Books About Ecuador

As we planned our moved to Ecuador we bought a lot of books. Not just books to learn Spanish or books about becoming expats. Once we decided on Ecuador, we were hungry for information about what was actually there (here).

Thinking about Ecuador retirement? Check out this list of the top books about retirement in Ecuador.

We looked into the many travel and expat blogs, but found it hard to sort out the information we wanted. Many blogs are just stories of who-had-lunch-with-who. Others are primarily complaining about “how things are” living in Ecuador. Certainly personal blogs have a place – especially when you know the person writing – but it wasn’t what we needed.

Both Dena and I are big on details. We wanted as much real info as we could find. And with multiple sources, we could kind of get a balanced view of what it was really like here.

As we planned our trip, we spent a lot of time at Chapters – Canada’s version of Barnes and Noble. Armed with a Starbucks coffee, we spent hours (and hours) over many months reading and buying books. We easily read more than 20 books on Ecuador and becoming expats.

Here are the ones we bought specifically on Ecuador. Looking for more on the Galapagos? Check out our new post:

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Ecuador Travel Books

This is my favorite of all the travel books we bought.

The whole book is in full color with excellent photographs. There is a great section at the beginning of the book called “the Best of Ecuador” that details specific highlights from across the country including:

• best wildlife watching
• only in Ecuador
• best art galleries
• best for families
• best markets

At the back of the book there is a full travel tips section covering everything from getting to Ecuador, traveling around once you are here, how to handle finances, cruises in the Galapagos, and finding good restaurants, hotels, and attractions. This is the best book that we’ve seen covering specific features and things you need to know about Ecuador and the Galapagos Islands.

I’m a fan of second opinions, and so we decided to purchase a number of travel books about Ecuador to get the full picture. In the Moon handbook for Ecuador, there’s a section that most travelers will appreciate. There’s a set of recommended tours (that you build yourself) including:

• the 30-day best of Ecuador tour
• the two-week best of Ecuador tour
• culture and history tour
• outdoor adventure tour, among others

We found that in each of the books there were specific facts and details that were unique to each of them. But the majority of details, hotels and travel tips were repeated almost exactly.

While this may make me sound like a child, I guess I’ll have to risk it: I like pictures. While the Frommer’s Ecuador book has some quality information, the only picture is on the front cover and the inside back cover. And while a picture of a Marine iguana is nice and a general overview map of the country is nice to have, the lack of photos makes his book less valuable than the other two. The format of the Frommer’s guidebooks are easy to read and follow. For other destinations we found them to be the best produced guidebooks. The guidebook provides many suggestions for specific tour and adventure operators with websites phone numbers and addresses – which is excellent if you plan on doing your planning once you arrive in the country.