Why I moved to Ecuador

Why would someone with a lucrative business model, a secure future, and even greater opportunities staring them in the face leave the city they love and move their family to Ecuador? By all accounts this is madness. Most people I talked to back home couldn’t even identify Ecuador on a map. ‘Oh you’re moving to Ecuador, cool, where is that, Central America somewhere?’ To be honest, prior to my research on relocation options I knew no more than they did about the country I now call home. It was not all that long ago I was on a very different track with a vey different worldview. Working hard, pursuing an MBA, mortgage, debt, kids – busy!

Worldview and what’s important in life are funny things. If one has a fair mind and is receptive to logic or even to their own instinctive feeling of what’s true and what’s not, at some point the social conditioning and norms we acquiesce to must either be left behind or consume us – pushing us in the direction of their choosing.

There were many reasons to leave the states. Not the least of which were the incessantly increasing anti-liberty actions in ‘the land of the free.’ What was I seeing being sprayed out of airplanes in my skies? What did I want for my daughter and for myself?

I would be lying to you if I said Ecuador offers a solution for all I was looking to get away from. However, the natural beauty, people, food, water, way of life, lack of pretense, and same degree of social conditioning is a wonderful change.

This is a place where I am within a 45-minute drive from 4 DISTINCT climates – tropical rainforest, desert type heat, perfect ‘San Diego type weather’, and coolish but temperate mountains. Nature takes on new meaning here. Any food I can imagine I can grow. The water that flows out of the ‘quebradas’ is like nothing I’ve ever tasted. Business opportunities are plentiful – many fewer dollars chasing many more opportunities.

Cost of living is around 20-30% of what it was in New York.

Several years later I couldn’t be happier with my decision.

Social and cultural adjustments? Absolutely. Need to learn a new language and all the challenges that go along with it? 100%. Cultural norms that go against my instincts and what makes sense to me? No doubt. Happy? Really, really, happy.

I would say to anyone. Listen to your gut. Listen to your instincts. You know more than you realize. Don’t listen to the naysayers – those who would reel you back in – always go for it – after all that is why you are here.