Galápagos Islands

Ecuador · Volcanic islands, coastal and highland habitats · best: Year-round, best April through June and December · 4 visits

Wide view of the main impoundment at first light — End of the auto-loop.

Sunrise over wetland shallows — The far edge of the marsh.

Grassy headland with fog bank offshore — The main observation area.

Of the spots I’ve covered in this notebook, Galápagos Islands is the one I most often recommend to people who ask where to go with a week and a camera.

The trip in is less complicated than it looks on a map, provided you’re flexible about where you sleep.

The core habitat at Galápagos Islands is volcanic islands, coastal and highland habitats, and the best of it is concentrated in a handful of places that reward slow walking.

My default advice is to go year-round, best april through june and december. Outside that window there are still good days here, but the baseline quality drops.

Bring a scope e one. More of this place is at middle distances than you’d think.

My most memorable morning there was mid-season, soft fog, two dozen birds in a thirty-minute window, and I remember about three of them.

Honest assessment: Galápagos Islands is good but not magic. On a bad day you’ll still have a bad day here.

I’ll keep updating this page as I visit through the year. Take the logistics as rough guidance, not a route sheet.