Cost of Living in Ecuador

Cassidy Eastman
Speech Language Pathology and Audiology
Spanish in Quito, Ecuador, Summer II 2019

One thing that I have noticed since being in Ecuador is that the cost of living is way lower than in Kalamazoo, with the exception of clothing, shoes and such (but that was mostly irrelevant to me).

First, the food was way cheaper, even when eating out at restaurants! I bought myself lunch every day and typically spent $7-$10 on a full meal. Most of the time, that full meal included a salad or soup appetizer along with the main course and drink! Buying food from the grocery store, or SuperMaxi as they called it, was even cheaper. Before we left for weekend trips we bought food from the store so that we could eat on a budget while we were gone.
The thing that surprised me the most was the activities that we could do for super cheap. One of our long weekend trips was to a city called Baños, which is about 3 hours away from Quito by bus. This city was amazing! In my opinion, it’s kind of an adventure town. They have opportunities to white water raft, zip line, repel down waterfalls, and it is really close to the Amazon Rainforest. We decided to do white water rafting, zip lining, and a day trip to the Amazon and each was only about $20! We had great experiences with each, which was surprising to me from the low prices. Overall, Ecuador was a great country to travel to on a budget! We did so many activities and ate many great meals for cheap prices.

Categories: South America, Ecuador, Department of Speech, Language and Hearing Sciences, Field trips, Food Culture, Restaurants, Summer II.