Floreana Island

Ecuador, Ecuador

---

Floreana Island, also known as Santa Maria, sits in the southern part of Ecuador's Galápagos archipelago, covering 173 square kilometers with a highest point of 640 meters at Cerro Pajas volcano.

One of the chain's smaller, inhabited islands with around 100 residents, it boasts unique sites like the green olivine sand beach and white flour beach at Punta Cormorant, a flamingo lagoon, and the famous Post Office Bay barrel for visitor mail traditions.

Renowned for its dramatic history of pirates, whalers, and the mysterious Galápagos Affair involving disappearances in the 1930s, Floreana offers snorkeling at Devil's Crown, a submerged volcanic crater teeming with sea lions, turtles, sharks, and rays, plus endemic species like the Floreana mockingbird, blue-footed boobies, and giant tortoises.​