U.S. retirees found affordability in Ecuador. What happens when crisis hits?

At her house in Ecuador’s third-largest city, its colonial buildings framed by the Andes mountains, LaRahna Hughes’ phone buzzed repeatedly with messages from relatives and friends back in the United States.

Are you OK? Are you getting out of the country? 

It was early January, and Ecuador’s president declared that the nation had entered an “internal armed conflict,” and mobilized the military to fight drug gangs. The violence had reached a boiling point. There had been bombings. Prison guards were taken hostage. Masked gunmen took over a live TV broadcast.

In Ecuador – long regarded one of Latin America’s safest nations for Americans seeking to retire abroad – many people fielded similar calls of concern.

But Hughes reassured loved ones that the attacks hadn’t targeted Cuenca. It’s nearly a four-hour drive from the epicenter of the violence in Guayaquil, the port city that has emerged as a new trafficking hub for cocaine from neighboring Peru and Colombia.

“I feel safe here,” she told USA TODAY. She views the violence as more localized within Ecuador for residents and retirees alike than news headlines tended to suggest.

Still, growing crime in recent years hadn’t left all her fellow retirees untouched. Many adjusted to a nighttime curfew or adopted new safety measures. A few months earlier, one retiree who lives on the Pacific coast said she sped away from an attempted carjacking that left bullet holes in her vehicle.

Experts and retirees said there were no signs of a major exodus. Most lived in areas where they felt safe enough to remain, even as some watch the ramped-up crackdown on gangs warily.

“You're always asking that question,” said Michele DeWolfe, who lives in Olon, Ecuador, after moving from Colorado with her husband, a retired land surveyor, about 12 years ago. “Are you underreacting or overreacting? And at what point is it too much?”

The tumult in Ecuador has highlighted the uncertainties and difficult choices that can accompany any overseas crisis for the increasing number of Americans who choose to retire abroad.

Foreign countries often beckon with lower costs that equal a higher quality of life. And Ecuador for years been on the top 10 list of the retire-abroad publication International Living. Though the country shouldn’t be written off, said editor Jennifer Stevens, “the current situation, however, gives us pause on the safety front.”

The U.S. State Department gives Ecuador a Level 2 travel warning, to “Exercise Increased Caution.” Some areas within the country have a Level 3, or “Reconsider Travel” warning, and some have a Level 4, meaning “Do Not Travel.”

“Is it the best time in history to head off to retire in Ecuador? Perhaps not,” Stevens said. “Perhaps best to wait a month or so and see how all this plays out.”

Why Americans retire abroad

Frances Hogg Lochow, 69, spent decades as a legal aid attorney in Detroit before moving to a small town on New York’s Hudson River when her husband retired.

The couple looked for a place outside the U.S. where they could live more affordably without his income. She said they visited Mexico and Turkey and finally settled on Ecuador, a country the size of Nevada filled with jungles and beaches and mountains.

They sold their home in the U.S. and bought a house in Cuenca, a historic city perched at 8,200 feet. They were charmed by its climate, architecture and costs that allow the couple to live comfortably on Social Security alone with money left to travel.

“It’s like 70 degrees every day. You can get an apartment for $600 a month. Doctor appointments are 30 bucks. Drugs are less expensive,” she said. “It’s a very healthy place to live. The people are really friendly. And it's a cultural center.”

A couple can live comfortably on $2,000 a month and together pay about $95 a month for government health care, according to International Living.

Hughes, 51, was operating a farm and a farm-to-table cafe in South Carolina when in 2022 she decided to move to Ecuador, where she could have an early retirement that wouldn’t have been possible in the United States.

“The economics of Cuenca let me retire,” she said.

Edward Lindquist, originally from California, now publishes the English-language Cuenca Expat Magazine. He says his publication estimates as many as 20,000 native English speakers live in Ecuador. The biggest chunk are U.S. expatriates and retirees.

Stevens said it’s a function of the growing interest in retiring abroad.

More: Think you'll work past 70? Good luck. Why most of us retire earlier.

As of December 2022, 450,156 retired workers were receiving Social Security payments abroad, more than double the 219,504 in 1999, according to the Social Security Administration.

Those figures don’t include retirees who have their checks deposited in the U.S. but live abroad, or who don’t claim Social Security.

Driven by rising housing and health care costs and inadequate retirement savings, the trend was further buoyed by the growth of remote work that allows some retirees or spouses to earn supplemental income, and online groups offering tips and information – making overseas retirement increasingly mainstream, Stevens said.

“It used to be like, ‘Oh my God, my crazy grandfather went to Costa Rica,’” she said. In addition, because people are living longer, many are “eager to figure out ways that they can have an adventure in that second chapter.”

Those clusters of new Americans can boost the local economy and in some instances draw criticism from locals for pushing up housing prices.

Her publication’s 2024 Annual Global Retirement Index, a ranking based on cost, lifestyle and safety, puts Costa Rica at the top, followed by Portugal, Mexico, Panama, Spain, Ecuador, Greece, Malaysia, France and Colombia.

While predicting instability is difficult, whether it be a coup in Thailand or cartel violence in Mexico, often such events do not directly affect retirees. But some events can push residents to relocate or leave temporarily, Stevens said.

Some left Nicaragua to see how things played out after President Daniel Ortega’s growing crackdown on opponents, which began in 2018 and went on to suppress clergy, media and civil society. In recent years, Stevens said, many have returned.

She suggests people consider countries that have a long history of stability and of policies designed to attract expats, such as Costa Rica; as well as to join expat Facebook groups to hear from people on the ground and follow news while understanding that the “drama in reporting from afar tends to be applied to a whole country, which paints neither a fair nor accurate picture of what's happening on the ground in specific communities.”

More: Nicaragua lost press freedom. Other countries are too

Ecuador shaken by drug-fueled violence

More than a decade after retiring, Janet Meinke, 58, and her 79-year-old husband, David, live on the beach in Punta Blanca, Ecuador – a country they chose in part because of its reputation as one of the region’s safest.

But that ranking has changed in recent years as drug gangs began using the country as a shipment point between some of South America’s largest cocaine producers. Crime and murder rates have soared. Killings, kidnappings, robberies and other crimes became part of Ecuadorians’ everyday life, The Associated Press reported last year.

In the fall, gangs assassinated a presidential candidate, Fernando Villavicencio, and set off car bombs in front of government buildings.

Earlier this month, Meinke came out of her weekly Tuesday movie to find the mall’s shops closing and people hustling home.

“What’s going on?” she asked.

President Daniel Noboa, part of a family that had made a fortune in the banana trade, declared a national state of emergency, a measure that lets authorities suspend people’s rights and mobilize the military in places like prisons, saying the county had entered an “internal armed conflict,” the AP reported. An 11 p.m.-to-5 a.m. curfew was enacted.

Starting on Jan. 8, criminal groups shot civilians, looted stores, and set off car bombs and other explosions in the capital Quito and Guayaquil, according to the International Crisis Group. It followed the escape from prison of two key criminal leaders, including the head of one of Ecuador’s most powerful drug gangs, Los Choneros.

Masked gunmen stormed a Guayaquil TV studio during a live news broadcast, and rioting inmates overran a number of the country’s prisons, holding more than 150 prison guards hostage for almost a week, the group said.

The president ordered national security forces to neutralize 22 armed groups classified as “terrorists.” By Jan. 25, the government had detained 3,611 people.

DeWolfe, the former Coloradoan, said the spike came amid already rising crime, including widespread extortion.

“Two towns down, their school bus was held for ransom. A couple of days ago, two of the women who run the orphanage here were shot at and robbed,” DeWolfe said. “People are just tired of it.”

Last fall, Atlanta native Bobbi de Winter told the The Wall Street Journal she and her husband intended to sell their house on the Pacific Ocean near Manta after nearby killings and a large cocaine stash for trafficking found at a beach close to them. Her husband once had to swerve his car to avoid a man who had been shot, she told the newspaper.

“I had to let go of my dream,”  she said.

One retiree ? who asked that her name not be used in connection to her experience in Ecuador so she would not alarm American relatives ? told USA TODAY that several months ago she was driving a woman considering moving to the country to view housing options near the coast when a car braked in front of them. Two men got out and started shooting at them.

She turned the car around and sped off, unhurt but shaken from the possible carjacking attempt. She feels safe enough to remain in the country but said the risk shouldn’t be dismissed.  “It’s definitely riskier,” she said.

By Jan. 16, the U.S. Embassy said in a statement that Ecuadorian media reported relative calm in major cities and no major attacks as security forces continued their operations, with all hostages having been released.

Maite Duran, an Ecuadorian who runs Gringo Visas, a business helping American retirees move to Ecuador, says that only a few of her clients have delayed moves and many are continuing to consider the county. Those in Ecuador continue to renew their visas, she said.

“I believe that things had to get worse before they get better," she said. "And that's in the stage that we're in right now.”

Despite uncertainties, many retirees vow to stay 

In Cuenca, where the biggest population of retirees live, Hughes had noticed a military presence in town but says most residents are “going about our daily life.”

Residents are walking dogs and going to the market, restaurants and jobs. There’s a curfew, but most retirees said they’re usually in bed by 11 p.m. anyway.

Hogg Lochow, who was recently making earrings for a pet shelter as part of her volunteer work, said she’s still encouraging her family to come to visit.

At the same time, many are using greater caution, avoiding dangerous parts of the country, choosing restaurants with guards, and avoiding public buses and being out after dark.

In Salinas, Steven McKay, 46, a retired juvenile justice worker from Newport News, Virginia, who moved to Ecuador two years ago with his wife to stretch their pension, said that in expat groups most are vowing to remain.

For those aspiring to retire there? “It will definitely discourage people,” he said.

Lindquist said the long-term economic consequences are unknown. In Cuenca, he said, U.S. retirees contribute millions to the local economy through rentals, restaurants and other services.

“I just hope the country didn't get too big of a black eye,” he said.

Many are watching how Ecuador’s crackdown plays out and how closely it may resemble one in another Latin American country. El Salvador President Nayib Bukele’s 2022 crackdown on street gangs was controversial, sparking allegations of human rights violations amid mass arrests, but popular because it significantly reduced crime.

McKay and others said they hope Ecuador's efforts will curtail the violence, if not banish drug gangs.

“They’re never going be able to get rid of it completely. But they can at least get it to a manageable place, kind of like Colombia did. I do have faith they’re going to solve it,” he said.

Hughes is sticking around – now rooted in a country and community whose future feels connected to her own.

“Even though we're immigrants, this is our home for many of us. So much of expat sentiment has been, we're good. We're not leaving,” she said. “And if they throw an earthquake in tomorrow, we're still not leaving.”

This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Retiring in Ecuador offered stability. Now Americans weigh new unrest