Guides

Whether you charter a boat or bring your own, all visitors to the Galapagos National Park are required to travel with a Certified guide. These naturalist guides are trained in conservation and natural sciences by the Charles Darwin Foundation and licensed by the Galapagos National Park Service. The guides work as the first line of defense protecting the park's natural resources through education. They accompany visitors ashore interpreting the natural wonders of the islands while enforcing the park rules and regulations.

The guides have become the eyes and ears of both National Park Service and Darwin Station. They are out everyday in every area of the archipelago the guides are among the first to observe fires, eruptions, and introduced animals.  Galapagos guides have also been responsible for identifying Iguanas and Tortoises in areas where they were thought to be extinct.

Traditional top-level guides held a Class III license. These international guides held a university degree in the natural sciences, were fluent in English, trained at the Darwin Station and Certified. Most of the Luxury Boats and First Class Boats offer  Class III guides where as moderate and budget boats offer a new generation of bilingual national Class II guide who have received training at the National Park by the Charles Darwin Research Station.

Special interest trips including Photography and Birding often have a tour leader accompanying the guide. Tour Leaders are not necessarily trained at the Darwin Station nor holders of an appropriate license. Instead they are experts in the field and have come to the Galapagos to hold a seminar or seminars on their subject of expertise.

Trips featuring dive itineraries have dive guides. These guides hold both a Galapagos Guide License and a separate Dive License. Many of the boats that take diving seriously will have a dive leader on board as well. This person may not have the Galapagos Guide License, but often has had much more experience running dive trips abroad, often in the Caribbean.