Freelance writer Sinead Mulhern marked her 35th birthday with a solo birthday trip to Ecuador, spending five days in a mountain valley before climbing to a peak from which she could see Peru, and coming away with a clearer sense of what the second half of her 30s might hold.
Mulhern, who has lived and worked in Ecuador for eight years, chose the southern valley town of Vilcabamba over a group celebration. No dinner reservations, no itinerary built around other people’s schedules. Just hiking gear, a stack of books, and a few spa appointments.
Why Vilcabamba and What She Found There
Vilcabamba sits in Ecuador’s Loja province, approximately 45 kilometres (28 miles) from the city of Loja, and has a population of around 4,000 people, according to Galapagos Insiders. The town draws travellers with its balmy afternoons, heavy afternoon rains, and the rainbows that follow, stretching across the valley.
It also carries a particular mystique. Vilcabamba was once considered a candidate for Blue Zone status, a designation given to regions where people are believed to live exceptionally long lives. It was ultimately excluded from the official list because the birth records of its oldest residents could not be verified, as Voyagers Travel notes. The legend stuck, though, and the town retains a reputation for quiet longevity.
Mulhern knew the place well before she arrived. She read in hammocks, had a massage and facial, ate well, and then tackled the steep mountain trail marked by a cross at its peak. The day was hot and dusty, the path lined with fuchsia flowers and hummingbirds. By the time she neared the summit, she was thirsty and sunburned, but pushed on ahead of the afternoon storm.
At the top, orange butterflies drifted above the slopes. She stared at the village below and, in the distance, recognised the crinkled ridgelines of Peru.
What a Solo Birthday Trip to Ecuador Taught Her About Mid-Life
The trip was quieter than past birthdays. Mulhern had previously celebrated her 30th chasing waterfalls in the Amazon, danced salsa until dawn in the Colombian countryside, and thrown what she describes as larger-than-life parties back in Canada. This year called for something different.
Her path to Ecuador was itself unconventional. Business Insider has reported that Mulhern first travelled to Colombia in her 20s, went freelance there to immerse herself in the culture and learn Spanish, then relocated to Ecuador, where she has been based since. Her author page at Business Insider notes that she rents a one-bedroom apartment with a terrace in Ecuador for $320 a month, with a monthly Pilates membership running $50.
The lifestyle is one she built deliberately, and the birthday trip was partly about taking stock of it. On the climb, she ran through a long wish list: more travel, more creative work, parents ageing slowly, friendships with parents surviving the drift, and some steadiness in a world that felt, as she put it, ‘shaky at best.’
She also acknowledged the strange arithmetic of the mid-30s, the sense that time is moving for both herself and the people she loves, and that birthdays make that visible in ways that ordinary weeks do not.
The solo birthday trip to Ecuador, she concluded, was not about absence or withdrawal. It was about discernment: knowing when the right kind of celebration is a quiet one, taken alone, on top of a mountain.
Mulhern stopped short of prescribing the approach for every birthday, but said she recommends trying it at least once. For her, Business Insider published the essay as part of its ongoing coverage of how people structure independent working lives abroad.
Anyone considering a similar trip should note that Vilcabamba’s steep mountain trail can be completed in a half-day, but the afternoon heat and probable storm mean an early start is worth planning for.