When to go, and what each season actually gives you

The short version

Ecuador sits on the equator, so it does not have summer and winter. It has altitude, and an ocean current that changes twice a year. That means the honest answer to "when should I go" is another question: go where, and to do what? The Andes, the Galápagos, the Amazon and the coast each have their own calendar, and they do not agree with each other.

Galápagos: two seasons, and neither of them is bad

This is the part most articles get wrong by calling one season "best". The islands have a warm season and a cool season, driven by ocean currents rather than by rain, and they are good at genuinely different things.

December to May — the warm season. Air around 28–30 °C, sea 24–27 °C, brief heavy showers that clear. The water is calm and clear, which matters more than people expect: crossings between islands are gentler, snorkelling is easier, and underwater visibility is at its best. This is the season we recommend to families, to anyone who is unsure about boats, and to anyone whose main memory of the trip will be being in the water.

June to November — the cool season. The Humboldt current arrives, air drops to around 22–25 °C and the sea to 19–23 °C. It is choppier and you will want a wetsuit. In exchange the water is full of nutrients, and everything that eats follows it: this is when hammerhead numbers peak at Kicker Rock, when the seabird colonies are busiest, and when the archipelago is most obviously alive.

Both seasons see tortoises, marine iguanas, sea lions and blue-footed boobies. Nobody misses the Galápagos by going in the wrong month. They just get a different one.

What each season costs is a separate question, and we costed it in full: the Galápagos price index.

The Andes: it is about the afternoon, not the month

At 2,800 metres the temperature barely changes all year — it is roughly 8 °C at dawn and 20 °C at midday in Quito and Cuenca in every month. What changes is the rain, and even that behaves predictably: mornings are usually clear and the weather arrives after lunch.

That is why the driest window, June to September, is the easy answer for Cotopaxi, Quilotoa and the volcano views — but also why the wetter months are not the problem people assume. We schedule the summit views, the crater rim and the long drives for the morning all year round, because that is when the mountain is visible regardless of season.

The genuine caution is February to April, when afternoon cloud is most persistent. If a photograph of Cotopaxi is the reason you are coming, that is the window to avoid.

The Amazon: high water or more walking

The Ecuadorian Amazon is warm and humid every month, and it rains in all of them. The real variable is the river level, and it changes what you do rather than whether you go.

• April to August — high water. Canoes reach creeks and flooded forest that are dry ground the rest of the year. More paddling, more of the forest seen from the water, easier access to the clay licks.
• January to March — lower water. More walking, more trails, more chance of tracks and terrestrial wildlife. Slightly less comfortable underfoot, slightly more rewarding for anyone who likes to walk.

Our three Ecuadorian lodges — Napo Wildlife Center, Sani Lodge and Napo Cultural Center — run year-round and we have never advised anyone against a month.

The coast: whales have a calendar

This is the one part of Ecuador with a hard date. Humpback whales migrate from Antarctica to breed off the Ecuadorian coast from late June to September, with Puerto López and Isla de la Plata as the base. It is one of the more reliable whale-watching seasons anywhere, and outside it there is nothing to watch.

For beaches rather than whales, January to April is the hot, sunny window between showers. Note that this is also the wet season, and that the coastal provinces are the ones covered by travel advisories — we deal with that honestly here.

Peru, if you are combining

Peru is simpler and stricter: April to October is the dry season in Cusco and the Sacred Valley, and it is when you want to be there. January and February are the wettest months, the Inca Trail closes for maintenance in February, and the Salkantay route is at its worst from January to March.

If you are combining both countries — as in our 10-day Machu Picchu and Galápagos — April to October is the overlap that works. The catch is that June to August is both the best Peru window and the busiest month everywhere, so it is the one combination that genuinely has to be booked months ahead.

Crowds and prices, which are not the same thing

People assume high season means expensive. In Ecuador it mostly means full.

Land arrangements move very little between seasons — our per-day rates barely change. What changes is the flight to the Galápagos, which can swing from around US$400 to US$600 or more, and availability: the good hotels on Isabela, the Machu Picchu entries and the Hiram Bingham train sell out well before they get expensive.

The two peaks are mid-December to mid-January and July to August. The best value in the year, in our experience, is late April to early June and late September to November: shoulder weather, shoulder crowds, full choice of hotels.

Every itinerary, and its window

These are the windows published on our own tour pages, trip by trip — not a regional average.

The months we would avoid, and why

Three, and only one of them is about weather.

1. February, in the Andes and in Peru. The wettest month in both, and the month the Inca Trail closes. It is the one time we would move a date rather than argue about it.
2. Mid-December to mid-January, anywhere. Not a weather problem — a capacity problem. Flights at their peak, hotels full, and Ecuadorian domestic travel on top of international. If you can shift a week either side, do.
3. Any month, booked three weeks out, for June to August. The island flight and the Machu Picchu entry are the two things nobody can conjure at short notice.