A $1 Million Medical Bill and a Joke Led Us to Ecuador

Name: JP Stonestreet
From: Denver, CO
Living in: Cuenca, Ecuador

It was chilly and raining as my wife Amelia and I hailed a cab outside the Cuenca airport.

We couldn’t see a thing… but the next morning, we awoke at our “aparthotel,” just west of el centro (downtown), to clear skies over the terracotta rooftops of Ecuador’s 500-year-old Spanish colonial city.

The mountain air was crisp that morning as we enjoyed a cup of coffee, the Tomebamba River babbling past on its long trek to the Amazon.

We Joked About Leaving the U.S.

At the time, we were living in a suburb of Denver, Colorado. I was recovering from two major spinal surgeries that repaired damage related to a birth defect.

Luckily, most of the surgical and hospital costs were covered—because the total bill came to almost $1 million.

But after being unable to work for almost a year during recovery, even the $1,200 per month price tag for a high-deductible health insurance plan was simply unaffordable.

As a joke, I mentioned leaving the country. Amelia and I both laughed, but as the weeks went on, the idea of leaving the United States started seeming more possible… and a better choice than staying put and sliding deeper into debt.

We laid the groundwork for Amelia, a customer relations management administrator, to work remotely while I resumed web design to build back my income.

By 2017, we were ready to move abroad, but we weren’t sure where to go. Cuenca, Ecuador kept popping up in our searches as an American expat destination.

We didn’t know that other countries, including Ecuador, use the US dollar as their official currency.

Once we learned that—and saw pictures of the old-world blue domes on the New Cathedral in the heart of Cuenca—we were sold. We wouldn’t need to do conversion math in our heads—plus, our dollars would go further due to the low cost of living.

We booked a 10-day exploratory trip for March 2017.

Yapas Kept Us Coming Back

The morning after we arrived, we took a 10-minute walk along the Tomebamba River to the 10 de Agosto mercado, where we loaded up on tropical fruits and vegetables, so fresh that dirt still clung to them.

The vendor even gave us some free lychee fruit, which we later learned is called a yapa—a little something extra to keep us coming back. It worked like a charm. We kept going back to her for our produce and she kept giving us yapas.

Each day, we took long walks around the city, shopped for groceries, cooked some meals, ate at restaurants, and enjoyed coffee at the streetside cafes. We wanted to emulate what our life would be like if we actually moved there.

During our stay at Apartamentos Otorongo, we met other expats at various stages of relocating to Ecuador. Some, like us, were on exploratory trips. Others had already moved and were looking for a long-term place to live. They became our friends—the first non-work ones we’d made in years.

Our short visit passed all too quickly. By the time we had to leave, we’d fallen in love with the city’s beauty and its thriving expat community. On our last day, we met with a visa agent who helped us start the process for the temporary residency visa.

It was official: We were leaving the US and moving to Ecuador! Back in Denver, we made plans to return to Ecuador in September of that year, finished converting Amelia’s job to 100% virtual, and sold or donated all of our stuff. (Find tips for doing this here.)

Now, it’s been more than six years since a joke became our reality—and we wouldn’t change a thing. Though Ecuador’s struggling with more crime lately, it’s still a magical country with welcoming people, a reasonable cost of living, and affordable, high-quality healthcare.

Thanks to our decision to move overseas, we were able to save enough to pay off all our debt, develop quality friendships with people from all over the world, and spend more time with each other… rather than commuting to a cubicle.

We’ll forever be grateful to Ecuador and its people for showing us just how good life can be.