The Galapagos Islands lie 600 miles (1000 km) off the coast of Ecuador in the Pacific Ocean. Every Galapagos holiday starts and ends in mainland Ecuador. There are no direct international flights to Galapagos, so you need to take a domestic flight either from Quito, Ecuador’s capital city nestled high in the Andes, or Guayaquil, Ecuador’s steamy commercial capital on its coastal planes. There are now several flights each day to Galapagos which take around two and a half hours.
Galapagos has two airports that receive flights from mainland Ecuador, either Baltra islet which is close to Santa Cruz Island in the centre of the archipelago or San Cristobal in the Eastern part of the Galapagos. Once you arrive here and have passed through the Galapagos National Park controls and collected your luggage, your guide and the crew from your cruise will be there to greet you and take you to your yacht, and your Galapagos adventure will begin!