Ecuador Tours

Ecuador is the smallest country on this list and the one with the most packed into it. For us it enters through Galápagos, as one half of the trip that pairs the islands with Machu Picchu.

The Galápagos numbers nobody publishes correctly

The National Park entry fee is 200 USD for a foreign adult over 12, and 100 for a child. It doubled from 100 dollars in August 2024 — the first rise since 1998 — by Resolution 002-CGREG-24-02-2024. Pages selling this trip today still print the old figure; we checked, and two large operators currently publish “$100”.

Add the Transit Control Card at 20 USD per person, and it is 220 dollars in cash before you have slept anywhere. If you set foot on Isabela, another 10.

We file the Transit Control Card for you in advance. That matters more than it sounds, because the government counters keep short hours — Quito 05:00 to 12:00, Guayaquil 06:30 to 13:30 — and you need a return ticket in your own name to be issued one.

The flight that decides the whole itinerary

Every plane to the islands leaves in the morning. From Quito between 06:30 and 07:00, from Guayaquil between 08:00 and 09:00. There are no afternoon departures, and no combination that gets you out of the Andes and into the islands on the same day.

So a night on the mainland is compulsory. Every operator puts it in and none of them explains why, which makes it look like a wasted day.

Where you spend it is the part that is a decision. Quito is at 2,850 m. Guayaquil is at 4 m. And flights out of Quito stop in Guayaquil anyway, so from Quito you fly an extra leg to reach the same place. We route through Guayaquil: you sleep at sea level and get up an hour and a half later.

Getting between the islands

Inter-island launches run twice a day in each direction, at about 07:00 and 15:00, and cost between 35 and 60 dollars one way depending on the operator — the published fares genuinely disagree. Santa Cruz is the hub, so there is no direct crossing between Isabela and San Cristóbal. The morning boat is the calmer one.

What we do not sell here

Ecuador’s mainland — Quito, Cotopaxi, the cloud forest — and Galápagos cruises are covered better by specialists. Here the islands appear as a stage of a combined trip, which is the product that already works.