Ecuador Travel Guide

North Seymour is a Galápagos island in Ecuador formed from uplifted lava, named for its proximity to Baltra (South Seymour) and famed for its extraordinarily dense seabird and reptile life. It hosts a huge frigatebird colony — in breeding season males inflate crimson throat pouches to court, a spectacular sight — alongside blue-footed boobies' comical mating dance, land iguanas and sea lions. With flat trails and unafraid wildlife, it is among the most accessible and photogenic birding and wildlife islands of the Galápagos, often a highlight of day trips from Santa Cruz.

Baltra Island (Isla Baltra, also South Seymour) is the air gateway of Ecuador's Galápagos, home to Seymour Airport, the archipelago's main airport through which most visitors arrive. This arid low island is characterised by cactus, saltbush and land iguana habitat, and historically served as a US WWII air base. Today it is the transit hub linking the mainland with Santa Cruz Island (Puerto Ayora), with ferries and shuttles moving travellers across. For most, Baltra is the first step into Galápagos' wonders and a starting point to observe the islands' dry-zone ecology and land iguanas.

The Charles Darwin Research Station lies in Puerto Ayora on Santa Cruz Island in Ecuador's Galápagos archipelago, founded in 1959 as the core institution for the islands' ecological research and conservation. It is famed for its giant tortoise breeding and repatriation programme — visitors see hatchlings and adult subspecies from different islands up close, grasping the 'evolutionary island's' biological puzzles. The station also holds a museum and herbarium explaining the geology, species and Darwin's theory of natural selection. As the scientific gateway to any Galápagos trip, it lets travellers, amid awe at the giants, read the fragility and worth of this 'living laboratory of evolution.'