Category: Ecuador for Investors

I couldn’t even dream about living abroad without the following list of (mostly free) online tools I personally use on a daily basis here in Ecuador…

1. Magic Jack App. for iPhone:  I wouldn’t suggest ever living abroad without a Magic Jack, a little apparatus you plug into your computer that not only gives you a US phone number people can reach you at (VoIP) wherever in the world you are free but also allows you to call for free to any number in the US and Canada.  Cost is a one-time fee just under $100 found in most electronic stores.  But if you have an iPhone you can download the free MAGIC JACK app and have a US number people can reach you at that you can answer from your phone, free.  You can also make calls to US numbers via the app free as well, but you need to be connected to the internet.  VERY useful when staying in touch with friends and family but also in business if you plan on selling to Americans & Canadians from abroad. 

2. Teamviewer: Teamviewer is a free software you can use to “screenshare” or share what you’re seeing on your computer with someone anywhere else in the world, for free.  You can also take control of someones computer mouse and control their computer if they give you permission through the program or give permission for them to take control of your PC.  VERY useful for online working, I used it when developing a software with a guy in India showing him detail by detail what I needed. Realtors say they can’t work properly without the real estate software (find out more from Unify CRM). 

3. Toll free forwarding:  Toll free forwarding is great for small business owners abroad who want to appear bigger than they really are by having a 1-800 number that forwards to their local number, anywhere on the globe.  Very useful. 

4. Webgistix:  If you’ve been wondering, “jeeze, I’d love to begin exporting to the US little by little but who would receive my goods, unpack them, and reship them to my final customers?” Then Webgistix is for you because they do just that!  A game-changer indeed. 

5. Virtual Post Mail: As more and more people flock to greener pastures abroad several companies like this one have begun to offer this important service to anyone living abroad.  They offer you a US address you can have things mailed to, they open your mail and scan it if you request it, or they can shred it if you request that too.   They can also forward your mail upon request to anywhere on the globe. 

6. Skype:  Skype is not a new thing but is still a must for anyone living abroad.  It’s a free way to not only make and receive calls, anywhere, but also it’s a great way to make free video conference calls with up to 12 team members at once.  Great if you live abroad and work online with a team scattered throughout the world. 

7. Pamela.biz:  Pamela is a complement plug in for Skype that allows you to record calls you make or receive via Skype.  Great for doing international business or simply recording something important. 

8. Club Correos:  I had to throw at least one tool in here that specifically helps expats IN ECUADOR.  This service is run through the Ecuador post office and once you sign up you can order stuff online in the US and have it delivered to their PO Box in Miami, once there they will forward your items to you in Ecuador.  Great if you don’t have a mother or relative in the States that can provide the same service.  Thanks mom. 

9. Vocaroo:  If you’re on my newsletter I’m sure you’ve received and sent emails.  But have you ever sent a voice email to someone?  Yes, one where they receive an email from you, open it, then listen to your message (not read it).  With vocaroo you can send free voice email messages great if you better selling verbally than via written text or also if you’d like to break up with someon from a distance but don’t know actually what to write.  “Really baby, it’s not you it’s me… “  I’ve never done this I swear.

10. Faxzero:  I know fax is a thing of the past but every once in a while you will have to send a fax maybe when applying for something or to an old timer who doesn’t use email yet, faxzero.com lets you send the fax for free online to US and Canada numbers.  For sending fax to the rest of the world I use sendfreefax.net. 

11. Dreaminder:  Dreamminder is great to send yourself or anyone else an email at some point in the future.  In other words, you can schedule an email.  Great for reminders but also business tasks. 

12. Gmail canned responses:  I love this one!  Canned responses for gmail is a new feature you have to activate in the LABS section of your email, but once activated you can set fixed responses you can click on and they automatically appear in your email, you can then modify the message as you need and send, no copy and paste necessary, plus you have the saved standard meesages available to you from any PC anywhere if in a jam.  Huge time-saver, I use it in all my businesses! 

13. Boomerang for gmail:  This little complement plug in for Gmail is great for doing the task I enjoy least in business… bill collection.  That’s right, when my Italian-American forefathers might grab a baseball bat to collect an outstanding debt, I use Boomerang with Gmail, a simple app that lets you send a recurring email, once every day to a certain recipient until you decide to cancel it (once they’ve paid).  Its also great for cyber-stocking that special someone. 

14. Drop box:  Yes, I have actually spilled a wine glass clear across the keyboard of my lap top.  My lap top survived but if it hadn’t I wouldn’t have cried for the machine, but for the info I would have lost.  Now, with a free service like DropBox you can automatically back up important files you’d like to back up securely online. That way you have access to them from anywhere and can download them in the case of a PC crash.  Useful if traveling a lot and living abroad. 

15. Wetransfer:  Sometimes when living and working abroad you will need to send a file that is TOO BIG to attach normally to an email.  In those cases, I use WeTransfer, the free service works great for file transfers.  Important when working online or from abroad. 

Breaking the language barrier-
16. Google translator:  Still the most accurate tool online to quickly translate sentences or paragraphs of text from one of dozens of different languages. 

17. http://www.verbix.com/languages:  Anyone who has studying languages knows the backbone to any language is VERBS.  This handy tool online will give you the full verb conjugations of any verb in several dozen different languages. 

18. Forvo:  Is a great online dictionary of PRONOUNCED WORDS.  Just search the word and listen to the pronunciation.  Very handy. 

19. Wordreference.com:  When the word is so technical that Google Translator fails you, I use WordReference, similar to one of those fat Webster dictionaries but available for free online, works with English to French and Spanish.

20. livemocha.com:  A great, free program for studying languages online and having pen pals in forwign countries that help you along the way. 

21. Google Chrome:  The official free internet browser of Google that allows you to automatically translate entire websites in foreign languages to the language of your choice.  You may have to activate this feature in the settings.

22. Google alerts:  Are you a news junky?  Or just want to stay informed on a specific topic while abroad?  Then sign up for a free Google alert.  Every time your topic of interest is mentioned somewhere online Google will email you the exact link so you can check it out.  For instance, a lot of people use it to monitor the rep of their business name. 

23. timeanddate.com/worldclock:  When living abroad it’s great to know the time of another point in the world almost instantly, great tool.  Specifically good for when you’d like to watch sporting events in your home country and need to know when you need to tune in. 

24. XE.com:  Great free online tool updated every few minutes that allows you to convert any currency to any other instantly.  Important when living or doing business abroad. 

25. USTVNOW  / FirstRowSports.eu:  First Row Sports is a free service that streams live sporting events from around the world, don’t miss your favorite sporting events just cause you live in a country that lives and dies the mindless sport of soccer.  USTVNOW is great for watching live American TV shows online. 

Can you tell I’ve lived abroad a while now? 

To receive part 2 of this article, sign up for my list below, you can unsubscribe at any time:

I hear it all the time.

“I don’t like the heat and humidity of the coast of Ecuador but frankly, Cuenca is too damn cold.”

I know, I understand.

I usually respond just like I did in my last email… “A lot of people try to push Cuenca as “eternal spring” but actually it’s more like eternal ‘late fall’ “.

Now, I’ve lived in places with true eternal spring-like weather.

Example, Hawaii and Medellin, Colombia.

You know, places that have constant year-round weather where you can walk outside with a t-shirt and shorts and not even think about the temperature cause you are neither hot nor cold.

The problem with Medellin? It rains too much.

The problem with Hawaii? Not much, but if you press me I’d say it’s too expensive and many locals really don’t like “outsiders” or people not from Hawaii even though the ones that work in tourism well try to hide it.

In fact, Ecuador does have places with eternal spring-like weather.

Places just high enough to avoid the muggyness, mosquitos and humidity of the coast while not being as high as Cuenca or Quito.

One such place is one you’ve never heard mentioned before.

Zaruma.

Zaruma is a cozy town of about 20,000 folks built into a cliffside with a wooden-spanish-colonial style old town surrounded by lush slopes of coffee plantations in southern Ecuador about 3 hours from Machala, 4 hours from Loja and 6 hours from Guayaquil.

The town was founded hundreds of years ago by ambitious miners in search of gold.

Further downstream the mines still run rich, but up in Zaruma the mining has stopped.

All that’s left is a stunning, little, undiscovered place to live.

The town is perched at an elevation of 1200 meters (3937 feet(about half the elevation of Cuenca)) and the year round temperature hovers around 22 degrees C (72 F) and drops just a bit cooler than that at night so you can sleep comfortably with a blanket over you (no AC or heat needed!).

The nearest airport is Santa Rosa, about 1 1/2 to 2 hours by car away.

Most the locals shop in the fresh produce market right in the middle of town and get their bare necessities from the little street stores that dot the town.

The town has a free, public hospital that is known for having good service.

The locals are friendly and quick to strike up a conversation with one of the few foreigners in town.

Within Ecuador, Zaruma has a great rep for it’s amazing coffee, particularly beautiful people and sweets.

Rents for a 2 bedroom house/apartment just outside the old town start around $150-300/month and plate lunches start around $2.

A local specialty is the TIGRILLO, a breakfast dish made of mashed plantanes, cheese and eggs.

A cool thing many visitors do is take a guided tour of the town gold mine, now extinct, it was an actual mine for hundreds of years and the tour is done by an actual miner and is very informative (and free!).

I’d stay in the Cerro de Oro Hotel in the town center, nice, clean rooms for only $10 per person. Ask for a room on the top floor for some spectacular mountain views but watch your head on the way up the stairs. Any taxi in town knows where it is and can take you for $1.

Buy your coffee at the local distributor, an 80+ year old man with a great sense of humor, Don Marcelo Valverde, he has his shop in the town center, just ask around for the “tienda de Don Marcelo” and folks can point you the way.

The only negatives of the town I see at this point for expats wanting to take residence are the distance to a major city and the fairly steep town roads.

Foreigners? Not many, yet.

There you have it, one mountain town in Ecuador with a steady, warm-yet-comfortable climate year-round.

But before you make any investment in Ecuador, you’re going to want to sign up for my Ecuador Insiders weekly newsletter filing in the blanks below, youll learn everything you need to know before you invest to Ecuador:

Here are a few pics from a recent trip I made to Zaruma Ecuador.

To learn more about Zaruma fill in the blanks below:

Opps.

I let the cat out the bag on this one.

Don’t get me wrong.

I like Cuenca. It’s a nice place that’s attracting a lot of expats.

But…the world’s top retirement destination?

Child, please.

Are you outta your freakin’ mind?

It’s not even the top destination for retirees in Ecuador.

It was obviously chosen by people who’ve visited maybe a couple spots in Ecuador and who are interested in primarily selling seminars.

Let’s examine Cuenca further:

Climate: Forget eternal spring, I’d call Cuenca weather more like “eternal late fall”. It’s chilly, especially at night with lows in the mid 40s F, yet its just warm enough so that most dwellings don’t have heat, making many places indoors downright …cold! And it rains a lot too, and it’s more humid than the high elevation (8400 ft above sea level) would predict.

Cost of living/ Real estate: Yes, food is cheap like all over Ecuador with multi-course lunches starting around $2, taxi rides start at $1-3, bus rides $.25, 2 bedroom condo rentals start around $250/month, BUT due to several factors real estate in Cuenca is notably more expensive than most other places in Ecuador.

Food: Whenever “guinea pig” is a local staple, you know you’re in trouble. Hands down the variety of seafood and even the BBQ meats on the coast of Ecuador beat the local eats in Cuenca… any day of the week!

Local people: The local “Cuencanos” are friendly to foreigners, no doubt about it, but with so many foreigners around, most locals are de-sensitized and are really quite neutral to the sight of a foreigner. Being a foreigner alone won’t win you any brownie points like it does in other areas of Ecuador and the world where foreigners are a rare sight. But at least foreigners aren’t frowned upon. Ecuadorians as a whole are friendly, laid back people.

Old town/ Spanish colonial architecture: The Cuenca old town is OK, but it can’t compete when compared to the old towns I’ve seen in Cartagena (CO), Guanajuanto (MX), Colonia (Uruguay), Santo Domingo (DR), or even Quito.

Health care: Its a bit more pricey than the healthcare service in nearby Loja, and the variety of services offered is better in Guayaquil or Quito.

For singles: For single guys, its hard to beat Guayaquil, it just is, trust me on that one. For single women (and gay men), I’ve heard Manta, Guayaquil and Machala have some of the countries best looking and most enjoyable men.

Crime: While notably more safe than the other two big cities in Ecuador (Quito and Guayaquil), it’s still not quite as safe as the smaller towns in Ecuador if this is really important to you. Remember Ecuador outlaws guns so gun violence is a rare sight anywhere.

Cultural events/nightlife: For cultural events like classic music concerts and plays, Loja beats Cuenca. But if I got the chance, I’d trade both for Le Reve Vegas show tickets. For pure raucous nightlife, Quito and Guayaquil beat Cuenca once again any day of the week.

Expat community: If you’d like to be around a lot of other expats, Cuenca has built the largest expat community in Ecuador (rumored to be between 3-5,000 permanent residents) but there are also significant expat communities in Salinas, Manta, Cotacachi and Quito. But none are yet to the levels of hot spots in Mexico like in San Miguel.

Business opportunity: For businesses focused on selling products or services to expats it’s hard to beat Cuenca due to the large flow currently coming to the area on a daily basis, heck, I might even put a business there soon, but overall, coastal Ecuadorians are known to be more “free-spenders” than their highland counterparts and boy does the coast still need about, well… everything.

Overall: Unless you’re looking for a larger, established expat scene, Cuenca can easily be beat in all the categories listed above by other spots in Ecuador.

It’s overrated.

In fact, in my next letter I’ll share one unknown, alternative destination in Ecuador that has most of the benefits Cuenca has but with a true warmer-yet-not-too-warm eternal-spring like climate. To get it sign up for my list below, you can unsubscribe at any time: