Montecristo island visits: bookings open for 2026 season

Bookings for guided visits to Isola di Montecristo, one of the most strictly protected islands in the Mediterranean, will open on Monday 9 February at 9 a.m. for the 2026 season. The announcement was made by the Parco Nazionale Arcipelago Toscano, which manages access to the island.

A total of 23 visit dates are scheduled, starting on 21 March and ending on Sunday 20 September 2026. Each visit is limited to a maximum of 75 participants, for a total of 1,725 available places. Reservations are nominative, must be made online, and require immediate payment.

How the visits work

All excursions are organised directly by the national park authority, with operational support from the Carabinieri Biodiversità. Most departures will be from Piombino Marittima, with a stop at Porto Azzurro on Elba. On two dates only — 22 May and 12 June — departures and returns will instead take place from Porto Santo Stefano, with a stop at Giglio island.

To encourage participation by people living in the Tuscan Archipelago, 100 reduced-price tickets are reserved for residents of the archipelago’s island municipalities. These tickets can be booked online until Monday 2 March.

Two special excursions are also planned for experienced hikers, allowing access to the Monte della Fortezza, the island’s highest point at 645 metres. These more demanding routes will take place on 11 April and 6 September and are limited to 12 participants per date.

Monk seal detected in Montecristo waters

The start of bookings coincides with important scientific news about Montecristo’s marine environment. The park authority has confirmed the presence of the Mediterranean monk seal, one of the rarest and most endangered marine mammals in the Mediterranean.

The confirmation comes from the analysis of underwater acoustic recordings collected in 2020 as part of a monitoring campaign carried out with the CIBRA – Centro Interdisciplinare di Bioacustica at the Università di Pavia. While the recordings were originally intended to monitor dolphins, a later re-analysis identified distinctive vocalisations attributed with certainty to a monk seal.

According to the park authority, this is the first confirmed acoustic recording of a Mediterranean monk seal in Italian waters. The finding is considered significant both scientifically and historically: the protection of the monk seal was one of the reasons behind the establishment of a biological protection zone around Montecristo in the late 1970s. Sightings in the Tuscan Archipelago remain extremely rare.

Further acoustic monitoring is ongoing in the protected waters around Capraia, with researchers hoping to gather additional data on cetaceans and potentially confirm further monk seal activity in the area.

Practical information

Bookings will be available from 9 a.m. on Monday 9 February through the official website of the Parco Nazionale Arcipelago Toscano. Given the very limited number of places and the island’s strict access rules, visitors are advised to plan well in advance.

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