
In Ecuador, the Frugal Traveler Tries Luxury - martgnz
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/02/07/travel/ecuador-budget-travel.html
======
grecy
Ecuador is an amazing country - while driving south I thought I would only
spend a month or so, I wound up spending 5.

In my opinion it's like 3 countries/climates glued together - you can be on
the Pacific getting sunburned at 100F+ for the morning, drive a few hours up
into the high Andes and climb a 20,000 foot glacier capped volcano, then drive
a few more hours and drop down into the amazon to watch monkeys swing through
the trees.

I climbed 20,000 foot Cotopaxi - [http://theroadchoseme.com/cotopaxi-
summit](http://theroadchoseme.com/cotopaxi-summit)

Then lived in it's shadow for months - [http://theroadchoseme.com/down-
time](http://theroadchoseme.com/down-time)

It's a supremely beautiful country, and the people are very friendly. Highly
recommend.

~~~
cageface
What's network access like there? Is wifi widely available?

~~~
jandrese
Ecuador is surprisingly well built up. It was definitely my biggest surprise
when traveling South America. People who know it mostly from the economic
collapse around the turn of the century will be surprised at how much progress
they have made.

As an added bonus for US travelers, they use the US dollar as their primary
currency. No obnoxious money exchanges to deal with! The only thing to watch
out for is change, because Ecuador mints some of their own "dollars" that
obviously won't be worth anything in the US.

~~~
aaren
Is it easy to change the local 'dollars' for true US dollars? Is it 1:1 or are
they less valuable?

~~~
jandrese
I don't know, I avoided them entirely except for a bit of change I kept as a
souvenir.

One of the biggest surprises: Walking up to an ATM and withdrawing US cash
with no fees at all. Not even the bullshit "you're not a member of our bank,
so we'll charge you an extra dollar".

------
paulsutter
And don't forget the Ecuadorean kidnapping industry. I know a guy who was
kidnapped four times (his family owns a banana plantation in Ecuador)

A friend of mine knows a guy in Columbia with no fingernails. He was kidnapped
for 18 months, they wanted him to reveal the real owner of some land where his
name was on the title. They removed his fingernails one by one.

That puts a bit of a damper on my own enthusiasm for South America. An uber
driver from Brazil once asked me how I liked Brazil and I said "it was fun to
visit, but what about all the kidnappings?"

And he said "Oh, so you know what's going on"

Yeah I do. Really it's not a region to visit carelessly.

(I travel a lot, I'm in India now)

~~~
saint_fiasco
If you are just a tourist who does not own the title to a banana plantation or
anything like that, are you still at risk?

~~~
ajosh
My experience is that you don't. Ecuador is a lot of fun.

That said, you should always be careful. In Ecuador, particularly in
Guayaquil, be careful what taxi you take. Make sure it has a meter, and if
possible use a radio dispatched taxi (i.e. call). Beyond that, it's like most
places you're likley to visit: Stay away from "bad" areas late at night, be
aware of your surroundings, etc.

------
Arubis
From the bottom of the article:

>Seth Kugel has written the Frugal Traveler column since June 2010. This is
his last column. His successor, Lucas Peterson, will start later this month.

Based on the author's experiences and appreciation for integrating into
developing culture over being coddled, I can only hope for him that he's
leaving to join the Peace Corps or similar.

~~~
peter303
I wonder why they changed writers. I wonder if Seth got expenses paid by
employer.

~~~
matt_morgan
I don't know about this specific circumstance, but travel writers I've known
got free trips from the tourist agencies, resorts, etc. in the countries they
visit. Disclosure is not typical.

------
gyardley
Aside from Ecuador being awesome (which it is), here's the takeaway, buried at
the end of the article:

 _But perhaps I simply never learned to travel luxuriously._

It's absolutely possible to get the novelty he's after while living well, but
it's not the sort of thing you can switch on or off. Getting comfortable with
affluence is a process.

~~~
ASpring
>It's absolutely possible to get the novelty he's after while living well

Can you expand on this? I don't necessarily disagree but as a frugal
traveler(bike tourer) I can't begin to imagine how I'd have similarly novel
experiences traveling affluently.

~~~
shkkmo
My personal approach to this balance is to stay in hostels/home-stays and use
standard local transportation, but still go to expensive
restaurants/shows/tours on occasion.

