Baños, nestled in the foothills between the mighty Andes Mountains and Amazon Jungle, has all the makings of a classic backpacker tourist trap. It certainly ticks all the boxes as Ecuador’s most touristy destination. Streets lined with souvenir shops? Check. Overpriced, tacky hotels and restaurants? Double check. Sketchy guy with dreads selling weed in front of the market? Check and mate!

The real question though, is Baños even worth visiting? Yes, absolutely.

To be honest, we got so sick of hearing about Baños on our trip through Ecuador, we almost skipped it. We reluctantly decided to head there at the last minute in order to break up a longer bus ride. I’m glad we did. Baños ended up being one of my favorite stops in all of Ecuador.

What to Know about Baños

Baños is a small city, with about 14,000 inhabitants located at the edge of the Andes mountains as they begin to slope down into the Amazon basin. It’s sometimes known as the “Gateway to the Amazon”, though the town’s full name is “Baños de Agua Santa.” In Spanish the word “baño” means “bath.” It should then come as no surprise that the town of Baños is most famous for its hot springs.

In addition to the hot springs, Baños’s elevation gives it a cool, spring-like climate. It’s in that sweet spot between the sweltering heat of the tropical jungle and the bitter cold of the highlands. The town is also very beautiful, overlooking a steep ravine and surrounded by lush green mountains.

The hot springs, climate and natural beauty all come together to make Baños one of Ecuador’s most popular travel destinations. It’s one of those towns that really wouldn’t exist without tourism. In fact, hotel rooms outnumber homes.

How to Get to Baños

Baños is fairly easy to get to by bus. You can catch regular buses every half an hour or so from Quito’s Quitumbe bus terminal in the south of the city. The trip takes three to four hours, and you can buy tickets at the bus station. Just look for the sign saying “Baños de Agua Santa.”

Buses also run fairly regularly from any of the smaller cities between Quito and Baños, but you should double check with your accommodation or at the station for times. If you’re coming from Guayaquil or Cuenca, you’ll have a much longer journey. Buses from Guayaquil leave seven times a day from the Terminal Terrestre and take about five to six hours. Buses from Cuenca take a whopping eight hours.

The bus terminal in Baños is located in the center of town. Luckily, the town is small enough that you can walk pretty much anywhere, but you could also probably easily find a taxi if you’re feeling lazy.

Where to Stay in Baños

In a town with more hotels than homes, you’re spoiled for choice in Baños. If you’re feeling adventurous, and don’t mind being far away from the action, there are a number of spots in the hills surrounding the town that look pretty cool.

We opted to stay in the center. I suggest booking with Hostal la Casa Amarilla. It’s not a luxury place, but travelers looking for luxury should probably be reading a different blog anyway. The owner, however, was super friendly and breakfast is included. Plus, the hostel is only a short walk from the town center, and there’s a nice little rooftop patio.

If you’d like to stay at Hostal la Casa Amarilla, you can click here to book. By doing so, this website will receive a small commission at no extra cost to you.

On one of the most fun, but also most stressful, aspects of travel is finding and booking places to stay. These days you have options ranging from dirt cheap hostel dorms to luxurious White Lotus style resorts. Thankfully, the internet is here to make finding accommodation easier.

Hostelworld is the go to app for finding hostels. For everything else, there’s Booking.com. If you book through either of the previous links, I’ll gain a small commission at no extra cost to you.

What to do in Baños

Besides choosing accommodation, Baños has loads of other activities for all types of traveler. You don’t become Ecuador’s premier tourist destination by being boring, after all. A lot of the activities are outdoor action sport pre-packaged adventure sort of things, sort of similar to San Gil in Colombia. Think ziplines and canyoning and ATV excursions.

As you’ll see below, however, Baños has plenty of other activities that likely won’t void your travel insurance policy.

Visit the Hot Springs

Probably the best thing to do in Baños, Ecuador is to visit the hot springs. The town’s named after them for pete’s sake.

Strangely though, the hot springs don’t seem to show up at the top of others’ lists of top things to do in Baños. In fact, when we visited, we were the only gringos there. Every single other person was a local Ecuadorian.

Perhaps the tourists stay away because the hot springs aren’t fancy? Maybe there’s a residual sense of colonial superiority that keeps them from wanting to rub elbows with the locals? Either way, I found the lack of other tourists at the hot springs really surprising.

It’s their loss, because I thought Baños’s hot springs were wonderful.

Baños’s hot springs are located at the literal edge of town, at the end of Montalvo Street. Look for the “Termas Antiguas de la Virgen” on your map. You’ll know you’re getting close when you start to see stalls selling pool toys and floaties.

The hot springs are pretty cheap to enter, but they do make you wear a swim cap. If you’ve somehow managed to forget to pack your collection of swim caps on your trip to Ecuador, you can buy one there. They aren’t expensive, and the swim caps double as the world’s lamest souvenir. The hot springs also have changing rooms and lockers that are BYOL (bring your own lock.)

All in all, we had a fantastic time visiting the hot springs in Baños. They’re especially lovely as evening falls and the lights start flickering on through the town and colorful LEDs illuminate the nearby waterfall.

Go White Water Rafting

If quietly soaking in hot springs isn’t enough action for you, don’t worry, Baños has you covered. As I said before, you can find plenty of things to do that’ll boost your adrenaline and make you question the liability waiver you signed in Baños. We opted for white water rafting.

The river where the rafting happens in Baños has class IV rapids. I assume class IV rapids are stronger than class III but not quite as strong as class V. I’m not an expert, so I can’t say for sure. I do know that I fell out of the raft twice.

We booked the rafting tour with our accommodation. Unfortunately, I failed to do my due diligence as a travel blogger, and I forgot to write down the information about which rafting outfit we went with.

To be honest, I maybe would’ve preferred floating down a quiet river and admiring the beautiful scenery. Maybe I’m just saying that because I fell out of the raft.

However, if you want to brave the class IV rapids yourself, here’s a list of tours on Get Your Guide. I’m sure they’re all fine. Or at least, responsible enough to haul your soaking wet body out of the water when you fall out of the raft, too.

Hike Around the Town

For those days when you want less excitement, Baños is a pretty nice little city to wander around. You won’t find any colonial buildings or architectural marvels here. In fact, architecturally, the town is pretty ugly. However, the surroundings are absolutely gorgeous.

The best part is the north end of town where a bridge runs over a steep gorge above a rushing river. We had some beautiful views there, marred only by the fancy resort at the bottom of the gorge.

You can also explore around the central park, Parque Palomino Flores. It’s a lively place to come in the evening and people watch. It’s also filled with trees and a bit nicer than your typical paved plaza. Just down the block from the park you’ll find the Mercado Central, which is a good place for lunch.

Visit Waterfalls

There’s plenty of water flowing down those magnificent green mountains surrounding Baños. The town has a number of impressive waterfalls you can visit and admire. Some people sign up for tours and spend days exploring the waterfalls around Baños. We only went to one, but it was a pretty impressive one.

The Pailón del Diablo, or “devil’s whirlpool” might be Baños’s best waterfall. At least, it was the one the owner of our hostel recommended we visit. While I can’t compare it with any of the other waterfalls in the area, I have to say it was pretty remarkable. The water thunders down the side of a cliff, past gnarled rock formations, into a churning pool below. Not the sort of place you’d want to swim, but nice to look at.

You can reach the Pailón del Diablo by taking the road that heads eastwards into the Amazon. Any bus heading to Puyo or beyond will drop you there, just tell the driver where you want to get off. You could also take a taxi. Just negotiate to have the driver wait for you. The area around the waterfall is very built up and touristy. The main challenge is angling your phone to crop out the other visitors without dropping it into the roiling water.

Other travelers we met made a whole day of waterfall hopping, as there are numerous other falls along the same route. Again, you’d have to negotiate a tour or a taxi. Biking could be another option. However, there’s no shame in only visiting El Pailón del Diablo.

Embrace Your Inner Child at the Enchanted Forest

If you want to do something in Baños that’s completely different and maybe a bit more whimsical, why not visit the Bosque Encantado, or “enchanted forest”. In truth, the Bosque Encantado is not really enchanted, nor is it a forest. Think more a small theme park thing filled with fiberglass dragons, bored-looking actors in witch’s costumes and a whole bunch of unlicensed Harry Potter themed displays.

The park is obviously meant for little children, but if you’re okay with getting a few odd stares from visiting parents, it’s a fun way to spend a few hours. Afterall, we jaded adults have to do things to nourish our inner children. And if they didn’t want grown-ups there, they wouldn’t offer a free drink with admission.

To be honest, the whole thing is a little cheesy. And it’s really just a bunch of photo opportunities. However, if you have some time to spare and can handle the cheese, the Bosque Encantado can actually be pretty fun. I suppose you could take your kids there too, if you happen to be traveling with children.

El Bosque Encantado is located at the far southern edge of town, at the end of Pedro Vicente Maldonado Street. It’s right next to a place called the Magic Chocolate Factory, which was also geared to kids and which we didn’t visit. We do have some self-respect.

Should you Visit Casa de Arbol?

The number one tourist activity we heard about in Baños was Casa de Arbol. “Have you been to Casa de Arbol?” “When are you going to visit Casa de Arbol?” and so on.

Sometimes I have this thing where if everybody says I should do something, I make a point not to do it. It’s why I didn’t watch Breaking Bad until years after it aired. It’s also part of why we almost skipped Baños.

And while I did eventually give in on both Baños and Breaking Bad, I stuck to my contrarian guns and absolutely refused to visit Casa de Arbol. We saw pictures and there’s one of those giant swings and a bunch of manicured Instagram photo spots. It didn’t seem that appealing to me, to be honest.

On the other hand, other people staying in our hostel went there and loved it. I will admit that I could be completely wrong, and maybe I missed out on a truly amazing life changing experience. I eventually watched Breaking Bad and loved it. Maybe Casa de Arbol is the Breaking Bad of things to do in Baños.

I’ll never know. We all have to live with our decisions, and I have no regrets about how I chose spend my time in Baños.

Final Thoughts about Baños

A big part of me wanted to write off Baños as an overrated tourist trap. Perhaps that’s the contrarian part of me that resists doing things that are popular. On the surface, though, Baños really does seem like a tourist trap. It’s the kind of place that would be incredibly easy to write off as over rated.

However, I’m really happy we decided to ignore those contrarian instincts and give Baños a try. Yes, it’s touristy and a little cheesy. On the other hand, it’s a gorgeous town. And there are enough things to do to easily fill multiple days, ranging from white water rafting to just soaking in the hot springs.

I also forgot to mention the parade. We were on our way back to our hostel after rafting, and were blocked by a giant parade. Tons of floats and costumed dancers passed by. Some wore traditional Ecuadorian costumes. Others were dressed as Willy Wonka or Disney characters. I can’t guarantee there will be a parade when you visit, but it was one of those unexpected travel experiences that adds a lot of flavor to a trip.

So, in the end, while Baños does feel like a bit of a cheesy tourist trap, it’s also a fun place, with opportunities to escape the other tourists and rub elbows with the locals. And sometimes, cheesy tourist traps are just fun.

Want to explore more of Ecuador beyond the tourist traps? Read our guide here: Expeditions in Ecuador: A Travel Guide to the Country in the Middle of the World