Quito Travel Guide: History, Culture & Honest Safety Tips

To travellers in Ecuador, Quito is affectionately known as The Vortex, because all roads seem to lead to this mountain city. Every transport connection into the country, from the sierra, the jungle or the coast converges on the capital. If you are planning on visiting Ecuador, you will most likely find yourself in Quito at least once. 

Its mountain location is awe-inspiring; set in a bowl beneath volcanoes, a sea of lights spill up the surrounding slopes. The taxi-ride from the bus station through the forest of concrete can feel overwhelming, but charmingly, the main attractions are centered on the UNESCO world heritage five-hundred year old town. 

This is a riot of Baroque fancy, gold-leafed churches, cobbled streets and some of the best museums on the continent. With the Andes overhead, pumping salsa clubs and the Equator on its doorstep, what starts as a transit stop easily becomes a sojourn into one of the great South American cities.

Note on safety  

While I wholeheartedly recommend visiting Quito, it is important to acknowledge the patchy security situation here. 

It is one of the edgier destinations in South America, and you notice the effects of the crime wave almost immediately. I remember my first time arriving at night and I could not help but notice that it was the one non-nocturnal Latin American city. This is because of a crime surge that leaves residents fearful of going outside at night. During the day, the centre of Quito is relaxed, even quaint, with a reassuring police presence, but by night it becomes deserted with a tangible edge to the atmosphere. 

It reminded me of playing Minecraft: at night, the monsters come out and you must cower in your shelter. Recognise the pattern and avoid walking around at night. If you must move around, get a taxi from a trusted source like Uber, which operates in Quito. 

Another point is that muggings have made activities like hiking to the Virgen del Panecillo viewpoint precarious. Get a taxi instead as that neighbourhood is sketchy. Pickpocketing is another risk, though it’s quite preventable by simply keeping your belongings secure and your wits about you. 

Notes on the altitude 

Quito is at 2,850m above sea level making it the second highest capital city in the world. Unless you are coming from the highlands, you will immediately feel the thinness of the air. 

While 2,800m is not enough for the splitting headaches or nausea of severe altitude sickness for the vast majority of people, do not be surprised if you are quickly out of breath or walking up steps becomes a challenge.

Pace yourself accordingly. It may not be a good idea to try to summit 4,784m tall Pichincha on your first day in Quito, but even activities like the city tour should be fine from-the-off if you take regular breaks. 

My most effective treatment for altitude sickness was keeping well hydrated, taking it slow on the first day at altitude and drinking coca tea. You will also find that a hangover in Quito can be brutal. The altitude accentuates the beating that you take from drinking to excess! 

How to get there 

In the context of Ecuador, Quito is near most places. It is the way south into the Sierra and the route to the jungle, the cloud forests, and the onward point to Colombia.

Quito is: 

The above links will take you to transport options for each of these routes.

book your transport to quito

Where to stay in Quito

Sometimes the obvious option is obvious for a reason. If you are travelling to Ecuador, chances are that you will hear the name Secret Garden a lot — mostly in relation to their Cotopaxi outpost, but they also have a huge hostel in Quito. 

They constantly try to foster community, but go beyond the classic beer pong or bar crawl nights with family dinners followed by activities. It is amazing how much the walls between people break down by sharing food together. I think it was the most social hostel that I ever stayed in. 

They also have an on-site tour agency which offers competitive prices for visits to the Amazon. I arranged a 4-day stay at Cuyabeno Reserve from here (which I talk about in this guide).

How to get around 

Personally, I found Quito quite easy to navigate once I actually got inside of the city. The main bus stations are far outside of the centre and suffer from the typical Latin American scourge of massive traffic jams, no matter how many highway lanes they build. 

It takes about an hour of tortuous driving to arrive at the old city where most hostels and hotels are. Always give yourself more time than you expect if you have a bus to catch from Quito!

Once you are in the city, you can walk to most attractions. The colonial centre is compact and hums with architectural marvels. The only exceptions are for attractions like the cable car to Pichincha or the Equator line, 25 and 50 minutes drive away from the centre respectively, an Uber would suit better. These are freely available and cheap. 

The Quito starter pack 

While I devoted ten days to Quito, I am aware that not everyone has the luxury of such slow travel and you may only experience Quito as a layover between places. So here is a two day suggested itinerary to get the very best out of the city. 

Things to do in Quito

Old City 

Quito is one of those rare places where you can aimlessly wander the streets and continuously see architectural wonders that would be the highlights of other less-lucky cities. 

For the best of spontaneous sightseeing, I would walk to Basilica del Voto Nacional and follow Calle Venezuela down towards the Plaza Mayor and turn off at Plaza de San Francisco. This historic cobbled street is lined with colonial houses like that of Jose Antonio Sucre, the general who freed Ecuador from Spanish rule; 16th-century convents with bones built into the floor and the Camilo Egas art gallery. 

A highlight of the old city is the Plaza Mayor, the political centre of Ecuador with the presidential palace built atop the foundations of an Inca palace. It is guarded by a squad of guards in 19th-century Bolivarian uniforms armed with muskets, who seemed incapable of marching in time! For such an important square, it has a surprisingly quaint vibe. Elderly Ecuadoreans traditionally meet here to read the newspaper and play chess. 

Surprisingly, Old Town Quito reminded me of Prague for the Gothic aesthetics of the city and a similar silhouette looming above its streets (the Prague Castle and Basilica Voto are similar shapes). Though the mist-covered Andes overhanging the city adds a different dimension to Quito. 

I would also recommend the Quito Free Walking Tour that is offered by many hostels and websites. This follows much of Calle Venezuela with expert insights into the history of the buildings, views of local life and some free chocolate tasting thrown in too. I was very happy to pay a $5 tip for this! 

Plaza San Francisco 

The Plaza Mayor may technically be the main city square but the Plaza de San Francisco blows it away in terms of grandeur. One side of this huge square is dominated by a colonial monastery, a monument to the power and wealth of the Catholic Church that held sway here for so many centuries. The dark greys and towering walls complement the moody skies and the humpbacked Andes looming behind. 

The other side is a medley of shops and cafes housed within old buildings, with balconies that lend a sense of wonder to your meals.

What is amazing about this square is that it is more than just an empty bit of public architecture; it is alive with traditional dance performances, open-air church services or impromptu concerts. Each time I walked through, something new was happening! 

Volcan Pichincha 

Quito sits in a sort of saucer up in the Andes and one of the rims of this natural amphitheatre is the spectacular Pichincha Volcano. The summit is 4,764m high, but you can get a cable car to a viewpoint at 4000m of altitude. The cable-car is located about twenty minutes by taxi from the historical centre. A ride costs 🇵🇪PEN 16.78›. 

The cablecar ride alone would be worth doing – the awesome scale of Quito and its mountain setting pop from the floor-to-ceiling windows of the car. At the 4000m high viewpoint, you can see volcanoes like Cotopaxi and Chimborazo on a clear day. 

Ride Quito’s cable car to 4,000m

For adventurous spirits keen to get even higher than 4000m, you can hike a further three hours to reach the summit of Pichincha. It is 600m of elevation gain, and the path is clearly signposted. Wear good walking shoes because there are sections where you will have to scramble over rocks and some fairly steep parts too. 

The summit gives views high above Quito and overlooks Gagua Pichincha, the active part of the volcano, though which has not erupted since 2002. It took me about seven hours between leaving and returning to my hostel. 

Mitad del Mundo 

Ecuador gets its name from the Equator, and it is a pretty unique feature of Quito’s to be literally lying across the middle of the world. Curiously, there are two equator lines in Quito, a massive monument to the equator (which embarrassingly turned out to be 200m off) and the correct GPS-measured line. 

I set out to Mitad del Mundo (Middle of the World) expecting to be disappointed. I thought it would be pretty gimmicky and was going purely for the novelty of standing with a foot in each hemisphere, but I was pleasantly surprised by how much was actually at Museo Intiñan.

Ecuador is often said to have four worlds – the coast, the Andes, the Amazon and the Galapagos Islands – and each part of the country was represented in the open air museum. They even included shrunken heads from the Amazon. 

The centrepiece is of course the Equator Line. ‘Experiments’ there feel semi-magical — like water swirling in two different directions, that is until you realise that they are parlor tricks! They are still fun nevertheless. 

The photo ops of standing across the line with a foot on each side of the world were also worthwhile (your parents will love them!). Even though it is not accurate, the Grand Equator Monument is a pretty incredible backdrop. 

It is about 50 minutes from the centre of Quito. I chose to visit with a tour because the price was low at 🇵🇪PEN 33.56› and the public bus leaves from a station outside of the city centre. You can save money by splitting a cab or an Uber with two or three friends. I also regretted not visiting independently once I found out what was around the line. 

Volcán Pululahua is a now-extinct volcanic crater just 5km from the Equator Line. As it sinks deep into the earth, it has a different climate and vegetation to cloudy, temperate Quito. Its sides are adorned with tropical plants and it seems impossible that this is just an hour outside of the heaving city. The whole crater is a wildlife reserve, and you can experience it during an hour-long hike. 

Museums 

I was pretty amazed by the quality and range of Quito’s museums, comparing favourably with other cultural hotspots like Lima, Cusco or Buenos Aires.

Whether art or unique indigenous artefacts are your thing, Quito has something for you. The moody Quito weather also means that it is useful to have some indoor activities planned as you will most likely be caught in the rain at some point here.

Casa del Alabado Museum (my personal favourite)

Ecuador has a very rich indigenous history, with multitudes of little-known civilisations rising and falling before the Incas arrived within a generation of the Spanish Conquest.

It can feel quite overwhelming to dive into their worlds with little context; I imagine few travellers know their Valdivia from their Canari cultures! I certainly didn’t but I came away from Casa Alabado with an understanding that enriched the rest of my trip. 

The Casa Alabado very cleverly displays the remnants of such peoples in relation to familiar themes like life, death or shamanism in a beautiful colonial house. Seeing how completely alien cultures grappled with the same existential problems as us elevated this museum and really brought the artefacts to life. 

The very helpful staff gave me a massive guide in English to each room. It also has a brilliant cafe which was the ideal place to shelter from a torrential rainstorm. Entry is 🇵🇪PEN 26.85›. 

Museo Nacional

A free museum is always a nice touch, especially when it is of the quality of the Museo Nacional. This museum, set in a massive cultural centre is part art gallery and part ethnographic collection.

Many paintings focus on indigenous portraits, Ecuadorean landscapes and scenes of pre-contact cultures seeing white sails on the horizon, a great visual journey into how modern Ecuador came into existence before exploring more of the country. 

Capilla del Hombre

One gallery that you will be guaranteed to be thinking of after your Quito trip is Capilla del Hombre. Designed by Guayasamín, a friend of Pablo Picasso and Ecuador’s most famous painter, it aims to tell the story of South America’s indigenous people in stirring mural form. Honestly, like the real history, it is a chastening experience. 

Once you descend beneath the bunker-like entrance, you enter into a world of suffering and oppression, of faces twisted in pain and distress as he recounts the indigenous story using individual portraits.

The building itself would lend a grandeur to anything, with its great domes, which is why it is called Capilla or chapel. Just when you think that despair is total, Guayasamín looks to the future with sunlight streaming down from an open air chimney onto an eternal flame, symbolising the resilience and hope of South America’s peoples. Powerful stuff. 

Quito was historically famous for its religious art, even earning the distinction of having its own school of art. However, to the modern eye, a lot looks the same after a while. So more of an overview is better than trying to see every example. 

Capilla de Cantuña

If you only see one church, you should make it the Church of La Compañía, which has its own section in this guide, but for those wanting to explore the style in more depth, Capilla de Cantuña in the San Francisco Monastery has a brilliant collection of famous Quito School art.

It was also said that Cantuña, its builder, sold his soul to the devil in order to complete it on time, but just before midnight on the day that the devil arrived to claim his debt, he removed a single stone. It is said that he still roams Quito today… 

Museo Franciscano

The Museo Franciscano in the same building also displays fantastic 16th century art and an architectural quirk that allows two people standing in opposite corners to whisper into the walls and hear each other.

Traces of Muslim architecture in the building, that a good guide will point out, fascinatingly shows how interconnected the 16th Century world was. 

Basílica del Voto Nacional 

This church dominates the skyline of Quito and is quirkily decorated with Ecuadorian animals like Galapagos iguanas, penguins and jaguars instead of gargoyles. As it was only built in the 1920s, the interior isn’t life-changing, especially in comparison with some of Quito’s other masterpiece churches.

However, climbing the 377-foot-tall tower is well worth paying the 🇵🇪PEN 6.71› entry for. There is a cafe and bar on the roof which was packed as it was one of the only venues allowed to serve alcohol during the election held when I was there! 

The route up to the tower is perilous — a nearly vertical staircase open to the winds save for a cage. The views from the top are absolutely spectacular. You can see all of the mountain-bowl in which Quito sits, its houses and towers tapering up to the bulk of Volcan Pichincha. 

Church of La Compañía

As I said earlier, this is by far the most spectacular of all of Quito’s churches, and probably the most stunning building in the city. Construction began in 1605, and was not completed for 160 years. The result is a glowing interior entirely draped in golden leaf, glowing as if you have entered heaven itself. The power and wealth of the Jesuit order was cast into physical form here. 

The more you look, the more triumphs of craftsmanship become apparent, like the perfect rotational symmetry and indigenous symbols and faces hidden within the Christian designs. The 🇵🇪PEN 20.14› entry feels like a bargain. Note that photography is not permitted. 

Nightlife 

I often think that it is hard to truly experience a city without seeing what its people do when they let their hair down. Quitenos definitely come out favourably from this. It also helps that its nighttime attractions are concentrated in one part of town: Mariscal. 

As always with Quito, you will need to take safety considerations into account.

Walking the streets at night is a no-no here. With this in mind, many hostels offer a party bus, where they will drive you between bars often with free drinks thrown in. These feel quite gimmicky and unnecessary elsewhere, but in Quito there is a practical use case. 

Quito is within the catchment area for salsa dancing and offers many fantastic salsa classes. Though I never took to the dance, I revelled in the music and watching locals effortlessly shimmy across the floor. It is well worth finding some lessons in Quito and hitting the floor yourself.

Other bars in Mariscal are a classic medley of reggaeton and strong cocktails. Ecuadoreans are some of the friendliest people in the world, and it is easy to make new friends out on the town. 

Quito Carnival 

Although Rio’s Carnival gets all of the attention, Quito’s equivalent, held from 14-17 February, has a funny take on it by throwing a city-wide waterfight. Designed to temporarily dissolve hierarchies, it makes the carnival a soggy celebration of joy. There are also processions of indigenous dancers and open air concerts, which will enhance your visit to Quito. 

Otavalo day trip 

If Quito feels a touch chaotic then Otavalo, two hours north, offers a plunge into an older, more tranquil world. With a continuous indigenous settlement for hundreds of years, Otavalo has a vibe unlike most places on the continent. Set at the skirts of volcanoes, Otavalo’s natural setting is striking and has a slightly warmer climate than Quito. 

What really puts Otavalo on the map though is its indigenous market, which is at its most impressive on Saturday. Many markets stock identikit mass-produced goods, but Otavalo is semi-legendary for stocking authentic local crafts like alpaca jumpers and blankets. Make your way to Terminal Carcelén for buses to Otavalo and expect to pay 🇵🇪PEN 23.50› for a return ticket. 

A handful of travellers that I met did homestays in Otavalo for Spanish schools and raved about both the cultural immersion and the underrated hiking around the town. Indeed, routes like the Cuicocha Crater Lake trail and the Fuya Fuya volcano look awe inspiring and little trod by travellers. 

take A day trip TO OTAVALO

Where to eat in Quito 

Quito has a great selection of local delicacies like encebollado, a fish soup supposed to cure hangovers and Llapingachos, cheese-filled potato patties in peanut sauce.

Instead of diving deep into the local cuisine, I must admit that as I visited Quito just after trekking through the mountains and the Amazon, I gravitated to familiar comfort foods. 

I became a regular at Coffee Zular, a specialty cafe offering some of the best coffee that I had on the continent with a brilliant brunch menu too. As I spent a lot of time out and about in the old city, I found Museo del Pernil a great value place to grab a baguette for lunch. A massive pesto and chicken sandwich only cost 🇵🇪PEN 13.43›. 

Onwards from Quito 

After bidding a fond farewell to Quito, you will have many destinations to choose from. 

To Colombia: Quito has a bus connection to Colombia, taking about 20 hours total to reach Cali. Though, this is frustratingly not direct. You will need to get a bus to Tulcan, a border town 5 hours from Quito.

From there, you get a taxi to the frontier, walk across the border to do the immigration formalities, and then get a taxi or collectivo for the thirty minute drive to Ipiales, the closest Colombian town. Taxis will be waiting on each side of the border as this is a busy crossing.

From Ipiales, it is about 10 hours by bus to Cali, or you can also break up the travel by staying in Pasto, a city two hours from Tulcan, or by seeing the beautiful Las Lajas Sanctuary in Ipiales perched above a river gorge.

To the Amazon: Many Amazon tours to the Cuyabeno or Yasuní reserves leave from Quito, which are just an overnight bus journey and boat trip away from the capital. For those interested in a taste of the jungle for a fraction of the Amazon’s costs, Mindo is a two-hour bus ride away.

The Amazon versus Mindo is an interesting debate worth exploring. 

Into Central Ecuador: Quito also sits at the start of The Avenue of the Volcanoes, a meandering backpacking route taking in the volcanic beauty of Cotopaxi, Chimborazo and Quilotoa, with the colonial charms of Cuenca and thrills of Banos thrown in too. More detail is available on my Ecuador itinerary.