Would you like to visit the Falkland Islands but not sure where to go? Get inspired with this 1 week Falklands itinerary, covering Stanley and three of the smaller islands!
If you’ve landed on this page, chances are you’ll already be familiar with where the Falklands are, and with the fact they’re not a destination you can just decide to visit on a whim.
The Falklands are wild, windswept, remote. If you like silence, wildlife and being alone in nature, they are the place for you. They are not a budget destination, and unless you’re visiting on a cruise ship, you’ll have to start planning your journey there at least a year in advance – we have a giant guide titled “How to Visit The Falkland Islands”, covering all the practical info you need to know.
Once you’re familiar with flights to and around the Falklands, when to visit, the Internet situation and the difference between Stanley and “Camp”, you’ll probably want to start planning your itinerary.
Most people visit the Falklands for either 1 or 2 weeks. Here I’ve highlighted the itinerary I followed during my 7 days in the Falklands – if you are one of those lucky people that can spend 2 weeks there, you can leave the itinerary as is, and just spend more nights in each place.
Getting to the Falklands
First things first – 1 week in the Falklands doesn’t mean you’ll be away from home for exactly one week. You need to allow about 11/12 days, as travelling to and from the archipelago takes at least 2 days from Europe/North America.
There are two options to fly to the Falklands – the bi-weekly RAF Airbridge flights from Brize Norton base in Oxfordshire, which are really only convenient for UK travellers, and LATAM flights from Santiago del Chile (SCL) every Saturday.
The LATAM flights depart early in the morning from SCL, and return late at night, so you’ll have to stay in Santiago at least one night before, and one night after your week in the Falklands. The Holiday Inn hotel at the airport is very good and convenient!
Day 1 – Arrive in Stanley
I flew LATAM from Santiago del Chile, and landed at Mount Pleasant airport at 1 PM. We recommend booking your airport transfer with Penguin Travel (£22 per person) – they’ll drive you directly to your Stanley hotel.
It takes a while to clear immigration at Mount Pleasant, and about an hour to get to Stanley from the airport, so by the time you’ve checked into your hotel it will probably be about 4 PM – too late to visit the Historic Dockyard Museum, closing at 5.
What you can do instead is taking a self-guided walking tour around Stanley. At your hotel you’ll find leaflets with maps for three different tours – you’ll need those maps because you’ll probably have no data on your phone!
I opted for the Central Stanley & Sapper Hill itinerary, including a walk down the waterfront and up the hill to the whalebone display, set up by local anti-whaling campaigners to show the magnificence of cetaceans. Then, the walk continued up Sapper Hill, where you can get great views over Stanley and anso see a wartime memorial.
Stay in Stanley – Malvina House Hotel or The Waterfront Hotel
Day 2 – Carcass Island
Today you’ll be leaving East Falkland to get to Carcass, the first small island included in this 1-week Falkland itinerary. Domestic flights around the Falklands are operated by FIGAS, a local “flying taxi” service.
Flight times with FIGAS are only communicated the day before – planes usually take off between mid-morning and early afternoon, so you might have some time to wander around Stanley. I had a few hours and followed the Historic Stanley itinerary, which took me to see a couple of wrecks, war memorials, and the statue dedicated to Margaret Thatcher.
After a scenic flight, you’ll reach Carcass Island. There are three main points of interest on Carcass – a beach with elephant seals not far from the airstrip, a cormorant colony on the east side of the island, and Leopard Beach in the south, with a few Gentoo penguin colonies, plus Magellanic penguins and lots of other birds.
I recommend spending your afternoon in Carcass to hiking to Leopard Island and back. The hike is approximately 4 km/1 hour each way, but it will take you much longer as you’ll be stopping to take pictures of penguins, geese and songbirds, as well as of the beautiful landscapes. Carcass is quite hilly compared to other islands in this itinerary – that makes the hiking harder, but you’ll be rewarded with views!
Once you get to Leopard Beach, my advice is just to sit down with your camera and just watch the penguins. Watch them come in and out of the water, feed their babies, engage in courting behaviours, or just observe their interactions.
Don’t forget to be back at the lodge in time for dinner, and if you want more wildlife-watching in the evening, the small beach by the lodge attracts many penguins and seabirds.
Stay on Carcass Island
Day 3 – Bleaker Island
I only spent one night on Carcass Island, and left late the following morning to head to Bleaker Island, where I landed in the early afternoon as I had to connect flights in Stanley.
Bleaker Island was my favourite destination in the Falklands, and I can’t recommend it enough. The lodge was wonderful, the food was the best I’ve had during my 7 days in the archipelago, and there were so many interesting things to see without having to venture far from the lodge.
If you are short on time, you can ask the lodge manager to take you on a jeep tour around all the main points of interest, or you can just walk around by yourself. With one day, you’ll have enough time to visit the area between the landing strip and the lodge, about 2.5 km from one another.
Start on Sandy Beach, just north of the landing strip, a beautiful white beach home to 2000 breeding Gentoo pairs, and even some odd King penguins every so often.
Then, head back towards the lodge following the coast, until you reach a gate with a sign saying “Rockhoppers”. Walk across the tussac grass following the rocks marking the path, until you get to a Rockhopper penguin colony, one of the largest in the Falklands with over 700 breeding pairs. Keep your eyes open as you may spot some Macaroni penguins, easy to distinguish from Rockhoppers thanks to their shiny orange crest.
Spend as much time as you want with the Rockhoppers, then continue heading towards the lodge – 200 meters away from it you’ll find a huge Imperial cormorant colony, measuring about 8000 pairs. Try visiting as close as sunset as possible, when all the birds return and you can see the colony in all its magnificence!
The following morning, before your flight out of Bleaker, I recommend taking a thermos of coffee to the Rockhopper colony and spending some more time there. I got to sit down with the colony for over one hour, and the penguins got so used to me they almost jumped on my lap!
Stay on Bleaker Island
Day 4/5 – Sea Lion Island
The following destination is Sea Lion Island, only a quick 10 minute flight from Bleaker. The airstrip is right opposite the lodge, which feels larger and more like a “hotel” compared to the homey lodges on Bleaker and Carcass.
There’s also a big difference between Sea Lion and all the other smaller islands in the Falklands – there is no cattle or sheep farm on Sea Lion, no dogs, cats or rats (meaning lots of ground-dwelling birds!) and the entire island is run as a nature reserve. It’s popular with wildlife photographers, who visit the island for weeks on end, because it’s literally FULL of photo opportunities anywhere you go!
Sea Lion Island only measures about 5 km from one end to the other, and walking around is very easy since the lodge is located at the centre of the island. If, like me, you are spending two nights on the island, I recommend dedicating one day to the north and one day to the south.
Let’s start with the northern end of the island. Right outside the lodge you’ll find directions for North and South Beach – the way to the former takes you through several Gentoo colony, Magellanic penguin burrows and a couple of ponds visited by waterfowl; whereas South Beach is home to an elephant seal colony, and there’s also a shallow bay where killer whales are often spotted between November and February.
On the southern part of the island you can see a Rockhopper colony near a wartime memorial (once again, keep your eyes spotted for Macaroni penguins!), an imperial cormorant colony, and a group of sea lions which can be seen playing and sleeping at the bottom of a cliff. If you make it to the far end of the island, there are also some wonderful cliff views.
Spending two full days on a tiny island sounds like a lot, but to be honest, time flies once you’re sitting with animals and observing their behaviour. Or maybe I should say time doesn’t fly – you lose the concept of time, and revert back to the rhythms of nature.
Stay on Sea Lion Island Lodge
Day 6 – Back to Stanley
I warmly suggest spending your last two nights in Stanley. Yes, I understand you may be tempted to stay on the smaller islands until it’s time for your flight out of the Falklands, but remember that FIGAS flights are often delayed or cancelled, so you want that extra night as a buffer!
Depending on when your flight back to Stanley is, you’ll have a few hours to spend in the capital on day 6. If you land early enough, you could visit the Historic Dockyard Museum, with exhibits about life in the archipelago throughout the centuries – it’s right in the centre of Stanley and closes at 4 PM every day during the week, 5 PM on Saturday and Sunday.
Alternatively, you could take a tour to Yorke Bay and Gypsy Cove, two stunning white-sand beaches, and to the historic Cape Pembroke lighthouse. All these locations are a very short drive from the Stanley airport, so you can easily visit them on your way between Stanley Airport and the city. You can get in touch with taxi providers such as Stanley Cabs or Letty Tours, who also double as tour guides.
Another option is walking down the waterfront on a self-guided “wreck tour”. Stanley harbour is the largest ship graveyard in the world, with the remains of over twenty 19th-century ships that got damaged while trying to round Cape Horn. There’s a walking itinerary with plaques illustrating some of these wrecks – it ends in front of Lady Elizabeth, the best preserved wreck.
Stay in Stanley – Malvina House Hotel or The Waterfront Hotel
Day 7 – Day Trip from Stanley
If everything goes according to plan (and remember, in the Falklands that’s a big IF) you’ll have a full day in Stanley today.
It’s the perfect opportunity for a day trip – most other travellers decided to go to Volunteer Point, home to the largest King penguin colony in the Falklands, with over 2000 breeding pairs. At the moment, it takes about 3 hours drive each way to get there from Stanley, so on a day tour you’ll spend around 6 hours driving and 2 hours with the penguins.
Volunteer Point is the premier wildlife destination in the Falklands, and it’s necessary to book your tour as far in advance as possible. You can get in touch with Carrot’s Tours, Jimmy Curtis Touring or Estancia Excursions – if they are busy, they may be able to recommend alternatives.
I opted for something different and went on a day trip to an area called the Murrell with Adrian, a long time Falkland resident, farmer and owner of Kidney Cove Tours. Adrian started guiding visitors over 20 years ago, because his property offers something very special – you can see all penguin species on a single tour!
We started with a Rockhopper colony, located right next to a cabin where you can also spend the night. Then, we drove to a colony of Gentoo and Magellanic penguins on a beach, and then a little further we visited the star attraction of the day – a King penguin colony measuring about 80 pairs, making it the second largest in the archipelago.
However, the nicest thing about this tour was spending time with Adrian, and learning more about life in the Falklands from the perspective of a local. For some reason, we always ended up talking about food!
Stay in Stanley – Malvina House Hotel or The Waterfront Hotel
Day 8 – Fly back to Chile
If you’re on the LATAM flight, you’ll have to leave Stanley at about 8.30 AM to head to Mount Pleasant airport. Once again, get in touch with Penguin Travel to arrange your transfer.
You’ll get to the airpott around 9/9.30 AM, which may sound incredibly early considering the LATAM flight departs at 2 PM, but everything is slower at Mount Pleasant – it’s a tiny airport and computers are very slow so you’ll need that extra time.
Your LATAM flight will land in Punta Arenas, where you’ll have to disembark, clear immigration, collect your luggage and check it back in (if you have checked luggage) before going again through security and boarding – all in about 1 hour and a half, so get moving already!
If everything goes according to plan, you’ll be landing in Santiago at about 9 PM. Don’t book your flight back that same night, as delays often happen!
1 Week Falkland Itinerary Recap
My 7-day Falkland Islands itinerary was divided as follows:
- Arrival and 1 night in Stanley (Saturday)
- 1 night on Carcass Island (Sunday)
- 1 night on Bleaker Island (Monday)
- 2 nights on Carcass Island (Tuesday/Wednesday)
- 2 nights in Stanley (Thursday/Friday)
- Departure (Saturday)
It gave me the opportunity to spend time both in Stanley and on three smaller islands – Carcass, Bleaker and Sea Lion. In hindsight, it would have been more enjoyable to visit just two islands and spend two nights – trouble is, I loved all three and would not be able to choose!
So, I’ll leave it up to you. Here’s a very quick recap of what’s special about each island:
- Carcass Island: hilly landscapes, great hike to Leopard Beach, home atmosphere at lodge.
- Bleaker Island: wonderful rockhopper colony, stunning views at Sandy Beach, excellent lodge.
- Sea Lion Island: best for elephant seals, walkable island, lots of wildlife-watching opportunities.