Volunteer Point or a Penguin Tour Near Stanley: Which Falkland Islands Day Fits You

Every choice below starts at the Jetty Visitor Centre, where your tender lands, and ends back there before all aboard. What you are choosing is how far you go, which penguins you meet and how long you spend away from your ship. You can check each fare against the full list of Falkland Islands shore excursions as you read.

What are you choosing between?

Three kinds of day leave the jetty. The first stays on the Cape Pembroke peninsula, 6.5 km from town, where Gypsy Cove and Yorke Bay hold Magellanic penguins and gentoos. The second heads out to Fitzroy Farm, near Mount Pleasant Airport, for the gentoos at the white-sand beaches or the elephant seals at Kelp Point. The third drives north to Volunteer Point, the largest king penguin colony in the islands.

The penguins you see follow from where you go. So do the hours and the price. You do not need to know the islands to choose well. You need your ship's arrival time, your all-aboard time and a clear idea of which bird you came to see.

How long does each choice keep you away from the ship?

Here is every destination side by side, with the hours you are away, the species you can expect, the fare and the refund terms.

Read the hours column first. A fare you can afford is no use if it brings you back after the last tender. Then read the species column, because only one row has kings in it.

Why is Volunteer Point the king colony?

Volunteer Point sits in the northeast of East Falkland, on Johnson's Harbour Farm. It is a privately owned nature reserve and an Important Bird Area, with king, gentoo and Magellanic colonies side by side. The king colony is the largest in the islands. It also lies at the northern edge of the species' range.

Kings live there all year. The tourist board puts the colony's output at around 500 to 700 chicks a year. You will not find one agreed count of breeding pairs, because the sources differ. What you will find is a ring of white rocks around the colony. It marks the distance Falklands Conservation asks you to keep, and you watch from behind it.

The beaches near Stanley and on Fitzroy Farm are gentoo and Magellanic sites, not king colonies. If you picture a king penguin when you picture the Falklands, this is where you go.

What the Volunteer Point day involves

The 4x4 leaves the jetty an hour after your ship arrives, and that hour of waiting is built into the fare. Look for the yellow jackets and yellow signs outside the visitor centre. Each vehicle carries four passengers and a driver, so if you travel alone or as a pair you share it.

The day runs six hours twenty. Two of those hours are at the point, and lunch is included, as is the landowner's access charge. The rest is driving. The last part of the journey leaves the road and crosses farmland. By one January traveller's account the drive took about two hours each way, the last hour of it across open fields and bog.

The ride is bumpy, and the tour is not advised in pregnancy. Another traveller called the off-road section an experience rather than an ordeal, because the vehicles are built for it. If a rough track worries you, the beaches near Stanley are the gentler choice.

Which days can you visit Volunteer Point?

The landowner publishes visiting hours for 1 September 2026 to 31 March 2027: Mondays and Thursday to Sunday, 10:00 to 15:00. Tuesdays and Wednesdays are listed as closed. The same official page also carries the line "open at all times" for 2026.

Those two lines do not agree, so do not rely on either alone. Before you book, give the operator your ship's name and your call date. Ask them to confirm the point is open that day. If your ship calls on a Tuesday or a Wednesday, ask first and pay second.

What will you see near Stanley?

Gypsy Cove is 6.5 km from Stanley, and the tourist board calls it the most accessible wildlife site from the capital. It is part of the Cape Pembroke peninsula National Nature Reserve, and it is open at all times. Magellanic penguins nest there in burrows. You may also see night herons, oystercatchers, steamer ducks and geese, and now and then a sea lion.

Yorke Bay, next door, is where the gentoos come ashore. The two beaches were the last in the islands to be cleared of mines, before the Falklands were declared mine-free in November 2020. Today you can walk their sand with a guide or on your own.

Magellanic penguins are summer residents, so you see them on a summer call. The tourist board says the early evening is the best time to watch them. Gentoos are there all year.

The short tours: one hour to two hours forty

The shortest option costs $40 and takes an hour. You stop at the Lady Elizabeth wreck and a totem pole, then spend thirty-five minutes at a gentoo colony. Groups cap at twelve, and the colony's admission fee is in the fare.

For $137, the shared shore tour gives you forty minutes at Yorke Bay, ten at the wreck and half an hour above the burrows at Gypsy Cove. It passes the Whalebone Arch on the way and runs two hours forty, with fifteen people at most. The wildlife and town tour at $133 gives Gypsy Cove a full hour and adds half an hour in Stanley.

Any of these leaves you hours in town. That matters if your call is short, or if you want the museum and the cathedral as well as the birds.

Where does Bertha's Beach fit?

Bertha's Beach is on Fitzroy Farm, about an hour's drive from Stanley, near the airport. It is an Important Bird Area and a Ramsar site. Gentoos and Magellanic penguins nest there, with South American terns and the flightless steamer duck found only in the Falklands. Commerson's and Peale's dolphins are often seen offshore.

It is private land, and the landowner charges for access. Every tour that goes there carries the charge in its fare. The private Bertha's Beach day gives you two hours on the sand with your party alone, plus hot drinks and snacks in the vehicle, for $410. The day takes four to five hours.

Kelp Point, on the same farm, is the elephant seal choice. The tourist board says it is also called Whale Point, for the whale bones on its beach. Those days run four to six and a half hours by 4x4, and your lunch is included.

Is Volunteer Point worth the extra hours?

For most people who came for kings, yes. One February traveller at the colony found that friends on other penguin tours had needed binoculars, while they stood among thousands of birds. A March traveller on the shared tour near Stanley put the other side plainly. The operator could not have done more. But if the kings are why you came, they said, you should spend the money on Volunteer Point.

The cost is time as much as money. At $398, the fare is close to a private day at Bertha's Beach. The difference is six hours twenty away and a four-day refund notice. If your ship gives you both the time and the certainty, the kings are worth it. If it does not, you lose nothing by choosing a beach near town.

How does your port call decide it?

• Under four hours ashore: the one-hour gentoo tour, or a shared tour to Yorke Bay and Gypsy Cove.
• Five to six hours: a farm-beach day at Bertha's Beach, or a shared tour followed by the town.
• Eight hours or more: Volunteer Point. The 4x4 leaves an hour after your ship docks and the day runs six hours twenty, so count well over seven hours before you are back at the jetty.

Add the tender at both ends. Ask your ship when the last tender leaves, not just when all aboard is. Then pick the longest day that still leaves you a margin.

What if the weather changes the day?

Stanley is windy, and the wind decides whether the tenders run. When they stop, nobody lands and no tour runs. Several operators also keep the right to cancel for weather.

Give every operator your ship's name and times when you book. A late tender can make a fixed start impossible, and an operator who knows your ship can plan for it.

Which one should you pick?

You can start with the Volunteer Point day, the shared tour to Yorke Bay and Gypsy Cove or the private Bertha's Beach day. Every other fare is compared on Falkland Islands Tours.

Frequently asked questions

The kings, the town beaches or the farm beach

Volunteer Point in Falkland Islands

The king colony at Volunteer Point by 4x4, two hours with the kings, lunch included.

From $398 per person

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Falkland Islands Shared Tour Sightseeing with Penguins

Yorke Bay's gentoos and Gypsy Cove's Magellanic burrows in two hours forty.

From $137 per person

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Bertha’s Beach & Beyond - Your Falklands, Your Way!

Two hours with the gentoos at Bertha's Beach, private, the access charge included.

From $410 per person

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