The Best Hotels in Ecuador for Every Traveler

The terms ‘state-of-the-art’ and ‘bird-watching’ rarely fly together but Mashpi Lodge is a stylish exception. Secreted away in a 2,500 acre swathe of Ecuadorian cloud forest, this lodge-cum-reserve protects 400-plus bird species among a host of other animal and plant life, and it’s exclusively guests who get to experience this wilderness paradise. Enhancing the enjoyment is the lodge itself: sustainably constructed, with floor-to-ceiling glass making the forest outside loom large, and a spectacular two-floor dining room/bar that showcases the best of the country’s cuisine – especially impressive given it’s remote location.

If you wondered why, in Ecuador’s biggest city of Guayaquil, the colonial buildings in the centre seem lacking, it’s because many were removed then reassembled in ‘Parque Histórico de Guayaquil’, or Guayaquil Historic Park. This might be more open-air museum than genuine district, but imposing Hotel del Parque is no mere pretty face. It’s an 1890s chateaux with 44 substantial period-yet-contemporary rooms, transported board-by-board from its original location. Hotel dining at Casa Julian, facing the River Daule, serves exquisite local seafood.

The colourful Gangotena clan, among Ecuador’s most important families, owned this palatial property on pretty Plaza San Francisco in Quito, for more than 160 years. This distinguished lifespan has furnished the historic hotel with innumerable intriguing stories: such as when the original 1600s residence was set ablaze on a Gangotena daughter’s wedding day in 1914 (a bitter ex, supposedly) and required rebuilding. Plush, soundproofed rooms average 35sqm, with Art Deco furnishings and some even have elaborate early 20th-century murals.

You are unlikely to decline a sojourn at the working farm of a former Ecuadorian president, not when it’s a fetching 17th-century hacienda (country estate) hogging a mesmeric location in undulating pastoral land, beneath a necklace of the nation’s most iconic volcanoes. Wood-floored rooms have touching features, such as arched windows and wood-burning stoves; in the beamed, whitewashed dining room you are truly waited upon in presidential style; and how about riding high on the hacienda’s own breed of horses (Zuleteños)?

The Oro Verde chain, with seven high-end hotels across Ecuador, have made their signature sleep – in beach resort and tuna-fishing port Manta – a special and substantially-sized one. Right on the malecón (esplanade), it’s a 91-room, 27-suite affair with modern, taupe-toned furnishings. A pool and gym and business centre on-site ensure a choice between relaxation, work-out and work. Don’t miss a trip to nearby Montecristi, either: the birthplace of the ‘Panama’ hat, a bedrock of Ecuadorian culture and fashion.

A terracotta-roofed, pastille-coloured gaggle of turn-of-the-20th-century buildings tumble down the pea-green hillside in the little village of Isinlivi, one of the highest communities on the renowned Quilotoa Loop mountain trail in the Ecuadorian Highlands. It treads a tightrope between hostel and hotel, plusher than the former and less formal than the latter. The excellent outdoor activities begin on the doorstep and a spa centred on a solar-powered Jacuzzi invites relaxation.

Baños is Ecuador’s adventure-sports capital: whether it’s bungee-jumping into a river canyon, hiking to a waterfall or negotiating rapids during whitewater rafting, this city caught between mountain and jungle can oblige. So, no surprises that the ‘adventure spa’ concept has developed here. At Luna Volcán, you can try an adrenaline sport, then relax with a local volcanic ash exfoliation in the spa. A twin set of raised mountain-edge pools overlook the city with spectacular effect from on high. Rooms and suites feature vivid murals depicting Ecuador’s flora and fauna.

Out in the world-famous wildlife sanctuary of the Galápagos, just outside Puerto Ayora on the main island of Santa Cruz, beachfront Finch Bay hotel is among the archipelago’s best expedition hotels, where everything from snorkeling to giant tortoise encounters can be arranged for guests. Top Ecuadorian designer, Julio Vinueza, designed the bedrooms; restaurant food is often grown in the on-site vegetable garden or caught in the ocean nearby; and the pool is idyllic.