Ecuador

Ecuador packs four travel-grade ecosystems into a country smaller than the United Kingdom: Pacific coast, Andean sierra, Amazon basin, and the Galápagos. The practical upshot is the rare itinerary where a five-hour drive genuinely changes the conversation — Quito's altitude at 9,300 feet, the volcanic corridor of Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, then a flight down to Coca and a riverboat into Yasuní where the trees themselves change personality every hundred metres.

The Galápagos remain the country's flagship and are now meaningfully better managed than they were twenty years ago. The cap on daily visitors, the rotating-itinerary system, and the National Park's strict licensing of operators have all bitten — choose a small expedition vessel (Origin, Theory, La Pinta) over the larger ones, and the wildlife interactions remain the kind that make you understand why Darwin took the trip. Cool-and-dry season runs June through September; warm-and-wet from December onward brings calmer seas and the green iguana mating season if you don't mind humidity.

On the mainland, Mashpi Lodge in the Chocó cloud forest is the single most impressive sustainability case in South America — a former logging concession turned private reserve, the lodge's ornithologists have catalogued species the country didn't formally know it had. Hacienda Zuleta in the northern sierra (Galo Plaza Lasso's working estate) is the reference for the Andean experience: 4,000 hectares, an Andean condor rehabilitation programme, and a kitchen run on the farm's own produce.

Quito and Cuenca are the urban cases for staying an extra day. The old town in Quito is a working UNESCO designation rather than a museum one — it is still where Quiteños live and trade — and the colonial-era Casa Gangotena is the address. Pair with Otavalo's Saturday market for the country's textile heritage at its highest grade.