We have recently returned from a trip to Ecuador and are planning our return in July 2008. The italics are what we wrote on our website before travelling to Ecuador. Read on and find out why.

We arrived in Ecuador and spent a couple of days in Quito the second largest City in Ecuador. We then headed up North to Cuenca, the third largest city in Ecuador to seek out some properties we had viewed on the internet.

For $360 per month we rented a fantastic apartment in Cuenca. This included, internet, cable TV, and a lovely lady who came and serviced our apartment once a week, plus a bag of washing and ironing. Great value. You can take a look at the apartment by Clicking Here.

We rented this apartment for almost two months and since our departure it has had a few updated features so the rent has now risen to $400. Still well worth a stay.

"Ecuador seems like a great place to start looking as it has been ranked as #2 by International Living. "

This is what we wrote on our website before we left and now having experienced Ecuador first hand we have definitely fallen in love with it.

You see we have lived the main part of our lives in Australia. However, we both have travelled to different parts of the world and love the adventure of new places and people.

"John, at almost 57, is old enough to retire early. His research into Ecuador, which goes back 10 years, has now led us down the path of wanting to find out more. Initially John's interest in Ecuador was for health, lifestyle and environment just to mention a few."

As for myself, Dixie, I am a few years younger than John but also do think about our retirement and how will we survive on superannuation and any other savings and investments. I also became interested in Ecuador and decided to do some researching of my own.

To my amazement I found that real estate is extremely cheap and we would be able to buy a beautiful property with everything we need and be left with plenty of money to live on and start some part-time income activities like import-export, internet marketing and perhaps even start a health retreat in "the valley of longevity". Many other visitors to Ecuador have decided to stay after experiencing its delights, so we won't be the first ' although maybe one of the small minority of Australians."

Yes I was truly amazed at the properties we saw while in Ecuador. So much so that we bought a two bedroom two bathroom apartment in Cuenca for just under $60,000 USD.

If you would like to find out more about properties contact Kathy Gonzalez in Cuenca. She and her partner David Morrill speak English and are a great source of information.

Our children at this point are all young adults so the timing for us is right to go and be adventurous. They all have jobs or are at university. So now we are taking the plunge and taking an exploratory trip to Ecuador for around 7 weeks to see and feel for ourselves."

Now we are back home and have been on the exploratory trip and fell in love with Ecuador and its people. We have started an import business called "Andes Artisans" and will shortly be sharing that website with you all.

Find out more about Ecuador here. Take a tour of our site.

Even better still subscribe to our ezine and read our back dated issues of our journey to date.

Hasta Luega John and Dixie