go to search box go to global site navigationbudget guesthouses: $10–15 per person One-day bike rental for DIY trip from Baños to Puyo: $10 Double room in midrange hotel: $40–60 Dinner for two in a good restaurant: $18–30 Climbing, cycling and bird-watching tours: $60–80 per day Jungle lodges: from $250 for four days Galápagos tour with a reputable operator: from $300 per day Top Amazon lodges: around $250 per day Haciendas on Cotopaxi: from $100 per day Ecuador’s official currency is the US dollar. Aside from Euros, Peruvian soles and Colombian nuevos soles, it’s very difficult to change foreign currencies in Ecuador. Western Union offices are in most big cities. Better restaurants add a 12% tax and a 10% service charge to the bill. If the service has been satisfactory, add another 5% for the waiter. Cheaper places don’t include a tax or service charge.To tip your server, do so directly – don’t just leave the money on the table.

Taxi drivers are not normally tipped, but you can leave them the small change from a metered ride.Guides are usually paid low wages, and tips are greatly appreciated. If you go on a guided tour, a tip is expected. If you are in a group, tip a top-notch guide about $5 per person per day. Tip the driver about half that. If you hire a private guide, tip about $10 per day.For Galápagos cruises, tips range from $10 to $20 per client per day. At jungle lodges, $5 to $10 per person per day is more common.When you start planning your budget backpacking South American adventure, tiny little Ecuador might not be the first, or even fifth, destination that comes to mind. But while other backpackers are flooding the mountains of Peru or the streets of Brazil, here are 10 reasons you should kick back in Ecuador. A favorite place to stay is Hostel Nucapacha in Guayaquil.  It’s full of common areas and a friendly, down-home atmosphere.  You get the best of both worlds; it’s in a quiet area, but the bars and restaurants are just a few minutes away.

All of this in a country where $5 per day is a generous eating allowance. Budget backpacking South America has many beautiful countries to visit, but you’d be hard-pressed to find a better bang for your buck than Ecuador.When we were planning our trip around the world, I found it helpful when other travelers were open about what they were spending on the road. So, in an effort to be transparent (and to help get you out the door!) I’ll be posting about our expenses in each country we visit. Brian and I spent six weeks traveling through Ecuador. We stayed one week in Quito, eight days in the Galapagos Islands, three days in Mindo, three and a half weeks in Baños and four days in Cuenca. Overall, Ecuador is an inexpensive country to travel through. You’ll see below that our per day cost looks high, but that is primarily because of the expense of traveling to the Galapagos. We also took two weeks of private Spanish lessons which increased our overall daily expenses slightly.

All costs of our six-week travel is explained in detail below. Brian with our Spanish teacher at our Spanish school Brian and I are mindful of our budget but we are not budget backpackers. We try to stick to a budget of $80 per day for the both of us, a fairly easy thing to do in Ecuador. We generally stay in hostels and rent private rooms with a double bed and a shared bathroom. We eat out often and we drink when we want too. We buy too much ice cream. We don’t shop much but we do spend money on city tours and fun adventures like this:tumi backpack cheap Brian willingly jumps off of a bridge. hester backpackWhat’s terrifying is he only paid $10 to do it.best nikon d7000 backpack

In general, we watch what we spend but we also have a lot of fun. First, let’s get to our grand total. In all, we spent a total of $6,580.17 dollars while traveling six weeks through Ecuador. I know, I know, that seems like a huge number. But bear in mind that our Galapagos trip was a gigantic expense (see below). If I remove the total cost of our Galapagos trip, our grand total spent was only $2,584.64. That equals an average of $68 per day (for two people!) on the days that we were not in the Galapagos. backpack galapagos islandsWe also spent $400 on private Spanish lessons. isu backpackIf I remove that expense, our daily average drops to only $57.50 per day for two people, or $28.75 per person. mcm backpack malaysia store

As you can see, you can travel quite well on a budget of about $30 per person per day in Ecuador. Some notes about our expenses: You’ll see that I did not account for our flights to Ecuador. This is because we bought our tickets a long time ago, back when we had jobs and paychecks and stuff like that. Since the money came out of our bank account way back when, I chose to leave that expense in the past. Transportation is cheap in Ecuador. In general, even long-haul buses cost about $1 per hour. Local buses cost about $0.25 cents. Taxis can always be negotiated and a price should be agreed upon before hopping in. The miscellaneous category includes things like laundry, donations and tips (we gave our Spanish teacher a tip). For the record, I’m ashamed to reveal the amount of money we spent on alcohol and eating out. I told you we eat a lot of ice cream. Visiting the Galapagos is an expensive once-in-a-lifetime experience. We’d not originally planned to go due to the cost, but eventually decided to spring for it because everyone and their dog told us we should.

We’re glad we did, it was worth every penny, but it also cost a lot of pennies. In total our trip to the Galapagos cost us $3,995.53. This is the grand total for every single cent we spent on that trip (2 people). The costs are explained below: It’s important to note that Brian and I actually booked a last minute deal to the Galapagos Islands, saving us at least a thousand dollars (probably more). We booked our trip through a travel agency in Quito on Monday and we left for the Galapagos on Wednesday. We were on a first-class yacht that held sixteen passengers plus crew. First-class is considered mid-range as far as price is concerned. There are luxury boats as well as tourist class (cheaper) boats. Tourist class gets mixed reviews, but I’ve heard from plenty of people who had a great time on a tourist class boat. One additional note: The food on our yacht was delicious, the best food I’ve had in years. I’m a vegetarian, and the chef provided me my very own vegetarian meal three times a day.