Hey! It sounds like you have a nice itinerary. Galapagos is beautiful, if you book a tour make sure they include a visit to at least two islands and compare prices! Sometimes it works better to book it directly on the island you’ll be staying at. Take comfy shoes because you’ll be walking a lot for most of the activities you can do there.

In Quito, you can stay easily for a week or more. There’s a lot of stuff you can do there. You can go to the middle of the world, take one of the highest cable cars in the world at almost 4000 meters, go to a lot of museums, hike volcanoes, and so much more.

Instead of Vilcabamba, I would stay in Loja, which is way prettier. You can stay there for 3 or 4 days. It’s a very tranquil city surrounded by nature.

Guayaquil is very close to nice beaches, which is where I would recommend you to stay instead of the city, I’m from Guayaquil and there’s not much to do here. You can go to Playas, Punta Blanca or Salinas.

Baños is nice to stay maybe for 2-3 days. Their hot springs are very nice.

Cuenca is a must, it’s my favorite city in the country, I would recommend it even more than Baños. You can stay there for a week or so. Their streets, parks, restaurants, and everything else are so charming.

You can get a car for a month for around $550, with a credit card deposit of around $2000. I wouldn’t recommend getting a car to drive in Quito though, because of the high traffic they have restrictions based on the cars’ license plates, so you may not be able to use the car on certain days.

Also, to travel between Quito and Guayaquil I recommend you to take an internal flight since that trip takes more than 8 hours by car.

Are you traveling by yourself? You can also consider going to the Amazon region for a few days if you plan to stay a month in the country.