1st trip to South America

Hi,

My partner & I are planning a trip to South America, spending roughly 2-3 months. The countries we'd most like to see are Argentina, Chile, Peru, Bolivia and Brazil. We would be coming from Austalia and going home to europe, so we were thinking fly into the south Argentina/Chile and fly out of Brazil.

I know there are heaps of wonderful things to see, but I don't want to be rushing either and not enjoying the region by spending most of our days travelling. If you have any advice I'd much appreciate it, maybe an itinerary that you have done previously in the same amount of time.

Thanks in advance.

Start by searching this forum; this question pops up all the time, so there's a good deal of itinerary suggestions here already. One piece of initial advice: you cannot possibly cover 5 countries in three months. Limit yourself; I'd suggest you do Argentina, Bolivia and Peru. Flying into Lima and out of Buenos Aires would imo would be ideal

Which time of year are you going? The south of Chile and Argentina is best avoided from May to October as temperatures can really plummit.
If you want to include the south of the continent I would only visit Chile, Argentina and possibly to a trip to Bolivia. Peru is ok, but couldn't bother me too much.

In that case you could actually do a loop (if you have 3 months, not 2, quite a big difference), and fly into Santiago or Buenos Aires which have the best connections with Oz/Nz.
Santiago - Puerto Montt - ferry to Puerto Natales - Torres del Paine - Punta Arenas - Tierra del Fuego - Pensinsula Valdez - Buenos Aires - northwest Argentina (Salta) - into Bolivia towards Tupiza, trip to Uyuni - northern Chile (Atacama etc. etc.) - down to Santiago.

Just an example

Or you could do the highlights of Chile, Argentina and Brazil- follow Utrecht's route up to Buenos Aires, but then take off towards the Iguazu Falls, crossing over to Brazil and finishing in Rio. Time allowing, you could leave your things in storage in Rio, and head to a beach for the last few days- or, time and cash allowing, I'd also recommend going up to Salvador for a few days. Just remember to allocate enough time for moving around in Brazil!

What are you most interested in? Do you have special interests/hobbies etc? If you're not so much of a beach person, for example, I'd pick Bolivia over Brazil, and similarly, if you don't enjoy trekking and hiking at all, you might rather leave out Peru and Bolivia. On a tight budget, I'd head for the Andean countries, which are a bit cheaper. Just some ideas

Thanks for all your replies, helps a lot! Ya, we realise we are pushing it trying to cover the whole lot in such a short space of time and from your suggestions and our preferences we'd most like to do Argentina, Bolivia & Peru. We'd like to cover as much by land, but if we really have to we'll take a flight to save some time. We're probably going to be arriving around mid-May. We love the beach & enjoy a bit of hiking too, I have weak knees though so can't do too much!! Mostly we just want to see it, enjoy the landscape and meet the people.

Thanks again for your help