South America

king_of_inismac

Myself and my g/f are going travelling around south america for the summer.

We've organised time off and have the money sorted but we need advice about:

Where to go
What we need to do before
What precautions should we take

THanks,
M

Neamhshuntasach

Where to go

Well this really depends on what you want to do. Do you want big bustling cities? small towns? beaches? water sports activities? hiking? jungle treks? Colonial towns? Skiing? Inca ruins? The list could go on because the continent is huge and has it all.

Having 3 months you'd probably be best sticking to the gringo trail and seeing the most popular sights. Such as

Machu Picchu - Peru
Iguazu falls - Brazil/Argentina
Lake Titicaca - Bolivia
Pantanal - Brazil
Nazca lines - Peru
The Amazon rainforest - covers parts of multiple countries
Buenos Aires - Argentina
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
Salar de uyuni - Bolivia
The galapogos islands - off Ecuador
Tierra del fuego - Chile/Argentina
La Paz - Bolivia

There are lots of other things to see and if you stick the hostels you will find out from other travelers. Or simply just search travel specific forums such as bootsnall and thorntree.

What you need to do before

Get your vaccinations. Buy a backpack that is not too big. Learn some Spanish. Research where you are going. Work out a rough itinerary.

Precautions

The biggest one is common sense. Don't flash cash, jewellery, expensive gadgets such as mp3 players or cameras. Don't carry around large amounts of money. Get taxis at night no matter how far your journey, especially in big cities. Always trust your insticts. If you think something is up or someone following you, get a taxi. If somewhere looks bad then don't go into it. You can buy money belts and get hidden pockets sewn into clothes and such. you will not be robbed if you don't look like you are worth robbing.

king_of_inismac

Great, Thanks a lot for the advice. Probably a really stupid question, but how much of the hostels/excursions would we need to book in advance?

dory

You should book (and budget for!) Galapagos, although I did see last minutes deals in Ecuador.
Also, the Inca Trail, if you want to the original 4 day one. There's a 4 days jungle trek that's cheaper and meant to be just as cool.
Hostels etc. don't need to be booked in advance, except in busy periods like Argentina in January. And if you really want to go to a certain one, then book. But we never did.

honeymonster

I went to Brazil in sept and it was the best! Rio was great craic! You have to do the handgliding and see the jesus statue! Also the water falls in Iguazu and if you get a chance go to bonito for the scuba diving and the pantanal for the wild life. I have all the pics on facebook, just send me a pm if you want to have a look

langerdan79

you would really want to decide pretty much straight away about the inca trail as all the permits for may and june are gone and most of july. you can check the availability on http://www.andeantravelweb.com/peru/treks/inca_trail_trek_permit_availability.html basically there are 500 permits a day and once these are gone thats it. we booked our in june back in january.

king_of_inismac

Ok, we've decided to keep our plans quite loose. I'm getting the footprints book on south america this week and we're going to decide on a rough itenary.

Is it ok to book our internal flights when we get there? I mean if we find somewhere we like, and want to stay there another week, we don't want to be tied down to strict deadlines.

Also, where would be the best/most convienent place to fly into? also, where is the best place to book flights?

Also, having never done the whole hostel thing before, how suitable is it for couples? Is there double beds etc in most hostels?

(I have travelled around a lot in the last few years, but its mostly been for work, and its mostly been in Europe, and with little time to prepare for this trip, I need all the help I can get! )

Sorry for all the stupid questions, I just like to be really organized

king_of_inismac

bump---- Anyone?

Gaz

king_of_inismac wrote: »

Is it ok to book our internal flights when we get there? I mean if we find somewhere we like, and want to stay there another week, we don't want to be tied down to strict deadlines.

Also, where would be the best/most convienent place to fly into? also, where is the best place to book flights?

Also, having never done the whole hostel thing before, how suitable is it for couples? Is there double beds etc in most hostels?

I flew into Rio, then spent 4 months traveling around most of the continent. Booking flights over there is easy, local agents or online (eg: expedia)

Hostels always have double rooms if you really need your privacy but dorms are much cheaper, i usually stay in dorms to keep costs down, plus im only there at night to sleep so dont need a room. Usually get a private room every so often wnen needed though.

My one piece of advice is learn some Spanish , you would be surprised how much its needed and how much better it will make your trip. Sitting on a Bolivian bus for 12 hours and being able to struggle through a basic conversation with the person beside me was kinda cool.
Also, outside the large cities they have very little english, in fact even in the big cities i needed the little spanish i had learned.

Enjoy !

conordaniel

Myself and 2 mates are travelling around south america for 6 weeks, May-June, you'll find out a good bit by just googling or checking out tour operators, take a flick through books in easons! visas,vaccinations, travel light, check out hostel websites, there are some with private rooms,at the hostels you can sign up to tours of cities or countryside.
the advice i've been getting is to spend little time in the cities.
good luck

TonyD79

Planning on going myself in October for approx 8/9 weeks..how much money do you reckon I will get by on ....looking to do Brazil,Argentina,Chile and Peru ..heard brazil was expensive and dangerous though.

Glowing

TonyD79 wrote: »

Planning on going myself in October for approx 8/9 weeks..how much money do you reckon I will get by on ....looking to do Brazil,Argentina,Chile and Peru ..heard brazil was expensive and dangerous though.

If I were you, I'd cut out Chile (or at least just see Northern Chile) and go to Bolivia instead. Stunning country, and very very cheap.

conordaniel

is Chile not worth going to, I seem to be struggling to put together a plan for a visit there?

I am losing interest in Brazil, Think i may concentrate on Argentine countryside, patagonia perhaps, any thoughts?

dory

conordaniel wrote: »

is Chile not worth going to, I seem to be struggling to put together a plan for a visit there?

I am losing interest in Brazil, Think i may concentrate on Argentine countryside, patagonia perhaps, any thoughts?

I found Argentina and Brazil and I suppose Chile as well equally expensive.
Brazil dangerous? Friend of mine got a gun pointed at his head in Argentina. We were in Brazil and it seemed fine, petty robbery but that's everywhere. I got robbed in Arg. Also busses in both Brazil and Argentina are expensive. Maybe 50 or 60 euro for an overnight bus, compared with 10 in Bolivia.

Definitely don't miss Bolivia. Learn at least some Spanish as the guy said, and pack as lightly as absolutely possible.

Re: Argentinian countryside. Ya, it was good. We spent 40 hours or so on a bus getting to the glacier, which was great. Then another 36 hours to get to Bariloche. Whilst in Bolivia it was always fun to look out the window on buses, in Argentina there was nothing, absolutely nothing outside.

And to the guy who wanted to know about double rooms. In one place I remember the dorm was $8 each and a double room was $20, ten pp. So in a place like that you might as well take the double. But you just have to decide, is budget or sharing a bed more important.

paulieeye

dory wrote: »

Learn at least some Spanish

I heard recently that there is a bit of a difference between euro spanish and s. american spanish and its frowned upon to use euro spanish. any one expierence this?

Neamhshuntasach

There isn't much of a difference execpt for the odd pronunciation and some verbs mean different things. Such as coger which in Spain means to catch but in Argentina, Mexico and some other Latin American countries it means to Fukk. Castellano is by no means frowned upon or will you offend anyone with it. People may laugh a little if you use a word that has a different meaning to them. The Spanish i know is Latin American and i can understand the Spanish people over here. The differences aren't huge.