Is Cuenca, Ecuador, the Perfect Winter Snowbird Destination (2023)

When you tell people you are going to Ecuador, they assume that means you are going to the Galapagos. We may go to the Galapagos, but that wasn’t the point of this trip. [UPDATE: We did go to Galapagos. You can read out it here.] As many of my regular readers know, one of our retirement goals was to spend the coldest six months of Edmonton, Canada, winter in warmer places. (Yes, Virginia, winter does last longer than six months in much of Canada.) We are still checking out options for either a place that meets all our criteria and will let us stay for 180 days each winter, or a 2nd non-Canadian destination for 90 days. This year, Ecuador is on the list.

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Before Ecuador

Years ago we fell in love with Malaga, Spain, as it offers a perfect combination of warm, sunny weather during most of the winter with culture and gastronomy. Unfortunately, Schengen rules only let us stay there for 90 days during our winter period, so we’ve been on the hunt for a location for the 2nd half. In theory we could try to get Spanish residency, but that would mean giving up our Canadian residency and spending more than half the year away from Canada. We aren’t yet ready to do that. Family, friends, and glorious Edmonton summers keep us tied there for now.

So where to spend the 2nd 90 days? In the article 15 Things to Think About When Choosing Your Snowbird Destination, I walk you through our criteria. We are now onto our 4th non-Malaga test destination.

Lima, Peru, was our base from late October 2018 to early February 2019. Lima is a seriously under-rated city. We loved it there. Unfortunately, Peruvian politics being what they are, it’s not a good option these days. It’s also very far from Edmonton, Canada.

We spent five weeks in Cape Verde, which I loved for the people, the music and the hiking. But I wouldn’t want to spend three months there. There’s only so much hiking I can do, and the cities aren’t large enough to offer the cultural diversity we crave. (Though the music in Mindelo is awesome!)

Last winter we tested out Guadeloupe, a collection of islands in the Caribbean. Guadeloupe is a department of France, but doesn’t count as part of Schengen, so we were able to go there even having already spent our 90 days in Spain. I loved the hot weather and beaches, but we found life there, well, kind of boring. Great for a vacation of 2 or 3 weeks, but beyond that you’d really have to have a good network of friends to hang out with. I’m not sure if the problem was Covid (which cancelled all cultural events), or simply that the people who live or winter there have been doing so for so long they have no real interest in broadening their networks, but either way, we didn’t find people particularly open. And we are both fluent in French, so language wasn’t the problem.

We’d heard good things about Cuenca, Ecuador, so this year we are testing it out. We spent nearly three weeks in Mexico City (CDMX) on our way here, which I loved, and part of me is still tempted to consider that as our alternate winter destination. It has two main drawbacks though. First, as an asthmatic, I found the combination of high altitude and poor air quality to be a problem. Second, I was chilly almost all the time there. (There were a couple of delightful warm hours every afternoon, but I could definitely have used warmer clothes and my cozy, thick socks for the apartment. Turns out that even modern buildings aren’t heated.)

Because I was so chilly, I was worried about heading to another mountain city, this time in Ecuador. Indeed, our first few days in Ecuador were wet and cool. But when we got to Cuenca the sun came out. It feels like summer. It is glorious. Yes, it does cloud over at around 4 p.m. every afternoon, and sometimes it even rains a little bit, but that keeps it all lush and green, and the weather is still comfortable.

What does Cuenca, Ecuador, have to offer snowbirds?

Beyond the weather, my first impression of the city (based only on three days, so far) is that it is a delightful blend of Europe and South America. It has the gorgeous old colonial buildings that the Spanish erected when they took over in the 1500s.

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It has clean, mountain-fed water from the Tomebamba Basin in the Andes mountains.

It has amazing high-quality, low-cost fresh fruit and vegetables, grown locally, year-round. When we went to the main market in Cuenca, we came out with 3 big bags of fresh fruit and veggies for less than the cost of a little bag of cherries in season back in Canada. As we were leaving the market, DH spotted some lovely little potatoes but we only had a few coins left and knew the seller wouldn’t be pleased to accept a $20 bill to pay for them. So he showed her that he only had a few coins and asked if he could have a small amount of potatoes. She filled a bag about 2/3 full, and he gave her the coins. She looked at them, said, give me the bag back, and put in more potatoes!

Ditto for flowers. Ecuador is the world’s 3rd largest exporter of roses (after the Netherlands and Columbia). When we lived in the Netherlands I loved being able to afford to fill our apartment with bunches of fresh flowers every week. I’m looking forward to doing that here too.

Although Ecuador is still a poor country, it has a growing middle class, and Cuenca has wide variety of restaurants and amenities catering to them (and to the 10,000 or so expats who’ve come to live or winter here).

It has high-quality, inexpensive health care: a big draw to the many Americans who feel they cannot afford to retire in the US, and are moving here. Ironic to see that outflow while poor Ecuadorians are flowing into the United States, looking for work and opportunities. Even as illegal immigrants, they can earn enough there to help their families here. In Ecuador, 2/3 of adults have inadequate employment (unemployed or massively underemployed), according to the National Institute of Statistics and Censuses. The average wage in Ecuador is only US$466/month (source: Banco Central del Ecuador). There are entire towns that consist of only women and children now, because virtually all the men have smuggled their way into the US to work.

Expats and snowbirds (especially Americans) also like the convenience offered by the fact that Ecuador uses the US dollar as its currency. (Switching to the dollar was a painful process, but it was the only way to stop Ecuadorian governments from printing excess, inflation-triggering, currency to try to buy political favours. (I wrote about this during our trip to Quito, Ecuador, in December 2018. Scroll to the section titled Economics, History & Politics of Ecuador.)

There’s one huge drawback to making Cuenca our 2nd winter destination: it’s a pain to get to from Edmonton, Canada. It takes a minimum of four flights and two days of travel. We ended up having to fly Edmonton>Calgary>Puerta Vallarta>Mexico City>Quito and from there you can either take an internal flight to Cuenca or drive/bus/be driven for about 8 hours. In our case we spread that last bit over four days with a tour guide so we could enjoy the Avenida de Volcanes route through the mountains. Below are some more photos from that wonderful trip. (I hope to write more about it but just in case I don’t get to it, at least you can see the photos.) Again, click the arrows or swipe to see them all.