Garden of Dreams

You might be interested in the Galt's Gulch Community project in Chile -


- "According to the GGC website, project leaders designed GGC to be a self-sustaining community outfitted with renewable energy, clean drinking water, fish-filled artificial lakes, and prosperous organic fruit and vegetable gardens. GGC project promoters laud the Chilean location as “thousands and thousands of miles of natural beauty where you can hike, bike, mountain climb, or horseback ride for days on end, exploring the community space.”

Soon after completing her purchase, McElroy received an anonymous email claiming the GGC was engaged in fraud, causing her to question the legitimacy of her investment.

The anonymous author told McElroy that she had been scammed, citing the subtleties of Chilean land ownership law as evidence. According to the email McElroy received, the GGC may have been able to sell her the land, but the project lacked the necessary water rights to develop it. Purchasing land and water rights are separate processes in Chile, and without water, the land was effectively useless."


Read more and weep:
http://panampost.com/adriana-peralta/20 … nightmare/

So Top Cat gets a thread to post on, worthy of her EB name -- Gardener1.

As for Blue Skies, it takes an optimist to attempt to start organizing this project in a debut post -- from London, Ont., no less -- with no evident connection to Ecuador in the OP's background.  So that screen name is appropriate as well.

It must be mentioned that the paradise project Pakakuna Gardens is well along about 15 miles from the new Quito airport, in Checa, Ecuador.

The minimum buy-in price at Pakakuna these days is $145,000 plus modest monthly fees,  for a villa and community amenities in the Hawaiian-garden-style community.

So a place with a lower entrance fee might be of interest to Expats.

Here's the Pakakuna Gardens page....

https://www.expat.com/forum/viewtopic.php?id=497425

cccmedia in Quito

Thanks for the info gardener. I will take all notes of the difficulties involved with such an endevor, but just because some have failed does not mean we will fail.
There are many success stories as well, but we wont hear much about them because these people are smart enough to remain off the radar.

Yes cc, I have never been to Ecuador, but I have backpacked through Central America and journeyed through the Andes a little. It's not much experience, I know.. but it was enough for me to realize that my heart belongs somewhere in that area of the world.

Thanks for the info on project Pakakuna Gardens. $145,000 is just outrageous!
I don't intend on starting a business here.. I just want find a few like minded people that are willing to be neighbours.
Even if through this post I can make one friend that is intersted in joining, that for me is success.
It is not my desire to have a hundred people wanting to sign up.. that's just overkill.
Something really small is ideal.
So far, me and my mom will be buying our land together.
Who ever joins us can buy their land near our land. Together we can work something out.
I will use what ever means possible to find the right people. once the group is formed we will go off the radar.
We would all travel to Ecuador together and turn our dream into reality.

Doesn't it sound fun?

Pretty vague plan. On or off grid, off road, asphalt road, dirt road, near a city? Cloud forest, Amazon, central valley, coastal? Small hobby farms or vast acreage?

I might be interested in selling half my cloud forest property. 45 hectares, cloud forest at about 2200 meters. No road, power nearby, clean water supply.

Yes it's a vague plan right now, thanks for pointing that out. I don't have everything figured out yet. I suppose I was thinking that everything would be subject to change depending on the consensus of the group. Personally, I would prefer to find a place like Vilcabamba, but considering that place has become the tourist hot spot it doesn't really fit in with the low key aspect I had in mind. I was thinking of finding a place like it. I would also love to live in the Amazon, but I don't think my mom would be too fond of that.

I never thought about a cloud forest, I'm sure I would feel right at home because I'm really into nature and the outdoor, but I think the spiders might be a little too much for my mom... I'll keep your offer in mind.
Thank you.

If you are coming to Ecuador with an elderly parent you are probably going to need to be near a city with decent medical services. Land near the cities is going to be higher priced. If spiders freak your mom out, you are probably looking into the wrong part of the world. My sense is, that you've put the cart before the horse, inviting people to join you in this adventure/plan without first doing a lot more research, and by research I mean spending lots of time in the places you are considering.

I like this. I visited most Ecuador before,  I prefer not at high land, as healthy reason, and mountain area, or volcano area. So, I choose place between coast and high land, close to big city, easy to access.