Galapagos From Land - On a Budget

[Thomas Fair]

My group of college Scuba club members is planning another trip well in advance for Fall 2025. We had a great time in Fall 2023 visiting Bali and Nusa Penida, and now we want to try for Galapagos. Being fresh out of college means that we are still on some tighter budgets (~$3500) per person all inclusive. Assuming airfare is $1000 round trip this leaves us with say $2500 for the whole trip to spend.

With this in mind, would this trip be possible to do for that amount of money doing exclusively shore diving? We would want to be on the islands for at least 10 days and dive 6-7 days out of the 10.

What are the costs of diving on the islands? Is there a recommended shop we should be diving out of?

What island should we be based out of? Should we stay on multiple islands to increase our coverage of different dive areas or does it really not matter?

Is it still worth diving Galapagos if we are not able to do Wolf and Darwin Islands?

Thanks, I have a lot of questions and most of the information on the forum seems to be liveaboard oriented. My group is not open to doing liveaboards because of how expensive they are and the fact that a few of them still get sea sick on boats.

 

[Doc Harry]

I spent a several weeks in the Galapagos about 15 years ago. We spent most of the time on land tours between the islands, but we also took a 7-day nature cruise. I did manage to get a few days of land-based diving from a operator out of Puerto Ayora.

15 years ago, it was dirt cheap to stay in Puerto Ayora. I had a decent room with air conditioning for $15 per night. This was a "no reservation" rate, which meant every day I could get evicted from the room if a guest checked in who had a reservation and the hotel was full. But there were many such hotels. I did have to stay at an expensive hotel a few times ($50/night). Online, there aren't a lot of cheap options, but once you are there it was easy to find a lot of cheap hotels. I am not sure if this is what Puerto Ayora is like anymore.

The food there was also very cheap. At night, they filled the streets with tables and chairs and the place turned into an open restaurant market. Big meals for $7 per person.

There were numerous dive operators in Puerto Ayora. If I recall correctly, it was $130 USD for a two-tank dive. Most of the places we visited were around Baltra Island, which is where the airport is located. It's a fairly long boat ride from Puerto Ayora to Baltra. The water was very cold in March - I was very cold in a rented 7mm wetsuit. I would DEFINITELY dive in a drysuit next time, especially on a liveaboard.

It was possible to catch the ferry to other islands - like Floreana - for a day of diving, but I never dove anywhere except Santa Cruz. We visited many islands but I wasn't there to dive. I would definitely recommend ferry trips to other islands, or even staying overnight on other islands.

I think the Galapagos is great for shore-based diving. BIG SHARKS EVERYWHERE. The water is cold and the visibility isn't great, but the whole experience is amazing.

Galápagos - Diving out of Puerto Ayora & advice for travelers

I just returned from a 3 week trip to the Galápagos, and I thought that I should pass on some information. My trip was not for scuba diving, but I did manage to get in a couple of days of diving on March 29-30. I spent most of my time in Puerto Ayora on Isla Santa Cruz. There are a dozen or...

scubaboard.com

 

[MizzO]

I'm going summer for 2 weeks (end of August-beginning of September) so have been doing a lot of research. Use of the search function in scubaboard will find you lots of first hand accounts. I also personally know 2 people who did land based and they loved it and would go back again even if still not doing a liveaboard.

A lot of people seem to like Scuba Iguana from Santa Cruz (also have seen positive reviews for Academy Bay -- some say to play it by ear and see which shop is going to the sites you want to go to on the day you want to dive). I understand some sites are more accessible from San Cristobal (i.e., Kicker Rock, Punta Pitt). You can fly into Baltra (the airport for Santa Cruz), stay there a few days, then take the ferry ($30 USD) to San Cristobal and fly from there back to the mainland. I've seen positive reviews for Wreck Bay and Blue Evolution dive shops at San Cristobal. See their websites for pricing. Not cheap day dives, but you should be able to see the key day trip sites within your budget. You may even luck out and get a significant last minute discount on a liveaboard (one of my friends tried to do that but was unsuccessful). As mentioned above, you can get really cheap rooms (especially as a group -- there are a lot of "family" room options with 3+ beds in a room) and by eating where the locals eat, you can get meals for $5 or so. While a lot of land activities require a guide, there are free ones too if you do some research. So, you can save a lot of your budget for diving. Also, if you can, look into (responsibly) using a credit card with a good airline points program to get saving points so maybe you can book your flight and/or hotels that way (that's what I did and got my flight and most of my hotels with points).

I've read that the Isabela dive shops are not as good, so I'd stick to the ones mentioned above, however, there is some great snorkeling from Isabela (Los Tuneles, Las Tintoreras are paid tours, but there is also a free site 10 min walking from town that's supposed to be really good (the Concha de Perla Lagoon)).

Originally I was planning land based but I found a 30% discount on the aggressor (though that's still over your budget). Since I'm over my own budget (yolo!), I won't be doing any additional diving at the day diving sites despite having researched them, and I'll be minimizing paid land tours. Instead, I'm going to stay at Black Beach in Floreana for a few nights (less frequented island, a few free hikes and a couple free snorkelling spots), a few nights in Santa Cruz (first night there, night before liveaboard, and last night of liveaboard so I can get the first ferry to San Cristobal where I'll be staying my last night in Galapagos before heading to Quito for a night). I'll update after my trip with any additional tips

 

[ZzzKing]

Where are you flying from to get airfare for $1000? I think you have to go through either Quito or Guayaquil, Ecuador and the flights don’t work so you have to overnight. I recall spending a lot more than that and it was 15 years ago. It sounds like there may be some modest options for lodging once there but verify the flight situation and adjust your budget as necessary.

 

[Scared Silly]

Many dive without going to Wolf and Darwin. However, they are certainly the draw and highlight for most divers.

It is pretty easy to do some simple research to see if it is with the budget. Airfare is more like $1500 plus an overnight in Quito, land based dive ops are now charging north of $200 a day. Probably less for land tours. One can still find places to stay for $100 (double). Do the math. Don't forget the $200 tourist fee.

 

[34109411]

My group of college Scuba club members is planning another trip well in advance for Fall 2025. We had a great time in Fall 2023 visiting Bali and Nusa Penida, and now we want to try for Galapagos. Being fresh out of college means that we are still on some tighter budgets (~$3500) per person all inclusive. Assuming airfare is $1000 round trip this leaves us with say $2500 for the whole trip to spend.

With this in mind, would this trip be possible to do for that amount of money doing exclusively shore diving? We would want to be on the islands for at least 10 days and dive 6-7 days out of the 10.

What are the costs of diving on the islands? Is there a recommended shop we should be diving out of?

What island should we be based out of? Should we stay on multiple islands to increase our coverage of different dive areas or does it really not matter?

Is it still worth diving Galapagos if we are not able to do Wolf and Darwin Islands?

Thanks, I have a lot of questions and most of the information on the forum seems to be liveaboard oriented. My group is not open to doing liveaboards because of how expensive they are and the fact that a few of them still get sea sick on boats.

Far as i am concern there is no shore diving in galapagos. i was in Puerto Ayora an use scuba igana. Two tank dive was 200$ us this was 15 yesrs ago. Going from one island to another you need to take an airplane. Take note also they dont do all inclusive in Galapagos.

Most of the dive shop do a check up dive before your go. Make sure you are comfortable in strong current.

bottom line it's expensive.

 

[MizzO]

Many dive without going to Wolf and Darwin. However, they are certainly the draw and highlight for most divers.

It is pretty easy to do some simple research to see if it is with the budget. Airfare is more like $1500 plus an overnight in Quito, land based dive ops are now charging north of $200 a day. Probably less for land tours. One can still find places to stay for $100 (double). Do the math. Don't forget the $200 tourist fee.

Most budget travelers I've seen recommend not booking hotels in advance for the best deals in the Galapagos (but bring ear plugs), but even a quick search of booking.com shows rooms that can sleep 4 people for less than $50USD per night in Puerto Ayora.. good point on the $200USD entry fee though (and I there's an additional $20USD charge for the "tourist transit card")

 

[34109411]

Most budget travelers I've seen recommend not booking hotels in advance for the best deals in the Galapagos (but bring ear plugs), but even a quick search of booking.com shows rooms that can sleep 4 people for less than $50USD per night in Puerto Ayora.. good point on the $200USD entry fee though (and I there's an additional $20USD charge for the "tourist transit card")

1 day of diving with scuna iguna 280 us per days per divers. They rather go somewhere else and rack some dives as many they like. Considering they are on a budget they should go to honduras.

 

[Sharkboobs]

We just returned from a land based dive trip to Galapagos and it was epic. We dove 5 days from Puerto Ayora and 2 from San Cristobal. The entire trip was arranged by Academy Bay Dive Center, They put together all of our accommodations, transfers, boat dives, ferry to San Cristobal, diving there and land based tours to North Seymour, Espanola and the Highlands (If you like birds, it doesn't get any better!). Diving in Galapagos is expensive and working with them on a package brought the price point down to a reasonable level.

The package was designed custom for us based on our interests and the level of accommodation we chose. They were pretty basic but included air conditioning and breakfast. They serve a pretty tasty lunch on the boat after the second tank as well.

I think cost was around $2700 per person. So that’s excluding flights, dinner and tips for the boat crew. But including 7 full days of diving, 3 land tours, all transfers and ferry to San Cristobal, breakfast and lunch.
Boat dives were 2 tanks per day. Some sites were a 20 minute steam and others were 2 hours to places like Espanola and Floreana. Most days it's a 45-50 minute drive up to the north ferry port to catch the boat. The shop provides this.

Dives were almost all epic. Hammerhead sharks solo and in groups on most sites. I don't think we did one dive that we didn't see scalloped hammerhead, Galapagos or white tip reef sharks. More turtles than anywhere I've been, schools of eagle and mobula rays, schools of yellowfin tuna and bonito, sea lions! Not to mention the incredible topography. Unfortunately, on the other side of things, the visibility isn't great at most sites and the water is a chilly 70-72 degrees, at least in May. Gordon Rocks, Mosquera and Kicker Rock were world class dives. The others, as good or better than anyplace we've been.

We wanted to do a live aboard but it just wasn't in our price range this year but we're so happy we chose to go anyway. It's an incredible place. I love Eastern Pacific diving.

I forgot to mention the $20 fee for a Tourist Transit Card. You’ll need to purchase one at the airport on the mainland. There’s also a $100 entrance fee into Galapagos that increases to $200 in August. You’ll pay that at passport control in the airport on the islands.

As for tips I give $10/tank everywhere I dive. So both of us would tip $40 per day=4 tanks. A little more if they helped with something specific to us.

Most nights we ate for about $50 for the two of us. There are cheaper and more expensive options as well. For example, we found a parking lot near the hotel where ladies were frying up big, delicious empanadas of all types for about $2 each. We walked away very full, very happy and spent about $8 that night.

Hope this helps!

 

[Doc Harry]

Going from one island to another you need to take an airplane.

We used the inter-island ferries. No flying except to go back to Guayaquil.