Volcanic islands on the equator, cooled by the Humboldt current, with wildlife that never learned to fear people. The galapagos barely has a temperature season: daytime highs move only about 4 °C across the whole year, from 24 °C in September to 28 °C in March. What changes instead is rain.
Measured against a beach trip, the conditions hold up May to December. June is the most consistent single month: highs near 26 °C, nights around 22 °C, and roughly 17 mm of rain across the month.
The binding constraint here is rainfall — that is what rules months out, not any composite judgement. Rainfall is sharply seasonal: March averages 134 mm against 7 mm in September, so the wet season is the real planning constraint rather than heat or cold. February is the weakest month on these criteria.
January sit just outside the window — part of the month works and part does not. These are usually the interesting weeks: conditions are close to the peak-season answer while prices and crowds are not. The map lets you check them fortnight by fortnight rather than trusting a monthly average.
What the Galapagos is known for
- Darwin's finches and the giant tortoises fed directly into On the Origin of Species
- Marine iguanas are the only sea-going lizards on Earth; blue-footed boobies nest on the trails
- The cool, dry garua season and the warm, wetter season swap the water temperature and the visibility
- Almost all land is national park; visits outside the towns require a licensed guide
- Sierra Negra on Isabela has one of the largest volcanic calderas in the world
Month by month
| Month | High °C | Low °C | Precip mm | Wet days |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| January | 27 | 23 | 61 | 11.9 |
| February | 28 | 24 | 98 | 16.3 |
| March | 28 | 24 | 134 | 16.8 |
| April | 27 | 24 | 104 | 15.3 |
| May | 27 | 23 | 54 | 10.7 |
| June | 26 | 22 | 17 | 5.5 |
| July | 25 | 21 | 11 | 3.4 |
| August | 24 | 20 | 11 | 1.7 |
| September | 24 | 20 | 7 | 1.3 |
| October | 24 | 20 | 7 | 1.3 |
| November | 25 | 21 | 13 | 1.9 |
| December | 26 | 22 | 26 | 5.2 |
Ticked rows are months where every hard requirement for a beach trip is met across at least half the month.
By trip type
| Beach | May to December |
| Hiking | August to September |
Each row applies that trip type's own hard limits to the same climate data.
Open Galápagos Islands on the map →
Nearby regions
Figures are 30-year climatology sampled at Puerto Ayora, Puerto Baquerizo Moreno, Puerto Villamil and Santa Cruz highlands, averaged across those locations, from ERA5-Land reanalysis fitted with a harmonic seasonal cycle and a trend term, evaluated for 2026. Sampling named towns rather than averaging the whole region avoids blending valley and mountain conditions into a figure true of neither. Cells are about 0.08° wide, from ERA5-Land's 0.1° grid, which is itself driven by a 0.25° (~28 km) atmospheric reanalysis — so individual valleys, sheltered bays and single summits are not resolved. In steep terrain read these as conditions for the wider area rather than for one village. They describe typical conditions, not a forecast. Read how the climatology is built.