Money

Ecuador is a country where cash still is the best way of payment but at the same time you have to remember to not bring to mush that you will tempt a thief to steal it from you. NEVER flash with money when you are out traveling, remember that a majority of the people don't earn more than $200 to $250 per month so $5 to $10 are enough as long as you don't plan to buy something like a trip or new shoes for example.

When you are in Ecuador you always have to think about one thing, splitting bills. Many times stores don't have change even for a $5 bill so to avoid problems try to use your bills before giving away all of your coins, otherwise one hot and sunny day you will be stuck with just a $20 dollar bill and nobody has change when you need a bottle of water.

Bills of $50 or $100 are a bad idea to bring to Ecuador. The chances you have to use them are when you for example buy something more expensive like a day trip or the entrance to the Galapagos National Park. If you try to change in a bank they mostly will tell you that they can't help you unless you are a customer of the bank.

The bills in Ecuador are the same as in the US but they have their own coins that can't be used in the US but coins from the US can be sued in Ecuador without any problems.

Credit card

This is probably the best way to bring money as you can take out money both through ATM:s or over desk in a bank, just make sure that you have at least one backup card and that they are in your name. The thing you need to remember here and that they normally tell you is that most of the times when you pay with a credit card they take a bank fee of 10% so a run to the ATM can be a money saver despite the bank charge back home. Flight tickets are for some reason not charged with these extra 10%

How much you can redraw from an ATM per time, day or week is decided bot by your bank back home and from bank to bank in Ecuador. Some banks ATM's have a daily limit of $200 per day while some has a daily limit of $600 but in some banks you can take out up to $1000 per day over desk which helps when you for example are going to buy a cruise in the Galapagos Islands.

In the Galapagos Island you also need to remember that there are only 5 ATM machines in Santa Cruz and 2 ATM machines in San Cristobal while in Isabela and Floreana you don't have any way of getting money.

As anything valuable you should leave your ATM cards at the host family if you don't plan to use it. In case you still would lose it you just block it fast and ask someone home to send it to either our P.O. Box or straight to your host family and you will have a new card within a week or so, just don't send any code with it and make sure that it is inactivated until you have it in your hand.

Travelers Checks

Very few banks take traveler checks and not many more travel agencies so they are in many ways useless in Ecuador. It is better to have credit or debit cards with you.