Trying to live off a tight budget in Ecuador might not be an easy task for the casual backpacker but with a bit of research and careful spending, travelling around the country can be cheap. Even though Ecuador is mostly known for the Galapagos Islands (budget at least 100€+/day per person there) and have embraced the USD currency in the past, the country’s mainland is still full of options to see it “on-the-cheap”.
At first, the prices for accomodation can be taunting (especially for those coming in from Colombia) but the relatively cheap food and the practically gifted transport are great to balance your budget. As usual, the closest you’ll be to important tourist destinations, the higher the prices will be for everything whether be it food, accomodation or activities.
Here follows a collection of our budget experience during our one-month roadtrip throughout Ecuador. We tried putting together a comprehensive guide to help you organize your trip from the start. Just choose your budget and go with it!
1# Accomodation Cost
In terms of accomodation, Ecuador is not quite the right country for budget travellers. In most places there’s not much choice and even in local places is not easy to stay under the 20$ mark for a double room.
On our trip, we stayed in the whole range of accommodations, from local hostels to high-end hotels (this mostly on the Quilotoa Loop where we had no choice).
If you’re travelling on a couple, expect to spend at least 16$ in certain very famous destinations where there are a lot of options (e.g. Quito, Cuenca or Baños) but in smaller destinations such as Ibarra, Puerto Lopez or Vilcabamba expect to spend minimum 20$, if you’re lucky.
The most expensive hostels you can find in Ecuador are on the Quilotoa Loop. Here, due to the low options and the fact that breakfast and dinner is usually included (not an excuse though!) it’s hard to spend less than 35$, even sleeping in dorms can cost you 20$/bed!
2# Food & Eating Out
The second thing where most of our budget ended up was food. But this it doesn’t mean it was expensive, in fact we spent less than Colombia!
When eating around in this country the gap between touristy places and local ones is clearly a big one. Eating in local comedores the usual menu is rarely above the 3$ mark but should you wish to get something different at an international place, cheap dishes are usually 7-10$.
Street food like anticuchos (a.k.a. meat skewers) are usually 1$ and many other snacks can be found for as little as 0.5$. Water is usually quite cheap as well and even big bottles are always around 0.5$ max.
Funnily enough, buying at supermarkets (due to them being international ones or for high-end costumers) comes usually more expensive than eating out. If you’re buying the basics such as pasta, shampoo or meat that’s fine but make sure to head to the market if you wanna buy veggies, fruit and bread.
As last, around the country there are many Chifa Restaurants (chinese food) which are slightly expensive (≈5$/plate) but serve huge portions. A good option if you want to share or are very hungry!
3# Transport & moving around
Similarly to other south american countries, Ecuador has a well-developed and widespread bus system connecting most of the place.
Apart from being nearly “deluxe”, buses are also pretty cheap. On inter-provincial buses (city-to-city) expect to pay around 1$/hour of travel. Even by using high-end bus companies you’ll never go over the 2$/hour of travel.
City buses in major cities and the Capital, Quito, are also incredibly cheap. A single fare is always between 0.2$ to 0.5$ if you’re heading just outside the city outskirts.
Compared to other countries, taxi are slightly more expensive ranging from 2$ (5-10min short rides) to 5$ (15min rides). Truth to be said, very rarely we had to use taxis during our trip.
In some places, usually small cities, taxis can be substituted by tuk-tuks for short rides; these are cheaper but you gotta be good at negotiating cause sometimes they’ll try to pull off a “tourist-ride”.
4# Tours & Day-Trips
In Ecuador, pretty much any activity you can think of can and will be included in a tour by a tour agency. That said, you’ll be happy to know that during our trip there was only one thing we wanted to visit that needed to be done through a tour agency: Silver Island.
Full Day – Silver Island Tour (snorkelling + whale watching) -> 40$/pp
Half Day – Whale Watching Tour -> 20$
Final Thoughts
Overall, this country seemed to us a little more expensive than what we were expecting. If in Colombia we did gift ourselves some nice backpacking “luxury” moments, here in Ecuador we really did just the necessary and still spent more than Colombia. Though, one way to make your trip to Ecuador cheaper is to stay longer in places and don’t trust booking.com for the hostel/hotel prices (usually exclude a crazy 21% additional tax).
The final budget for Ecuador was around 45.07$/day for the both of us and it was broken down into the following:
Accomodation – 18.06$ (15.30€)
Food & Eating out – 13.94$ (11.81€)
Transport & Moving Around – 7.24$ (6.14€)
Tours & Day Trips – 5.33$ (4.52€)
Extras – 0.50$ (0.42€)
TOTAL – 45.07 (38.20€)
PLANNING A TRIP TO ECUADOR? CHECK MORE GUIDES BELOW!
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