Requirements for travel in South America
Indice
Insurance, border crossing, budget and itinerary. Travel from Manizales to Tierra del Fuego. Passing through the Panamerican Highway, Route 40 and Carretera Austral. Traveling by car is easier than you think. 32,000 kilometers round trip. Good vibes!
We quit our jobs and decided to spend our savings on a life-changing trip. We sold some things to raise more money to buy the car that would take us from Manizales to the end of the world: Ushuaia.
We have to admit that we had no idea how to start, nor how much we were going to spend. None of our friends or acquaintances had made the trip and there was little information we could find on the internet.
After analyzing several car options and according to our budget, we decided to choose a 2007 Chevrolet Vitara with a 1,600 c.c. engine, 4×4 traction. A perfect car to have power in any terrain and very economical gasoline.
The good news is that you are not alone. On the route you can find people who go by car, bicycle, motorcycles, hitchhiking or walking. We feel that the will to do it and the desire to know is the most important thing.
Traveling in South America alone
What budget do I need for backpacking in South America? Is transportation very expensive? Is it possible to camp? How do I travel so cheaply? These and many other questions are the most frequently asked when planning a trip for the first time.
There are as many answers as there are travelers. In this kind of guide I will try to share the keys that made it possible for Juan and I to travel for 18 months with U$D 7 per day between the two of us. The more gas-guzzling/scratchy/broken version of me (and not for that reason unhappy, much less dirty) is about to be unveiled.
So if you’re thinking of taking a trip and don’t have a lot of money, put the water for tea (I don’t drink mate), bring your notebook, and stay put. Coming soon is a guide on how to put together a backpacking budget for traveling in South America.
Normally, and regardless of the type of trip, the budget is divided into three basic elements: transportation, food and lodging. The first part (except within cities) is solved by hitchhiking. Even in countries like Bolivia, where buses are very cheap, we choose to extend the thumb: we do not do it only for economic reasons.
Backpacking in South America
The Colombian capital has become an important business center in Latin America. It is the gateway for millions of tourists visiting the country and has become a cosmopolitan pearl full of culture, art and good vibes. Find out what to see in Bogota and discover the Colombian capital.
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In this article I share with you my tips for backpacking in South America alone – or with friends – so that you can plan your first trip in the simplest way possible and be the basis for many other trips that will surely come later.Before you start, you don’t need to have defined what you are going to do day by day before leaving on your trip, but you should have a general idea of what destinations you want to visit. This will allow you to organize a logical route and not waste your time and money in traveling from one end of a country to the other several times. As you may have already seen in the map, South America is a huge continent, and in terms of logistics it is nothing like traveling in Europe, so my advice is to write down all the places you are interested in, dividing them by country. Then you can place them on the map to make a meaningful tour depending on the time you have available. Remember that less is more, and that wanting to cover everything will lead you to know nothing in depth. 1. Traveling in South America: The luggage