Is Quito safe? An honest answer
We run a small hotel here, so you should read what follows knowing that we have an interest in your answer being yes. That is exactly why this page gives you the numbers and the geography rather than reassurance. Ecuador's security situation has genuinely deteriorated. Where you go within Ecuador changes your exposure more than anything else you decide.
The short version
- Ecuador's national homicide rate reached about 51 per 100,000 in 2025 — among the highest in Latin America, up from under 8 in 2018.
- Roughly 88% of those homicides happen in five coastal provinces. Quito is not in one of them.
- Pichincha, Quito's province, recorded around 12 per 100,000 — a fraction of the coastal figures, and materially higher than the southern highlands.
- The US State Department rates Ecuador Level 2, "exercise increased caution" — the same level as France, Germany and the UK. Quito carries no elevated designation.
- Your real risk here is skilled, non-violent theft — pickpockets so good that most people never feel it happen.
- The variable you control is attention. Thieves choose distracted people. Alert ones are left alone.
What actually happened to Ecuador
For most of the 2010s Ecuador was known as an island of peace — homicide rates three or four times below the Latin American average, lower than most of its neighbours. In 2018 the rate was around 7.7 per 100,000. By 2025 it was near 51.
The cause is not general lawlessness. It is cocaine logistics. Ecuador sits between the two largest producing countries and has major container ports, and as Colombian and Mexican networks reorganised, Ecuadorian gangs fought each other for control of the routes. The violence follows the ports and the corridors.
That is why the map matters more than the headline.
Where the violence actually is
| Place | Homicides per 100,000 |
|---|---|
| Durán, on the coast Adjacent to Guayaquil's port | ~140 |
| Ecuador, national average 2025 | ~51 |
| Pichincha province (Quito) 2025 | ~12 |
| Cuenca, southern highlands | ~1.4 |
| Guayas province alone | ~47% of all homicides |
The US "Do Not Travel" designations for Ecuador are specific and geographic: parts of southern Guayaquil, the canton of Durán, Esmeraldas city and everything north of it to the Colombian border, and several towns in Los Ríos and El Oro. None of them is anywhere near Quito, and none is on a normal Galápagos or Amazon itinerary.
The same applies to the states of emergency and curfews that Ecuador declares periodically. The most recent rounds have covered coastal provinces — Guayas, Los Ríos, Santo Domingo, El Oro. Pichincha has not been included. If you read a headline about a curfew in Ecuador, check which provinces before you cancel anything.
None of this means Quito is Cuenca. At roughly 12 per 100,000, Pichincha is well above a Western European capital and comparable to a number of mid-sized American cities. It is a place that rewards ordinary urban awareness, not a place that requires courage.
What the risk in Quito actually looks like
This is where most safety articles get it wrong, including the version of this page we first wrote.
People imagine confrontation: someone demanding your wallet. That is not what happens here. What Quito has is exceptionally skilled opportunistic theft. No weapons, no threats, usually no contact you would even notice. The commonest way visitors lose something in this city is that they reach for their phone an hour later and it is not there.
In rough order of likelihood:
- Pickpocketing in crowded places — the Plaza Grande on a Monday, markets, buses, the trolley at rush hour. Done well, and you will not feel it.
- Distraction technique: something spilled on your jacket, a dropped item, a stranger being unusually friendly and standing unusually close while someone else works behind you.
- Phone snatching, most often from people walking while looking at a map — and sometimes from a passing motorbike, which is why you walk on the inside of the pavement rather than the kerb.
- Bag theft from chairs, from the back of a seat, from a rucksack worn on your back in a crowd.
- Taxi problems when you flag a car on the street rather than using an app or having a hotel call one.
Violent robbery does occur, as in any large city, but it is uncommon, it is concentrated late at night away from the main squares, and it is not the thing that happens to the guests we see. Gang violence — the thing behind Ecuador's national figures — is happening between armed groups several hundred kilometres from here, in places you have no reason to go.
The one thing worth understanding
A pickpocket is not attacking you. He is selecting you, and he is doing it in about three seconds from across the street.
What he is reading is whether your attention is on your surroundings or somewhere else. Someone absorbed in a phone, unfolding a map, wearing a rucksack on their back in a crowd, or visibly unsure where they are is an easy proposition. Someone who is looking around, whose bag is in front of them, who notices him noticing them, is not worth the risk — and he moves on to the next person, of whom there are plenty.
This is why we have these notes posted in the hotel and why reception will walk you through them. It is not because Quito is dangerous. It is because the difference between losing your phone and not losing it is almost entirely a matter of how you carry yourself for the ten minutes you are in a crowd.
What we would tell a guest arriving tomorrow
The taxi rule
Do not flag taxis on the street. Use an app, or ask reception to call one — we do it constantly and it takes two minutes. Official taxis are yellow with orange plates and a visible registration number, but the point of a called car is that someone knows which car you got into.
Bag in front, not on your back
A rucksack worn on your back in a crowd is open for as long as you are in that crowd. Wear it on your chest — everyone here does it and nobody will look at you twice. Choose one with proper zips, and skip small shoulder bags, waist packs and anything that can be unclipped or slit while you are looking elsewhere.
Phone in pocket, not hand
Navigate before you leave, or step into a shop to check the map. Walking down a street holding an expensive phone is the most common way visitors lose one, here and in most large cities.
Carry less
One card and small amounts of cash — only what you need for the day. Leave the passport in the hotel safe and carry a copy; the Carondelet palace tour is one of the few occasions that requires the original. Photographs of your documents cover most other situations.
Daylight is a different city
The Old Town in daylight is busy, heavily policed and completely normal — families, school groups, office workers. After dark it empties fast. Stay around La Ronda or Calle Antepara, both of which are lively in the evening, and take a taxi between neighbourhoods rather than walking.
Walk away from the kerb
Some snatching is done from motorbikes, which need a target within reach of the road. Walking on the inside of the pavement removes the opportunity entirely, and costs you nothing.
Personal space is information
Do not let strangers get close to you, and be a little wary of unusually friendly approaches in the street — not because Ecuadorians are unfriendly, they are the opposite, but because closeness is how the distraction works. If something feels off, it probably is. Step away. You will not offend anyone who matters.
Two places to be deliberate about
El Panecillo: take a taxi up and have it wait, or arrange a return. Do not walk the stairs, whatever a map suggests. Bus terminals and the trolley at rush hour: fine, but that is where pickpockets work.
Dress down
Visible jewellery, expensive watches and professional camera gear attract attention. This is not Quito-specific advice; it is just more true here than in Zurich.
If your phone or wallet does go missing
It is annoying and it is not a crisis. Come and tell us.
We will help you file the police report ("denuncia") that your insurer at home will ask for, handle the Spanish, and help you cancel cards and lock the phone. Doing that yourself in a second language, on the day it happens, is miserable and slow. Doing it with someone at reception takes an afternoon.
Travel with insurance that actually covers theft, keep your embassy's number saved, and photograph your documents before you leave home. In the rare case that someone does confront you directly, hand over what they want — nothing in your bag is worth an argument.
Some perspective on the rest of your trip
If Quito is a stopover, note where you are going next.
The Galápagos are among the safest places in the Americas — a tiny, tightly regulated population with essentially none of the mainland's problems. The Cuyabeno is a wildlife reserve reached by a tourist shuttle and a canoe; you spend it with a guide and a small group. The Andean day trips — Cotopaxi, Otavalo, Mindo, Papallacta — are in provinces with low violence, and the practical risks there are altitude and mountain roads, not crime.
The riskiest part of a typical Galápagos itinerary is not a neighbourhood. It is a 4,864-metre volcano on your second day at altitude.
The honest bottom line
Ecuador has a serious security problem and it would be insulting to pretend otherwise — thousands of families have lost people to it. That problem is concentrated with unusual clarity in specific coastal provinces and specific corridors, and a Galápagos or Amazon itinerary routed through Quito does not go near them.
Quito asks for the awareness you would bring to any large Latin American capital: watch your bag, use called cars, don't walk unfamiliar streets alone at two in the morning. Do that and the overwhelming likelihood is that nothing happens at all, which is what happens to almost everyone who stays with us.
And if you are still unsure, ask us directly. We will tell you what this week actually looks like rather than what a website said last year.
Ask us before you decide
Nine rooms in a restored 1914 house, ten minutes on foot from the Plaza Grande. Message us on WhatsApp with your dates and your route — we will give you a straight answer about what to expect, whether or not you end up booking with us.
See our best dealsCheck this yourself
Do not take a hotel's word for it, including ours. Read your own government's current advisory — the US State Department, the UK FCDO, Global Affairs Canada and the German Auswärtiges Amt all publish updated guidance with the specific regions listed. Note the date on anything you read, including this page, and note that most alarming headlines about Ecuador are describing places that are nowhere near your itinerary.
For the practical side of arriving, see getting from the airport to the Old Town, which covers night arrivals in detail.
Take this with you
Save it before you travel, and check the date against your government's current advisory.
