Galapagos luxury nature cruise

Planet

By choosing to visit the Galapagos, as well as other national parks on the mainland if you arrange an extended adventure with us, you are helping to support important conservation efforts. The Galapagos provides one of the great examples in how responsible tourism can thrive, providing both the opportunity for people to experience its wonders, but also limiting the human impact on the archipelago through strict national park regulations.

We also choose only small boutique sized boats (up to 20 guests) for our cruise partners. This enhances your enjoyment, but also leaves less of an impact on the flora and fauna when your groups step ashore.

We strongly encourage all cruise-goers to extend their trips, with eco-lodge stays in the Cloud Forest, Amazon Rainforest, and/or Andes Mountains back on mainland Ecuador. This is part of our 'Slow Travel' approach, where we encourage guests to fly on holiday less often, stay for longer when they are there (don't fly all the way to South America for 10 days!), and when flying is unavoidable (such as reaching the Galapagos) to make sure the trip is a fully immersive and meaningful adventure, that is both enjoyable for the traveller but also benefits the places we visit.

People

Ethical community-based tourism is a key element of any responsible travel adventure to Ecuador & Galapagos, and in fact our local partners based in Quito are multi-award winners in this field. The aim throughout is to provide non-touristy, authentic cultural experiences, that benefit the people from those communities directly.

In the Galapagos we avoid the large international cruise ships, prioritising independent boutique boats where possible. If you extend your trip on the mainland with us, the same approach applies to hotels and lodges throughout Ecuador. This keeps more money in the immediate area, and helps provides business and employment opportunities to local people, whilst providing us and our guests with a more genuine and enriching stay as part of our trips.

In the Galapagos in particular, ethical tourism operations provide a lucrative and sustainable career path for locals who in previous years would have had to rely on fishing. By moving from fishing to tourism, this has also helped preserve the local ecosystems by maintaining healthy fish stocks for the iconic marine and avian wildlife.