Moving to Quito

Today we look at moving to Quito in Ecuador from Avarua in Cook Islands. We highlight cost of living and other major differences likely to be experienced in our series of short blogs on moving between different international locations.
In Quito people speak Spanish and indigenous languages. In Avarua people speak English and Cook Islands Maori.

Quito, is the capital city of Ecuador. Avarua is the capital and largest town in the Cook Islands.
Quito is the second-highest administrative capital city in the world (after La Paz, Bolivia), and the highest legal capital (ahead of Sucre, also in Bolivia, and Bogota, Colombia). Avarua has several supermarkets, two banks, several restaurants and other shops specializing in the sale of black pearls and other handicrafts. The economy is based on tourism, trade, fishing and agriculture.

The overall cost of living rank in Quito is 285 out of 300 global locations, which equates it with low cost of living locations.  An expatriate moving from Avarua to Quito will experience a change in cost of living of -34.1%.
In terms of the hardship people are likely to experience, assessed in global terms, Quito is ranked as a high degree of hardship location with a hardship index of 30% compared to Avarua with a hardship index of 30% which is a high degree of hardship location.

Source: http://www.xpatulator.com as at July 2011.