Puerto López is located on the Pacific Coast of Ecuador about 1.5 hours south of Manta or 3 hours north of Guayaquil.
Puerto López has a population of approximately 15,000 people and the major industries are fishing and tourism. It takes 30 minutes to walk from one end of town to the other and along the way, you’ll encounter only one stop light.
Puerto López has all the businesses you’ll need: grocery stores, pharmacies, hardware and building supplies etc. There is a large municipal market that sells fruits and vegetables and there are local fruit/vegetable vendors in almost every neighborhood. If you need big city shopping experiences, Manta and Portoviejo are only 90 minutes away and have all the malls, big box stores, traffic and noise that you’ll need.
A fresh fish market near the pier enables you to buy fish right from the fishermen – and they’ll clean and fillet it for you too!
There is a year-round population of about 150 English-speaking residents in Puerto López and another 100 that spend part of the year here. You’ll quickly become part of a community of like-minded folks – after all, they decided to make Puerto López home too!
You don’t need to speak Spanish to live in Puerto López but let’s be honest, you’ll enjoy life in town a lot more if you can at least communicate in Spanish. Most locals don’t speak English but they love to chat. So a little Spanish-language skills will help you buy tomatoes at the corner fruit stand and become friends with the vendor – likely your neighbor.
Life is pretty relaxed here. There’s a nice variety of restaurants to enjoy if you don’t feel like cooking: from ones where the locals eat, to the ones where the tourists eat. Naturally, seafood is a popular dish but you can get everything else: from gnocchi; to pizza & burgers; to authentic Mexican food.
Ecuador has unfortunately been in the news lately regarding an overall ‘unsafe’ situation in the country. Without sugar-coating it: Yes, the government is currently engaged in a campaign to rid the country of all the unpleasant side-effects that are associated with organized crime. But the headlines you are reading in North America paint a picture that greatly exaggerates and sensationalizes the reality here in Ecuador.
Criminal activity (for the most part) has been concentrated in the big cities like Quito and Guayaquil and involve people who move in that world. If you’re not involved in organized crime, there’s a pretty good chance that nobody from that world is going to be interested in you.
While no one is immune to crime, it is highly unlikely that violent crime will ever affect you in Ecuador. Nobody here is going into schools shooting the children. Nobody here is shooting up the malls. Ecuador is a peaceful place where you can live your life as you want to.
If you ask any resident of Puerto López or any foreigner living in Ecuador, they will tell you that they feel safe walking through town, sitting in their home or being out with their friends.
No one is afraid to live their daily life.