Editorials
Quito Is Treated as a Galápagos Layover, and That Undersells One of Latin America's Best-Preserved Old Towns
Ecuador's capital is usually treated as a one-night stop before flights to the Galápagos, but its historic centre, the first place UNESCO named a World Heritage Site, rewards a longer stay on its own terms.
By BigTravel.in Editorial Team · · 2 min read
Most itineraries that include Quito treat it as a hinge, not a destination: a night before or after a flight to the Galápagos Islands, spent close to the airport and rarely in the old town at all. That does a disservice to a capital whose historic centre was, in 1978, the first place in the world to be inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site, ahead of Krakow on the same original list.
An old town built at altitude
Quito sits at roughly 2,850 metres in the Andes, making its centre one of the highest capital old towns anywhere, and giving the city a cool, spring-like climate year-round regardless of season. The Centro Histórico spans dozens of blocks of largely intact colonial and republican-era architecture, a scale and state of preservation that few Latin American capitals can match after centuries of earthquakes, wars and redevelopment.
What the old town actually holds
La Compañía de Jesús, the Jesuit church a few blocks from the main square, is often singled out for its interior, covered almost entirely in gold leaf over intricate carved woodwork. Nearby, the Basílica del Voto Nacional adds gargoyles carved as Galápagos iguanas and tortoises in place of the usual gothic grotesques, and its towers can be climbed for a view over the surrounding rooftops. El Panecillo, the hill above the old town topped by a large statue of the Virgin of Quito, gives the clearest single overview of how much of the historic centre remains standing.
Why it keeps losing out to the islands
The Galápagos is, fairly, one of the most sought-after wildlife destinations on the planet, and most travel budgets and itinerary time go towards it rather than the mainland stopover. But Quito's old town is a full day or two on its own terms, not a layover activity squeezed between an airport transfer and an early flight, and treating it as one means missing one of the more complete surviving colonial centres on the continent.
Traveller tips
- Budget at least a full day and night in the old town itself, rather than a hotel near the airport, to see it outside daylight-hours transit.
- Quito's altitude can cause mild altitude sickness on arrival; keep the first day light and stay hydrated.
- The historic centre is best walked in daylight; take a taxi rather than walking between the old town and newer districts after dark.
- Most Galápagos flights route through Quito's Mariscal Sucre International Airport, so a stopover here requires no extra routing.
Where this is
Quito, Ecuador
