6-Day Western & Northern: Rabida's Red Sand Beach

Most Galapagos itineraries begin here. Baltra's airport is the world's first fully ecological airport, run on solar and wind power and built largely from recycled materials, including old oil pipes repurposed into the terminal structure. Land iguanas, wiped out here by the 1950s and reintroduced through a decades-long breeding program, now number in the hundreds again, some right around the airport grounds. From the terminal, a short bus transfer brings you to the pier for the panga ride out to your ship.

Reachable only by sea, Black Turtle Cove is a mangrove-lined lagoon on Santa Cruz's north shore, protected as a turtle sanctuary. A slow, quiet dinghy ride carries you between four species of mangrove while sea turtles surface for air around the boat, one of the most reliable sightings in the islands. Look down and you'll often see golden and eagle rays moving beneath the hull, and white-tipped reef sharks resting in the shallows.

A panga brings you ashore onto one of the most distinctive beaches in the islands, with sand tinted deep red by its high iron content, with Rabida's rugged cliffs rising behind it. Sea lions are usually stretched out along the shoreline, and it's a good spot to watch for the endemic Galapagos dove working the sand nearby. From the beach, a short trail winds through palo santo forest and cactus scrub, climbing gently to an overlook with sweeping views across the bay, a nice place to pause and take in the color of the landscape before heading back down. If you'd rather stay on the water, snorkeling right off the beach is an easy, relaxed way to spend the visit, with good odds of company from the resident sea lions.

Chinese Hat, or Sombrero Chino, is a small islet of delicate lava and spatter cones just off Santiago's southeastern coast. A narrow channel of turquoise water between the islet and the Santiago shoreline makes for excellent snorkeling, where sharks, sea lions, and rays are regularly reported, and a Galapagos penguin occasionally turns up too.

A dry landing sets you down on North Seymour's flat, sun-baked terrain, and the trail wastes no time getting to the action: magnificent frigatebirds display from low shrubs right along the path, males inflating their scarlet throat pouches into balloons to catch a female's eye. Blue-footed boobies are a near-constant presence along the same stretch, and during the breeding season you may catch their high-stepping courtship dance just a few feet from the trail, showing off the bright blue feet that give the species its name. Land and marine iguanas share the coastline as the trail loops back toward the water, and sea lions haul out along the shore. Keep an eye on the cliffs above the surf too, where swallow-tailed gulls sometimes perch between flights out to sea.

Up in the cool, misty highlands of Santa Cruz, a short walk brings you among wild giant tortoises moving through the undergrowth on their own terms. No fences, no enclosures, just several-hundred-pound reptiles going about their day. This is one of the best places anywhere in the islands for that encounter, and the surrounding vegetation is good habitat for several of Darwin's finches, heard as often as seen.

A geology stop first and foremost. A wet landing on a white coral-sand beach leads out onto a pahoehoe lava field that flowed less than a hundred years ago, its surface still holding the ropy, swirled texture it cooled into, a favorite for photographers. Tiny pioneer plants are just beginning to colonize the cracks in the rock. Bring your camera for the landscape rather than your binoculars here.

A wooden staircase of 372 steps climbs Bartolome's extinct volcano from a lava-and-concrete dock or sandy beach, depending on conditions. Along the way, red, orange, black, and even green volcanic layers mark the slopes, home to pioneer plants like the island-endemic Tiquilia nesiotica, lava cactus, and scattered Scalesia. With some luck, a lava lizard crosses the trail. At the top, the view over the twin bays and the iconic Pinnacle Rock is the reward for the climb. Back at sea level, a snorkel around the coral reef and submerged lava rocks is a good bet for Galapagos penguins and white-tipped reef sharks, with sea turtles and manta rays turning up now and then too.

A stone stairway carved into the cliff climbs to a wide plateau holding one of Genovesa's largest seabird colonies. The trail passes through a small Scalesia forest, home to the short-eared owl, one of the few predators on the island, before reaching cliffside colonies where Nazca and red-footed boobies nest side by side, frigatebirds wheel overhead, and thousands of storm petrels dart in and out of cracks in the lava. A small colony of fur seals sometimes gathers near the landing. Red-footed boobies nest in only a handful of places across the archipelago, and this is one of them.

Darwin Bay sits inside the flooded caldera of Genovesa, and a wet landing on its white coral-sand beach puts you right in the middle of a working seabird colony. Great frigatebirds display along the shore, males inflating scarlet throat pouches to catch a female's eye, and red-footed boobies nest low in the surrounding trees and shrubs, unusual for a booby. Nazca boobies are just as much a fixture here, while blue-footed boobies are a rarer, luckier sighting. Swallow-tailed gulls and red-billed tropicbirds work the cliffs nearby. If you're a confident swimmer, the bay's calm water is a good place to snorkel or kayak afterward, with a chance of white-tipped reef sharks and sea turtles along the rocky shore.

The Galapagos National Park's Interpretation Center on San Cristobal, open since 1998, walks you through the islands' volcanic origins, the evolution of their wildlife, and the conservation work protecting them today, organized chronologically across a series of exhibits. It's a good first stop for context that makes everything you see afterward click into place, a walk-through, education-focused visit rather than a wildlife stop.

The transfer back is the reverse of the arrival: a panga ride from your ship to the pier in Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, then a short drive to the airport, which sits right next to town. Keep an eye out for sea lions and marine iguanas near the runway on the way in, one last sighting before you fly out.