The Itinerary South America
The longest flights, and the ones worth the most planning.
The Andes
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Bolivia in 11 days: La Paz, Uyuni and Lake Titicaca
The highest country in the Andes and the strangest landscape in South America: a salt flat the size of a small country that becomes a mirror when it rains, coloured lagoons full of flamingos at 4,500 metres, and a city built into a canyon where the commuter system is a cable car — with the altitude plan and the honest brief on Uyuni tour operators.
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Chile and Bolivia in 11 days: the Atacama, the lagoon route and Uyuni
Geysers at 4,300m before dawn, a desert that has gone centuries without rain, and then a three-day crossing over the altiplano through flamingo lagoons to a salt pan the size of a small country — one of the great overland borders.
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Colombia in 11 days: Cartagena, the coffee region and Medellín
The country that turned itself around, seen at its best: a walled Caribbean city of bougainvillea and balconies, wax palms three times the height of anything around them, a valley city that replaced its reputation with cable cars, and Bogotá's gold — with the altitude order, the safety brief that is neither alarming nor naive, and why domestic flights beat the roads.
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Ecuador in 11 days: Quito, the Galápagos and the cloud forest
Animals that have never learned to fear people, in a country small enough to reach them easily: sea lions on the town dock, marine iguanas on black lava, blue-footed boobies dancing on a clifftop, and a colonial capital at 2,850 metres — with the cruise-versus-island-hopping decision and the fees nobody mentions until you land.
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Ecuador and Peru in 14 days: the Galápagos, Quito and Machu Picchu
Islands where the animals have no fear of people because nothing ever hunted them, and an Inca city on a ridge that the Spanish never found — the two sights that sell this continent, six hundred miles of Pacific and a mountain range apart.
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The Inca Trail in 8 days: permits, altitude and Machu Picchu
The classic four-day trek with the acclimatisation days it actually needs. Permits are capped and sell out months ahead, February is closed, and Dead Woman's Pass is at 4,215 metres — this is the guide to booking it in the right order.
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Peru in 9 days: Lima, Cusco and Machu Picchu
The Andes classic, sequenced so the altitude does not ruin it: Lima's coastline and its extraordinary food, the Sacred Valley first to acclimatise, Cusco's Inca-and-baroque streets, and Machu Picchu on a timed circuit booked months ahead — with the permits, the train and the acclimatisation order that most itineraries get backwards.
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Peru and Bolivia in 13 days: Machu Picchu, Lake Titicaca and the Uyuni salt flat
An Inca city on a ridge above a cloud forest, a lake two countries share at 3,800m, and a salt flat the size of a small country that becomes a mirror when it rains — with the altitude as the thread running through all of it.
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Venezuela in 9 days: Angel Falls, Roraima and Los Roques — and the warnings first
A kilometre of water falling from the rim of a sandstone plateau, flat-topped mountains that inspired The Lost World, and an archipelago of coral cays — in a country most governments advise against visiting at all.
Brazil
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Bahia in 9 days: Salvador, the turtles and Morro de São Paulo
Four days of Salvador's Pelourinho, capoeira and candomblé, a turtle project on the coast north, then two car-free islands reached by catamaran. The crossing that makes people sick, the safety rules locals actually follow, and why Carnival here is nothing like Rio's.
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Brazil in 10 days: Rio, Iguaçu and Paraty
The greatest city setting on earth, a colonial port between rainforest and sea, and a waterfall system you hear before you see: Christ above Rio's beaches, Paraty's cobbles and schooner islands, and Iguaçu from the panoramic side — with the honest safety brief, the distances, and why Carnival changes every number in this guide.
Southern Cone
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Argentina in 12 days: Buenos Aires, Iguazú and Patagonia
A country so long it holds subtropical waterfalls and Patagonian ice in the same trip: Buenos Aires' European boulevards and steak, the thunder of Iguazú from both sides, a glacier you watch calve into a lake, and the granite spires of Fitz Roy — with the internal-flight planning and the currency reality that make or break the budget.
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Argentina and Brazil in 13 days: Buenos Aires, Iguazú from both sides, and Rio
Two cities that could not be less alike, and between them 275 waterfalls on a border — walked out over the top of from one country and seen whole from the other, which is the reason to cross rather than choose.
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Chile in 12 days: the Atacama, Santiago and Torres del Paine
The longest country on earth, at both ends: a desert so dry parts of it have no recorded rain, salt flats with flamingos, and granite towers above a turquoise lake at the bottom of the world — with the altitude order, the park bookings that sell out months ahead, and the two flights that make it possible in twelve days.
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Paraguay in 8 days: the Jesuit ruins, Asunción and the Chaco
A landlocked country most travellers skip entirely, holding the ruins of the Jesuit-Guaraní reductions, a German-speaking Mennonite colony in the Chaco scrub, and the last place in the Americas where an indigenous language is spoken by nearly everyone.
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Patagonia in 13 days: Perito Moreno, Fitz Roy and Torres del Paine
A sixty-metre ice wall that breaks up with a noise like artillery, a granite spire that turns red for four minutes at dawn, and three towers above a glacial lake — split across two countries because the mountains were there first and the border came later.
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Uruguay in 8 days: Montevideo, Colonia and the wild east coast
South America's quietest country: a capital with a 22 km seafront promenade, a Portuguese smuggling town of cobbles and sycamores an hour from Buenos Aires, and a village at the far end of the coast with no road to it, no mains electricity and a sea lion colony under the lighthouse.
The Guianas
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Guyana in 9 days: Kaieteur Falls, Iwokrama and the Rupununi
A single-drop waterfall almost five times the height of Niagara, reached by light aircraft and approached on foot to an unfenced lip where you stand alone — then a rainforest canopy walkway, a river where giant otters and black caiman live, and savannah ranches where the vaqueros still work cattle on horseback.
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Suriname in 8 days: Paramaribo's wooden city, the Upper Suriname river and Galibi
The only Dutch-speaking country in South America — ninety per cent rainforest, a UNESCO capital built entirely of white timber, and river villages founded by people who escaped slavery and were never recaptured.
