15 nights, 6 stops — cloud forest, islands and amazon.
Quito → Mindo Cloud Forest → Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve → Papallacta → Santa Cruz Island → Yasuni National Park.
Arrive in Quito, met and transferred to your accommodation. Quito pairs one of the Americas' great old towns with reach to cloud forest, Amazon and islands.
A city day before the cloud forest or the islands. Historic Quito before the wild.
Transfer to Mindo Cloud Forest. Hummingbird feeders and the cock-of-the-rock lek. Cloud-forest birding for Chocó endemics.
Cloud-forest birding for Chocó endemics. A full day of feeders, leks and forest trails. Mindo's feeders bring dozens of hummingbird species within camera range — the essence of Chocó birding.
Transfer to Bellavista Cloud Forest Reserve. Ridge birding for mountain tanagers and toucans. High cloud-forest trails and feeders.
High cloud-forest trails and feeders. Bellavista's ridge forest adds the higher-elevation birds that complete a Chocó list.
Transfer to Papallacta. High-Andes birding and a soak in the hot springs. Páramo and temperate-forest birds at the pass.
Páramo and temperate-forest birds at the pass. Papallacta offers high-Andes birding by day and steaming thermal pools to finish.
Transfer to Santa Cruz Island. Giant tortoises in the highlands and Tortuga Bay. Island day trips for snorkelling and wildlife.
Island day trips for snorkelling and wildlife. A full day of Santa Cruz beaches and highlands. Santa Cruz's green highlands shelter wild giant tortoises, easily met on foot.
A full day of Santa Cruz beaches and highlands. The Darwin station, lava tubes and tortoises.
The Darwin station, lava tubes and tortoises.
Transfer to Yasuni National Park. Parrot clay licks and a canopy tower. Oxbow-lake canoeing for giant otters and monkeys.
Oxbow-lake canoeing for giant otters and monkeys. A full day of western-Amazon wildlife. Yasuni packs more species per hectare than almost anywhere on earth — the Amazon at its richest.
A full day of western-Amazon wildlife. Rainforest trails and night canoe for caiman.
A final morning in Yasuni National Park — a last outing or a slow start as time allows — before the transfer onward and the journey home.
Drier highland months — clear skies over the city.
A year-round capital and hub.
A restored mansion on Plaza San Francisco, Quito's finest heritage hotel.
A glass-walled luxury lodge deep in the Chocó rainforest, a wildlife landmark.
The famous dome lodge on the Tandayapa ridge, immersed in high cloud forest.
A striking design lodge in the Santa Cruz highlands, overlooking a tortoise reserve.
A community-owned ecolodge on an oxbow lake in Yasuni, with a canopy tower.
A boutique design hotel in the historic San Marcos quarter.
Add nights, swap a park, extend to the coast — this route is a starting point, not a fixed menu. Tell us how you travel and we'll route the rest.