Ecuador and Galapagos holiday

COUNTRY:
Ecuador, Galapagos Islands
LOCATION:
The Galapagos Islands
DEPARTURES:
This trip can be tailormade at a time to suit you and adapted to your requirements as necessary.
PRICE:
From £4185 - £5995 (17 days) excluding flights
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MORE INFO:
Price depends on boat and season. Price per person based on two sharing and includes: domestic flights; 8 day first class Galapagos cruise; first class hotels and lodges (twin or double); guides; all transfers; activities and excursions; and meals (b,l,d) as per itinerary. Price per person will reduce with more travellers. Please note the child price is the same as adult price, although a small reduction may be possible depending on choice of boat and age of child. Contact us for more details.
VOUCHERS:
Gift vouchers can be used with this holiday
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Ecuador and Galapagos holiday
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Ecuador and Galapagos holiday

Tailor made holiday
This trip can be tailormade to create a unique holiday for your individual requirements by travel experts with intimate knowledge of the destination. It is a more luxurious trip that will suit those who enjoy immersing themselves in new cultures and environments before relaxing in comfort in some of the best and most characterful local accommodation! Quality and value are the hallmark of these trips.

How Ecuador and Galapagos holiday makes a difference

Environment

We have carefully designed this holiday to represent the full diversity of Ecuador. In the cloudforest the lodge is completely hand built with local materials. Much of the food is grown organically on site & the lodge generally operates on strict sustainable principles.

We work with a selection of boats in the Galapagos, carefully chosen for their sustainable credentials. In all cases we pay for you to become a benefactor of the Galapagos Conservation Trust for a full year. The GCT issues guidelines as to the sorts of tourist visits that have least impact on the sites - those guidelines are that small boats, owned and operated locally, are the best bet for the preservation of the Galapagos.

Most of our boats are SmartVoyager certified. Boats are only able to gain this accreditation by meeting a set of strict conservation standards for protecting the environment & wildlife. We only use naturalist guides trained and licensed by the Galapagos Natural Park Service and the Charles Darwin Research Station.

Community

The lodge we work with in the Amazon is the only one in Ecuador to be both owned and run by the local community. You meet members of the local community in their village during your stay. Host families are rotated in order that every member of the local community benefits from the tourism to the lodge.

We recommend our favourite first class yachts in the Galapagos. In general, the boat owners and most of the crew on our boats come from the islands, which makes the enterprise sustainable and of economic benefit to the local community.

Ecuador and Galapagos holiday

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The story of the provider of Ecuador and Galapagos holiday

Our story started in 1994 when Thomas visited Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia. There he met Diego, who was working as a ranger, and also Xabi who was (and still is) a Torres del Paine guide. Together they trekked pretty much every trail in the park. Thomas returned to the UK with an enormous love of Chile and a plan for a new travel company. Much time was spent preparing the ground for an operator specialising predominately in Chile, Peru and Spain. In 1999 we launched, focused on delivering bespoke holidays to amazing destinations. From the outset we did things differently – we wanted to create something special and outstanding, so our clients can best experience exceptional places. Nothing we do is ‘off the shelf.’ Since then, our range of destinations has grown to take in many Latin American countries, and more of Spain. What hasn’t changed is the way we create your holiday. A great deal of thought and care goes into each day of your holiday, blending the best ingredients together. For that reason we describe our holidays as handmade. This is the ethos behind everything we do, and what we believe makes us different.

Holiday provider no: 236

Ecuador and Galapagos holiday
Ecuador and Galapagos holiday

Ecuador and Galapagos holiday

Reviewed 18 May 2008 by Anne Goffin4 star rating

1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?


Zip-Lining in the Cloud Forest but the Galapagos was amazing.

2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?


Definitely take a torch, wet weather clothing and a sense of humour.

3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, and minimized impacts on the environment?


Yes, definitely.

4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?


Brilliant but the cloud forest was a bit disappointing as we had continual rain and saw very few animals or birds. This also occurred in the Amazon. We were told by the operator that rain was minimal with short bursts. Obviously a joke.

Read the operator's response here:

Overall I am very pleased that our clients had such a good time on their trip. I would like to put up a quick response to point 4. In April/May 2008 the weather in Ecuador was exceptionally wet with rainfall around three times the expected average. We do try very hard to make sure that clients travel with realistic expectations of the conditions they will encounter. In this particular instance mother nature got in the way. On the plus side, this group had unbroken good weather in the Galapagos.
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Ecuador and Galapagos holiday
Ecuador and Galapagos holiday
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