How long backpack south america

Ihla Grande — More amazing Brazilian beaches, lush forests and some lively island parties. Rio de Janeiro — Rio would make a spectacular ending to your time travelling in South America. Time it to get here in March for the Rio Carnival if you can. The city of sun, sea and sin is so much fun! Even North Americans, Australians and people from other countries should have an easier time of it these days following some relaxing of the rules. Find out which countries you need a visa for here.

There are loads of other places you could visit and routes you could take. Other possible stops include Medellin in Colombia which is another great city but given Colombia is a big country with plenty of long journeys you may look for a more direct route. If the infamous city of Pablo Escobar and the Colombian Cartels appeals to you, then you could always head south from Cartagena and miss out the national park, Mompos and San Gil in the East of the country.

Brazil is large enough that you could spend the best part of a year just travelling in the country alone. For an extended itinerary, see our backpacking route for Brazil. Iquitos in Peru gets rave reviews from backpackers, many of whom visit the shaman nearby and experiment with the native visionary and very trippy medicine ayahuasca. The Amazon is enormous and despite deforestation it still covers a huge portion of the continent and extends from Brazil into Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia as well as Suriname, Venezuela and the Guineas.

Following the course of the Amazon River would be an option. Ecuador is a good place for a more accessible Amazon experience. Check out the full-moon parties in Montanita for some moonlight raving!

Another extension would be to start in Venezuela or one of the smaller less visited countries on the Caribbean Coast. With more time and money, travelling down to Patagonia in the south of Chile and Argentina is immensely rewarding. You can even arrange trips to Antarctica from backpacker friendly Ushuaia at the southern tip of Argentina.

Alternatively you could head North and have a crack at our one month backpacking route for Mexico or make the short hop to Panama and try our Central America backpacking route. There are obviously ways to shorten the route.

One would be to skip Colombia, Ecuador and northern Peru by flying into Lima and going from there. Adding a few flights into the mix would speed up your journey. One possibility would be flying from Quito to Cuzco and then heading on the Inca trail. Peru is a very large country and the ascent up to Cuzco by land is something of a nightmare. Therefore a flight, although more expensive, may not be a bad bet if you can find some reasonable deals. If a tight budget is your main concern then you should consider missing out Brazil, the most expensive country on the continent.

Chile could also be missed for the sake of more time in dirt cheap Bolivia and then travel down either through Northern Argentina or by heading east to Paraguay, which is more budget-friendly. If you have a larger budget and less time, you may wish to opt for joining a tour group for at least a section of your trip to cram lots of experiences and activities into a shorter amount of time.

We have a post on the best backpacking tours which you may wish to check out. Please use the comments section below for all questions and queries. We aim to reply to them all! Have been reminiscing on travelling recently, and I have remembered this page which I pretty much used entirely to work out a backpacking route and costings etc — it was SO useful and big shout out to the author here for a class job.

For Peru, Huaraz is unbelievable. I agree with the article about Lima. I would only go to Lima to have the best ceviche. I spent a lot of time in the northern regions of San Martin. Decent jungle to explore up there and great food as well. Is there any way I could find out how long you spent in each place? Does the book go into detail on the route which you took here, or is it more of a general guide to South America?

The route in the book is similar to this one with a few changes, the biggest one being that it goes South from Santiago down to Patagonia ending in Ushuaia before moving onto Buenos Aires, Uruguay and Brazil. There are suggested number of days to stay in each destination in the book although it really depends on what interests you.

If you find somewhere you like and you want a break from travelling, you can always stay a fair bit longer. Of the 6 months recommended for this route, how long do you reckon would be spent in Brazil and Argentina? It depends a bit on your budget though as Argentina and Brazil are two of the most expensive countries in South America.

You could easily spend far longer in both countries and visit more places than listed here. I would like to exchange some information about our trips, is this possible for you?

Can I find you on facebook or on an certain email account? Greeting Tijmen. Thanks for all the info!! What time of year do you suggest starting this trip? Taking in account the best weather of all countries or try to! Thanks for the help! Your email address will not be published. Save my name, email, and website in this browser for the next time I comment.

All our South America Backpacking Routes As well as our main South America route on this page , we also have smaller, separate routes for a couple of other parts of the continent:. Puno — Lively town on the Peruvian banks of Lake Titicaca. Much of equatorial South America i. As for how long to travel South America? Camping is also a popular option in wilder reaches of the continent, particularly in Patagonia, while wilder even floating!

This is both because regional flights tend to be exorbitantly priced, and because long-distance buses are not only cheap by comparison, but excellent—you can enjoy steak and champagne on ones in Argentina! In terms of costs, you can generally expect the larger countries in the south to be more expensive than the smaller ones in the north, though the poor economies of Argentina and Brazil especially have reduced costs to far below what they used to be.

In terms of linguistic communications, it is absolutely essential to have at least a basic grasp of Spanish—Portuguese also helps a lot. The more important point? Colombia is absolutely amazing, whether you explore the gorgeous city of Cartagena , trek amid alien-like palm trees in the Valle del Cocora or sun yourself on the forlorn beaches of Tayrona National Park. I would almost go so far as to say that if you have significantly less than 2 months in South America which is to say that, with 8 weeks in South America, you can only visit one country , that Colombia should be it.

If you take an organized Galapagos tour, this will allow you to cover more ground in a shorter period of time perfect if, say, you have just 6 weeks in South America while going independently is more fulfilling, but also takes longer. Peru is probably the South American country who seek my personalized Travel Coaching service inquire most about, thanks to iconic experiences like the Machu Picchu hike, as well as more obscure things to do.

We were in the park for just 2 days, which was still incredibly challenging and we made our way to the famous Three Torres for sunrise.

From there, we visited the Perito Moreno glacier, before heading back south to Punta Arenas where we could catch a flight north to Santiago. Chile is strange in that it's nearly impossible to get a bus north and the flights actually ended up being very cheap and taking just a couple hours. So this was our first ever experience with Couchsurfing and we ended up having the best time with our hosts Carlos and Gabi who showed us around the city and got us drunk, on more than one occasion, on Caipirinhas!

After a few days, we hired a car and drove south on what ended up being another massive highlight to the trip. The drive south is truly beautiful as you drive for hundreds of miles down beautifully tarmacked roads, bordered on both sides by gorgeous snow-capped mountains. We also stopped in a place called Cajon del Maipo and ended up driving deep into the snowy mountains literally through 2 feet of snow! Other than a couple of workers, we were the only ones there … relaxing in hot springs, completely secluded in this wonderful place.

It was one of the best moments of the entire trip and I highly recommend you visit here if you get chance. We used a mixture of buses, flights and hire cars to make it through Chile , with the journey north from Santiago to the Atacama being the longest and most dramatic in change.

After a few weeks spent in the cold south, we were finally ready to return somewhere warm and the Atacama desert is a world away from what you find in the south. There, you get to visit a spot known as Moon Valley, because it literally looks like the surface of the moon! Tours through this region typically range from between 1 and 3 days and you get to see some truly awe-inspiring sites.

Ranging through from pink lakes surrounded by flamingos to wide open planes covered in lush grass and wild alpacas. We chose for the more direct 1 day route that starts early in the morning with you crossing into Bolivia and getting stamped into the country at a very dodgy looking official office. Afterwards, you spend much of the day climbing ever higher into the mountains, stopping off at key sights along the way.

If you have the time and can afford the added expense, then we did hear good things about the 3 day routes. From there, you find yourself in Salar de Uyuni, which is the most popular starting point for an epic day trip out onto the infamous Bolivian salt flats.

The incredible white expanse and clear blue skies make for some truly unique photo opportunities. Just make sure you stock up on toys and ornaments, because you get a good couple of hours to let your inner child loose, trying to capture even more remarkable shots. Potosi, Sucre and La Paz all offer up plenty to see and do, but do be warned that they are very high up, so you will likely suffer from altitude sickness and get tired after walking around for even short periods.

In my opinion, visiting Isla del Sol is up there as one of the top 5 things to do anywhere in South America. It is so peaceful and gorgeous and the island is filled with incredible hiking opportunities. On the evening there, I chose to hike up to the highest point and it felt amazing being the only one up there, with views stretching for miles all around.

Our journey into Peru began with us crossing the border with Bolivia, to be greeted by a woman squatting in the road and peeing right next to us as we waited for our bus. In Cusco, we went for a day tour to ancient Inca ruins and settlements and mines located all around the region.

We also went for a tour that went not as far from the city and allowed us to partake in some local evening rituals that have gone on for a number of generations. We also found Cusco itself to be a nice place to explore, filled with all sorts of old school markets to pick up souvenirs and trinkets. As well as lots of restaurants and bars, a perfect place to try traditional Peruvian dishes. By this point, we had burned through far too much of our budget and we simply couldn't afford it, as climbing Machu Picchu these days costs a good few hundred dollars.

I turned out to be very fond of Lima, in particular the incredible sandy beaches and idyllic surfing conditions of its long coastline. As well as this, I recommend you stay at the Zig Zag hostel. But what makes this place to special is that every week or two the hosts visit the local slums and donate meals to the poor families living there. As a guest you have the chance to go along and it was a wonderful experience getting to meet these locals who live in incredible poverty and to help and give something back.

We took up a few items that we no longer had use for, such as clothes and bags and donated them to the families. We had heard a lot about Colombia on our journey around the continent, as well as from older relatives and friends from back home. After all of this, we surmised that Colombia would be a worn torn country, inundated with drug lords and gang wars.

Yes, Colombia has had a very eventful past, especially if you've seen the series Narcos on Netflix. However, the truth is that Colombia is no longer the drug capital of the world and so much of the violence, drug trafficking and corruption has died out. Instead, what you find is a country that is fighting it's hardest to get rid of this image and instead build into a modern and safe place to visit. Once again, our lack of funds meant that our time in Colombia was limited somewhat and there are a few crucial places we planned on visiting and were unable to.

As a popular seaside city, Cartagena is the most touristy of the places we visited and is quite a bit more expensive. But of course, they are plenty more smaller countries across South America, all of which we are very excited to return to and visit We could have easily popped into Paraguay, Uruguay and Ecuador, however, we still wanted to travel them properly so instead chose to leave them for a future adventure.

In particular, we are excited to one day visit Venezuela, but will need to give it a few years until they eventually get some sort of political stability and do away with the corruption that currently engulfs the nation. If you are looking for a full rundown of what to get up to whilst on this continent, then check out this other post I wrote on the best things to do in South America.

It takes you through all of the biggest highlights of our trip, and I highly recommend trying to fit in as many things as possible. Unfortunately, we ran out of time so had to skip them prior to our Amazon riverboat cruise and I was nothing short of gutted!

The area is a large open desert filled with giant sand dunes that have then created a series of mini lakes. These lakes are only present at certain times of the year, but are some of the most picturesque places in South America. We met people who visited them and getting there is actually very difficult as you have to take a jeep tour for a number of hours deep into the desert.