Floreana Island Tour
From Santa Cruz, Galapagos
- Last Updated: September 23, 2024
The Floreana Island Tour is the most mysterious and at the same time beautiful tour, you can do on the Galapagos Islands.
From tales of piracy, an Austrian baroness and her love trio, a crazy German toothless doctor, and murder this island has it all.
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Floreana Island Tour: General Details
This tour has to be done with an agency or you can alternatively take a boat to Floreana island and spend multiple days there, as there is some infrastructure on the island (not like in Bartolomé Island where you can only visit it on a tour).
- Highlights: The Highlands, the labyrinths, the pirate cave and viewpoint, Loberia beach, Black beach, the giant tortoises and penguins, and snorkeling.
- Duration: Full day
- Price: 140-160$ USD.
- Agency/Guide: Galapagos Dreams.
- Included on the tour: Snorkeling gear and lunch at the visitor center.
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Floreana Island Tour: Curiosities
The name of the island comes from Ecuador’s first president Juan José Flores, whose administration officially recognized the Galapagos islands as part of Ecuador’s territory.
Previously the island was called Charles island (after King Charles II of England) and Santa Maria island (one of Columbus’s caravels).
Floreana is the 4th and last island with human settlements in the Galápagos archipelago.
There were pirates using the island as a hideout in the 16-17th centuries. You will visit some of their hideouts on this tour.
Whalers used to pass in the Galapagos to replenish their provisions and in 1793 a British whaling ship stopped in Floreana and created a post office using an empty barrel.
This barrel still stands in Post Office Bay and travelers still use it to place their letters without postage like in the old times. If you go there you can see if any letter is supposed to go to your country, take it with you and deliver it to its owners when you arrive home.
In 1819 there was a big wildfire that burned almost all of the island’s vegetation and endemic species.
By 1929, the German couple Dr. Friedrich Ritter, and his wife Dore Strauch arrived on Floreana island, searching for Paradise, sending letters to the mainland encouraging others to join them.
In order to avoid diseases and rotten teeth on the island, Dr. Ritter pulled out all his teeth.
Five years later in 1932 another German family, the Wittmers also arrived on the island and a self-proclaimed Austrian “Baroness” together with her two lovers came in too.
The clash between some of the inhabitants resulted in a number of disappearances and murderers, resulting in the Wittmers family being the only remaining inhabitants on the island.
Today, descendants of the Wittmers still live on the island and manage a hotel there, next to the Black Beach called “Wittmer Hostal/Lodge“.
There’s a book Galapagos Affair by John Treherne and a famous documentary based on the book The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden (2013) that recounts the events of what really happened on the island.
How To Do the Floreana Island Tour?
To do this tour you have to book it with a tour agency, or go by yourself by ferry/speedboat and stay some days on the island.
The tour starts at the main pier in Puerto Ayora town. In any case, ask your tour operator for details, you might be picked up at the hotel or you have to walk by yourself to the pier.
Once there you go on a speedboat until Floreana. It’s a 2-hour boat ride so if you’re usually seasick you should take a seasickness pill 30 minutes before entering the boat.
I also advise you to go further back and closer to the engines as possible. You will get fresh air and won’t feel, so much, the bumps on the waves.
Book Your Tour with Viator
What to Bring to the Floreana Island Tour?
Clothing & Accessories:
- Tshirt: Breathable Tshirt (Tech or Merino), or a Lycra
- Jacket: Waterproof Jacket
- Shorts: Shorts, and Swimming Clothes
- Shoes: Hiking Shoes, and Flip Flops
- Hat: Cap
- Sunglasses
- Dry-fast Towel
- Earth Pak Waterproof Dry Bag
- Change of Clothes
Useful Extras:
- GoPro/Camera
- First-Aid Kit – Extra Sea Sickness Medication and Mosquito Repellent
- Sunscreen 50 SPF
- Food / Snacks
- Thermos or Water-filtering Bottle
Check out my complete guide on What’s in My Backpack – From photography gear, and clothing for Hiking, Mountaineering, Scuba Diving, Rainforest, and City-Street Photography.
My Experience on the Floreana Island Tour
This was my 6th day on Santa Cruz island and I did this tour the day after I did the Bartolomé Island Tour, which was amazing!
As I said, the tour started at Puerto Ayora pier and we were around 12 people in the group. I entered the boat and there we went for 2 hours until we reached the Puerto Velazco Ibarra pier on Floreana island.
Arrival and The Highlands of Floreana Island
Once we arrived on Floreana island we left the port and a bus (Chiva) was waiting for us to take us to the highlands.
At the port, there were many posing marine iguanas chilling in the shade. And right before arriving at the port, we could see some sea lions occupying the boats in the water.
Once we arrived at the Asilo de La Paz visitor center we walked through a beautiful path covered with orange flowers and went deep into the forest.
There our guide explained to us some scientific and conservation experiments used on the island. Then he told us the story about the island losing almost all its vegetation and endemic fauna in the past, the invasive species brought by the new settlers, and the slow reforestation of the island.
After that, we started hiking in the direction of the only freshwater spring on the island.
Once we arrived in the spring we took some photos and appreciated the place and moved on to the most interesting part of the tour.
Exploring The Labyrinths, The Pirate Cave, and The Viewpoint
After leaving the spring we continued up until we reached some mahori-looking stone carved heads and some caves dug in the old lava rock.
These caves were in theory made by the pirates in the 16-17th century and the more modern-looking pieces like benches or stone heads were probably made by the German or Austrian first settlers.
When you reach this place if you look to your left you have an amazing view over the entire island. It’s green and beautiful with the highlight being Cerro Pajas inactive volcano. Those pirates for sure had a nice view!
Upon visiting the caves we continued getting deeper into the highlands, arriving at a place called “The Labyrinths”, authentic gorgeous tropical lava-stone labyrinths completely covered with vegetation. It was fun to explore them.
Whoever made them the way they are now probably had a lot of fun building them and getting lost here.
After exploring the labyrinths we went back down to the visitor center and we got to see many giant tortoises eating and bathing in some little pools.
The usual minimal distance wasn’t respected at all here, people were touching and getting selfies with the tortoises. But they didn’t seem to care much though.
Snorkeling at Loberia Beach, and The Black Beach
After the highlands, we got on the Chiva bus again and drove back to town to visit the gorgeous Loberia beach where we were going snorkeling.
Once I saw the Loberia beach it automatically jumped to my top 5 beaches on the Galapagos.
We took our snorkeling kit from our backpacks and had around one hour on the beach. I swam to the little islet in front of the beach and saw a baby turtle, a huge school of fish, and a stingray. Amazing.
Once on the islet, there was a family of sea lions a mother and a baby breastfeeding, and a red and black marine iguana. On every island, iguanas tend to have different colors.
After the Loberia beach, we went to Black beach for some swimming and some people went snacking at the little restaurant there.
Once they finished eating we moved on back to the boat to go penguin spotting. We actually saw four of them. How lucky!
And that’s it, after spotting the penguins we returned to Santa Cruz island after enduring again the 2-hour boat ride and the Floreana Island Tour was over.
What about you, have you already done the Floreana Island Tour? Leave me a comment down here if you have and what was your opinion.
Thanks for reading through and I hope you have fun on this tour!
I’ll drop a couple of my other favourite photos from this tour down below, enjoy!
Photo Gallery
Floreana Island Tour:
Introduction and Highlands of Floreana Island
Exploring The Labyrinths, The Pirate Cave, and The Viewpoint
Snorkeling at Loberia Beach, and The Black Beach
2 thoughts on “Floreana Island Tour”
Greetings and thanks for the tour. I visited Floreana in 2019 and was reminded by your photos of our wonderful tour there.
I am writing a scientific paper on springs, and your photo is much nicer than mine. Would you permit me the use of your photo in my paper? If so, could you send a high-resolution image and let me know how best to attribute it yo you?
Larry Stevens, PhD and Director
Springs Stewardship Institute
Flagstaff, AZ 86001 USA
SpringStewardshipInstitute.org
Hey Lawrence, thanks for reaching out. So interesting. What photo exactly are we talking about? Can you send me an email to [email protected] with a screenshot of it? For scientific purposes i’m very happy to be of help. I’m not exactly sure regarding the attribution but from my Master thesis i remember it should be something like “Petersen, João Pedro” and the name of the article “Floreana Island Tour – The Portuguese Traveler (Blog)” and perhaps the link afterwards “https://theportuguesetraveler.com/galapagos/santa-cruz/floreana-island-tour/”.
Will wait for your email,
All the best and good luck with your paper,
João