Quito 6 Day Itinerary (No Tourist Traps)
Six days is our 5-day plan with Otavalo’s market added as its own full day rather than rushed in alongside something else.
Day 1
Mariscal Sucre airport at Tababela sits around 2,400 meters, lower than the city, so you ascend into Quito on arrival. A licensed taxi runs a flat $25-35; apps like Uber or inDrive typically cost $15-25. Take the afternoon slow, mild altitude symptoms are genuinely common on day one at 2,850 meters.
Walk Plaza Grande, La Compañía de Jesús ($6, gold-leaf interior of disputed quantity), and San Francisco, home of the Quito School of colonial sculpture. Dinner: locro de papa, $8-15.
Tip: keep today unhurried; save the higher-elevation sights for tomorrow.
Day 2
Climb the Basílica’s towers ($2) for Galápagos-animal gargoyles, then taxi up to El Panecillo ($3-5); the walk carries real mugging risk, the summit itself is safe and patrolled. Afternoon: the TelefériQo ($8.50 round trip) to 4,050 meters, ideally before midday cloud. Evening: La Ronda for canelazo, on the lit main street only.
Tip: arrange your ride home from La Ronda through an app before you go out, not after.
Day 3
Mitad del Mundo, 30-40 minutes by taxi ($10 each way): the monument sits about 240 meters off the true equator, with the actual GPS line and demonstrations next door at Museo Intiñan ($5). Continue to Pululahua’s inhabited crater, a few dollars entry, 45-minute descent trail.
Tip: hire the taxi round trip with waiting time, roughly $30-40 total.
Day 4
Full day at Cotopaxi National Park, about two hours south, 5,897 meters. A guided tour with transport runs $60-100 per person. Most day-trippers walk to the José Rivas refuge around 4,800 meters rather than summit. Check current access and eruptive status before booking.
Tip: treat dizziness or nausea on the trail as a reason to stop, not push through.
Day 5
A full day at Otavalo, ninety minutes to two hours north, one of South America’s great indigenous textile markets. Saturday is the biggest market day, though a smaller daily market runs the rest of the week. Bargaining is expected and normal; a genuine hand-woven textile runs anywhere from $15-80 depending on size and quality.
Tip: bring small bills; vendors often can’t break large ones early in the day.
Day 6
Spend the morning in La Mariscal for last-minute shopping and a final ceviche lunch, Ecuadorian-style: tomato-based, soup-like, with popcorn and plantain chips, genuinely different from the Peruvian version. Head to the airport with real buffer time; the 40-90 minute range that applies on arrival applies just as much leaving.
Tip: withdraw cash from a bank ATM in the city rather than the airport for lower fees.
Read more: for a longer version of this trip with a cloud forest day added, see our 7-day itinerary , and for the fuller list of day trips this plan draws from, our day trips guide.