Panting for breath after walking just 5 steps…that was our first memory of Quito as soon as we touched down at the Mariscal Sucre airport. Standing proud at 2,850 metres (9,350ft) high, tucked away in the Andes Mountains, Quito is the second-highest official capital city in the world after La Paz in Bolivia. And bloody hell you certainly feel it!
Other than panting for breath every 5 minutes, Quito packs a punch for gay travellers. It’s not only a cultural gem with a really pretty Old Town to explore, it also has an impressive and vibrant gay scene. The capital city of Ecuador is also located right by the equator line from which it takes its name. Locals nickname Quito as “la mitad del mundo” or the middle of the world.
We spent half a year based in the middle of the world during our big trip to Latin America and fell in love with it. It’s an inexpensive place, extremely pretty, never too hot and never too cold. It’s also a very rewarding destination due to the variety of food to try and the variety of hot guys to meet!
We’ve bundled all our first-hand experiences from Quito into this comprehensive gay guide covering the best gay bars, clubs, hotels to stay, things to do and more.
Is Quito safe for gay travellers?
Quito is the touristic and LGBTQ capital of Ecuador – a country that legalised gay marriage in 2019 and was one of the first in the world to ban discrimination based on sexual orientation back in 1998. The city has a very active LGBTQ community, along with quite a diverse LGBTQ scene and a popular Pride every June that has taken place almost every year since 1998.
As a gay couple, we never had any problems in any of the hotels we stayed in. We always felt welcomed and never faced any issues when asking for a double bed. The only thing we’d say about Quito, which applies to all travellers (straight or gay), there are parts of the city which are a bit dodgy, such as the Old Town in the evening after dark.
I was surprised by what I was reading on my Kindle. “Set in a picturesque valley some 2,800 meters above sea level, Ecuador’s lofty capital sits just 25km south of the equator. Its historic Old Town is a splendid maze of cobbled streets, colonial architecture and churches, dazzling attributes which helped it become UNESCO’s first World Heritage Site (along with Krakow) in 1978.”, marveled the author in the Independent article about Ecuador I was reading while enjoying my very first cup of scrumptious Ecuadorian hot cocoa.
The article made Quito seem like a gem of a city, a town so beautiful that it would sweep me off my feet. The problem was, I just didn’t feel it. I had spent three days in Ecuador’s capital, my first stop on my trip through the country, which is usually enough time to make me fall for a place. But Quito and I, we just didn’t connect.
I was a bit wary of visiting Quito, after hearing stories of robberies, people throwing feces from church towers to distract you so that they can take your belongings, and Quito being a bit sketchy all around.]]> 
Baños is known as Ecuador’s adventure capital, and I knew there were a bunch of activities I could do here that would give me a nice adrenaline rush – rafting, paragliding, mountain biking, zip lining and canyoning, to name just a few.
The one attraction that gave me sweaty palms though? The infamous ‘swing at the end of the world;, where you dangle from a tree house over a cliff, high up in the mountains over Baños. It’s one of those places that you see a picture of and know you have to go there. Or is that just me?
For years, this was one of the only places I knew about in Ecuador. I knew about the Galápagos Islands, I knew about Quito, and the Swing At The End Of The World.
Since this was the thing I was most excited about doing in Baños, it was where I was headed to first. Initially I attempted hiking up the mountain, but when, after walking for an hour, I still hadn’t even made it to the bottom of the mountain on top of which the swing sits, I changed my mind and took a Chiva instead, a truck that’s converted into a tourist shuttle with benches in the back.
When my mosquito bite count reached one hundred and my laptop’s cooling fan started making noises as if it was trying to tell me ‘I can’t deal with this heat anymore’, I decided that it was time to get away from the beaches for a while and give both my laptop and my itching limbs a break.
The beach had been nice, but I needed to get somewhere high enough for the mosquitoes to not get there. And so I headed to Cuenca, at 8,370 ft (2,550 meters) too high for mosquitoes to continue to feast on me and cool enough for my laptop not to overheat.
Cuenca is a popular expat destination, with 5,000 mainly North American expats living there, and it is easy to see why. Life in Cuenca is pleasant, cheap and tranquil. Mountains surround the city, and you can walk everywhere in the center.
Cuenca has 52 churches and the best preserved colonial architecture in Ecuador, so much so that UNESCO declared the city center a World Heritage site. It was a city that I liked immediately – the first time I had this feeling during my time in Ecuador!
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After my week in hot and sticky Guayaquil I couldn’t wait to get to the beach for a fresh ocean breeze. I had heard great things about Montañita, a small village on the Santa Elena Peninsula on Ecuador’s Pacific Coast. Montañita is the country’s number one surf spot, and, as I learned when I arrived there, a prime party destination for people from all over South America.
Think South America’s answer to Ibiza, only with less mega clubs, but with loud music right on the beach instead, blasting from several discos right along the shore.
The problem with that? I was just not in the mood for a mega party, and I had also been warned about walking around town at night by myself. A couple of backpacking girls from Argentina were brutally murdered in Montañita less than a year ago, and I didn’t get a good vibe from the village. The beach was okay, but nothing special, and the waves were so insanely high that there was a red flag on the beach every day, warning people that the surf was intense and the current was strong.