Beaches in Ecuador

A short mainland Pacific coast that is dry in the south and wet in the north, and the Galápagos a thousand kilometres offshore, where the beaches are governed by the strictest visitor rules of any archipelago in this register. A short mainland Pacific coast where the cold Humboldt Current meets warm equatorial water, so the season depends on which is winning: December to April is warm, rainy and has the surf, while June to November is cool and overcast and is when humpback whales calve offshore. The Galápagos, a thousand kilometres out, operate under rules that apply nowhere else — most sites require a licensed guide, numbers are capped, and a small number of beaches are open to independent visitors with registration and fixed closing times. The two are effectively separate countries for a traveller's purposes. Los Frailes inside Machalilla National Park is the mainland's one beach with nothing built on it.