Quito

The currency has been the US dollar since January 2000, which does away with exchange but creates a practical problem: almost nobody breaks US$50 or US$100 bills, and many shops refuse even a 20 in the morning. Arrive with small bills and keep 25- and 50-cent coins, including Ecuadorian ones, which circulate alongside American coins. Price ranges in 2026: almuerzo, the set menu of soup, main, juice and dessert served Monday to Friday, US$3–5; coffee in a café, US$1.50–3; dinner at a mid-range restaurant, US$12–25; beer, US$2–4; a hostel dorm bed, US$10–16; a mid-range hotel, US$45–90 a night. Restaurant bills usually come with 15% VAT (the rate went up from 12% to 15% in April 2024) and a 10% service charge already added. An extra tip is optional and not expected in simple places. Cards work in hotels, formal restaurants and supermarkets, but markets, taxis, stalls and buses take cash only. ATMs usually charge US$2–5 per withdrawal and cap withdrawals at US$200–500.

Mariscal Sucre Airport, 38 km away in Tababela

Mariscal Sucre International Airport (UIO) is in Tababela, about 38 km east of the north-central area. The ride takes 45 to 70 minutes along the Ruta Viva, longer at rush hour. An official taxi costs around US$26–35 to the north-central area and US$30–40 to the historic center. Uber, Cabify, DiDi and InDrive operate in the city and pick up at a signposted point at the airport (approximate prices, 2026). The Aeroservicios bus links the terminal to Parque Bicentenario, at the old airport, for about US$8, and there's a cheaper public route from Río Coca station. There's a physiological detail almost nobody anticipates: the airport sits at 2,400 m, about 450 m below the city, so the drive up is your first real exposure to the altitude. Don't plan anything demanding for the next few hours.

The metro covers 22 km in 34 minutes

Within the city, Metro Line 1 covers the 22 km north–south axis in 15 stations, from Quitumbe to El Labrador, in about 34 minutes, for US$0.45. The dedicated bus corridors (the Trolebús, from 1995, the Ecovía and the Corredor Central Norte) charge US$0.35, the same fare as regular buses. Since April 2026 a single card, the Cuenta Ciudad, works on all three systems, though with different fares. Yellow taxis with a meter and a registration sticker are the safe option outside the apps: a short ride costs US$2–4, and I wouldn't get into a taxi without a visible unit number. The historic center is easy to walk, but it's all hills at 2,850 m, and short distances are more tiring than they look, because the altitude weighs more than the number of blocks. On Sundays, from 8am to 2pm, the Ciclopaseo closes about 30 km of avenues, including Amazonas, to cars and opens them to bikes.

Quito is much calmer than the cities on Ecuador's coast, where the country's security crisis is concentrated. In the capital, the real risk is street theft, higher than it was ten years ago and concentrated where there are tourists and few people around. Don't walk up to El Panecillo, whose access stairways have a history of muggings; go by taxi or tourist bus. The historic center empties out after 6pm, so at night leave La Ronda by ride-hailing app or by yellow taxi with a visible unit number. On crowded buses and the metro, wear your backpack in front and keep your phone out of your back pocket. In any emergency, call 911.

Greet before anything else

A “buenos días” or “buenas” when entering a shop, elevator, bus or office is mandatory; getting straight to the point is read as rudeness. Between women, and between a man and a woman, the social greeting is a kiss on the right cheek; between men, a handshake.

Use “usted” by default

In the Ecuadorian highlands “usted” is the normal form even between friends, colleagues, and parents and children. Switching to “tú” without an invitation sounds forward; let the other person switch first.

Ask with the diminutive

“Un ratito,” “un cafecito,” “ahorita.” In Quito, the diminutive makes a request sound more polite. At a restaurant, asking for the check is “¿me regala la cuenta?” and a vendor says “le regalo” to mean “I'll sell it to you.”

Treat “ya mismo” as a range

“Ya mismo” means “right away” and can mean five minutes or an hour; “mañana” sometimes means “not today.” Confirm times with explicit numbers when it matters.

Ask permission before photographing people

Ask permission before photographing market vendors and, above all, Indigenous people in Quito and Otavalo. A “¿le puedo tomar una foto?” does it; photographing from afar without asking is a common tourist offense.

Respect church rules

Covered shoulders and hat in hand; La Compañía de Jesús bans photography inside and several other churches ban flash. During mass, sightseeing should wait. The churches downtown are working parishes, not just monuments.

Climbing high on arrival day

Arriving in the morning and riding the TelefériQo or attempting Rucu Pichincha the same day. At 2,850 m, the city already floors people coming from sea level. Keep a slow pace for the first 24 to 48 hours, drink water, eat light and save the effort for later.

“Summer” here means the dry season

Trusting the calendar and not the sky. “Summer” here is the dry season, not heat: even in July the day starts at 10 °C, warms to 21 °C by noon and drops back to 10 °C by 7pm. Going out without a jacket and without an umbrella is a mistake in every season, common even by the second afternoon of a trip.

Underestimating the equator sun

Underestimating the sun. Here it burns without feeling strong, so treat sunscreen, a hat and sunglasses as travel gear.

Few places break a US$50 or US$100 bill

Arriving with US$50 and $100 bills. Bakeries, taxis, markets and buses have no change for them. For small purchases, keep small bills and 25- and 50-cent coins on hand.

The last digit of the plate decides your schedule

Renting a car and ignoring “pico y placa.” Plates with certain final digits are banned from driving from 6am to 9:30am and 4pm to 7:30pm on weekdays, by city zone, and the fine falls on the driver, not the rental company.

Buenas, ¿me da un almuerzo?

the fixed midday menu, with soup, main course and juice for a few dollars.

Achachay

How cold! A Kichwa word used by everyone; the opposite, for what burns, is “arrarray”

Ya mismo

Right away: can mean five minutes or an hour, and the difference is rarely explained

¿Cuánto cuesta la carrera?

How much is the ride? Ask before getting into any taxi without the meter running

Estoy con chuchaqui

I'm hungover: another Kichwa word, said with no embarrassment at all

Dale nomás

Go ahead, no problem: “nomás” is the universal softener of Ecuadorian Spanish

The long basin and the single axis

Quito sits in an elongated basin about 50 km from north to south and 4 to 8 km wide, which explains everything in the city: traffic, transport and addresses run along a single north–south axis, and cross streets last only a few blocks.

The volcano walls and the ravines

To the west, the Pichincha massif closes off the valley like a wall: Rucu Pichincha stands 4,698 m and the active Guagua Pichincha, 4,784 m; to the east, the land drops away into the valleys of Cumbayá, Tumbaco and Los Chillos, between 2,200 and 2,500 m, linked to the upper city by the Ruta Viva and Av. Simón Bolívar. The ground is cut by deep ravines, many filled in since colonial times, and the subsoil is volcanic ash: together they produce landslides and mudflows during heavy rain. On clear days you can see Cotopaxi (5,897 m), Antisana (5,704 m) and Cayambe (5,790 m) from the city, the last of these being the only snow-covered point on Earth that sits exactly on the equator.

Spring climate and the city's expansion

The altitude and zero latitude create a permanent-spring climate with daily temperature swings larger than the annual ones, and ultraviolet radiation that routinely tops 11 on the international scale. The historic center sits at the narrowest, oldest point of the valley; the money moved north (Iñaquito, La Carolina, González Suárez) and the working-class growth, south (Solanda, Quitumbe, Chillogallo).

Legarda, Caspicara, and Santiago, still the colonial reference

The workshops of the Quito School supplied religious images to churches across Spanish America, and three names have survived as landmarks of colonial art: the painter Miguel de Santiago and the sculptors Bernardo de Legarda and Manuel Chili, known as “Caspicara.” Their works are still in the churches of the center, and Legarda's best known is the winged Virgin that inspired the statue on top of the hill to the south. To see what that wealth paid for, step into La Compañía de Jesús, built between 1605 and 1765 and covered in gold leaf inside.

Pasillo: the national musical form

Highland music finds its national form in the pasillo (a slow waltz, melancholic lyrics, voice and guitar) and in the sanjuanito the festive rhythm inherited from the Kichwa world, played on mandolin, rondador and bass drum. Over the last three decades Quito has also become the capital of Ecuadorian rock, partly thanks to Quitofest, a free independent-music festival the city has sustained since 2003. National cinema is young and almost entirely from Quito: “Ratas, ratones, rateros” (1999), by Sebastián Cordero, and “Qué tan lejos” (2006), by Tania Hermida, are the two titles that best explain the city and the country.

Holy Week, processions and soccer at altitude

The religious calendar still structures public life. Holy Week mobilizes the entire center, and the procession of Jesús del Gran Poder, on Good Friday, draws tens of thousands of people behind the purple-hooded cucuruchos. In soccer, the city has four first-division clubs (Liga de Quito, Copa Libertadores champion in 2008, El Nacional, Universidad Católica and Aucas), and altitude is a permanent topic: visiting teams have always complained about the 2,800 m of Estadio Rodrigo Paz Delgado, and Ecuador's national team built much of its World Cup qualifying record playing at home, at the Atahualpa.

“Huasipungo,” Jorge Icaza (1934)

The harshest indigenist novel in Ecuadorian literature, about the dispossession of Kichwa peasants by a landowner and a foreign company. It explains the highland land structure that drove decades of migration to Quito.

“Ratas, ratones, rateros,” Sebastián Cordero (1999)

The film that founded contemporary Ecuadorian cinema: two cousins, small-time theft and the Quito–Guayaquil road. Shot on the city's real streets in the year of the crisis that would lead to dollarization.

“The Mapmaker's Wife,” Robert Whitaker (2004)

An account of the 1736–1744 French Geodesic Mission and Isabel Godin's Amazon crossing. It explains why a group of academics spent eight years measuring mountains around Quito, and why the country is named Ecuador.