide takes your children to a local playground or on a tour of the local fish market on the waterfront.

After lunch, you all take a speedboat to Tortuga Bay, a white sandy beach with basking marine iguanas, and shallow turquoise waters teeming with white-tip reef sharks and fish. Or you can join a snorkelling boat that takes you to frolic with sea lions.

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Enjoy the serenity that Galapagos Safari Camp has to offer. Relax, walk, or enjoy the sunrise from the observatory before departure to your next destination. (Here’s where you wish you had extended your journey!).

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