🌎South America A footpath running up a ridge in the Andes mountains of South America

The Andes. Seven thousand kilometers of them, running the whole length of the continent, and they decide almost everything about a South American trip

Destination Guide

South America Family Travel Guide

“South America is not one trip. It is six or seven completely different ones, and the single most useful thing an advisor can do is stop you from booking three of them at once.”

By Nicole Damiano, ASTA Verified Travel Advisor · By Nicole Damiano, ASTA Verified Travel Advisor · Peru in September 2025, and a decade of planning the rest

Andean women in traditional dress selling woven textiles at a highland market

Nicole’s Perspective

South America is the continent people put off. It is further than Europe, it feels harder than the Caribbean, and there is a vague sense that you need to be a certain kind of traveler for it. None of that is really true any more, and the families I send come back changed in a way that a week in Cancun does not do.

Adam and I did Peru in September 2025. Lima, the Sacred Valley, Machu Picchu, Cusco. The rest comes from planning it, from the operators I work with, and from the debriefs afterwards.

The mistake is almost always the same. An itinerary with four countries and eleven nights, because they all fit on one page of a map. Brazil alone is bigger than the contiguous United States. Chile is four thousand kilometers long. Buenos Aires to Bogota is a longer flight than New York to Los Angeles. Pick one country, or two that share a border you can actually cross, and give them the time.

Explore South America by Country

Six full country guides so far, each with what it is good at, who it suits, and who should skip it. More are coming as we build them.

Peru

Brazil

Mount Fitz Roy in Argentine Patagonia at sunrise

Argentina

Colombia

Chile

Ecuador

How Many Countries in One Trip

This is the question that decides if a South American trip works. The honest answer for a two week trip is one country, or two if they share a border crossing you can use. Everything else is arithmetic you will lose.

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The scale is hard to picture. South America is one and a half times the size of the United States. Bogota to Buenos Aires is six and a half hours in the air. Lima to Santiago is three and a half. There is no equivalent of a two hour European hop between capitals except in a few specific cases.

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Almost nothing connects directly. Regional flights route through Lima, Bogota, Sao Paulo, Santiago or Panama City. A leg that looks like it should take two hours frequently takes seven with a connection. Budget three hundred to five hundred dollars a person for each international hop.

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The pairings that work. Peru and Ecuador, because both are Andean and the flight is short. Argentina and Chile, because Patagonia straddles both and there is a bus. Argentina and Brazil, because Iguazu sits on the border and you walk across it. Colombia and Ecuador, because it is a short hop and the cultures rhyme.

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The pairings that do not. Peru and Brazil. Colombia and Chile. Anything with three countries in under sixteen nights. These are the itineraries I talk people out of every year and nobody has ever come back and told me I was wrong.

The hexagonal salt crust of the Salar de Uyuni stretching to the horizon in Bolivia

The Salar de Uyuni in Bolivia. There is no guide for Bolivia on this site yet and it is high on the list, because this and the Death Road and Lake Titicaca are all in one country nobody plans properly.

Altitude Is the Thing That Ruins Trips

Half of South America sits above two thousand five hundred meters. It is the single most common reason a family loses days, and it is completely manageable if you plan for it rather than discovering it.

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The numbers you actually need. Cusco is three thousand four hundred meters. La Paz is three thousand six hundred and forty. Quito is two thousand eight hundred and fifty. Bogota is two thousand six hundred and forty. For comparison, Denver is one thousand six hundred. These are not the same category of problem.

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Sleep low, climb high, and never on night one. Land somewhere lower and go up in stages. In Peru that means the Sacred Valley before Cusco. In Ecuador it means two easy nights in Quito before Cotopaxi. In Bolivia it means not flying straight into La Paz, which almost everybody does.

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Children get it too and hide it. A child who is quiet, off their food and has a headache after a flight into the Andes is not tired. Build a empty day into the first forty eight hours and treat it as non negotiable.

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Talk to your doctor before you go, not after. Acetazolamide has to start a day or two before ascent. That means the conversation happens at home. If it suits your children is a pediatric question, not a travel blog question.

The Regions of South America at a Glance

It helps to stop thinking of the continent as twelve countries and start thinking of it as five regions, because the regions are what actually determine the trip.

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The Andes. From Colombia down to Chile, and the reason for the altitude, the ruins, the alpacas and the markets. Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia are the heart of it and Colombia is its northern edge.

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The Amazon basin. Nine countries share it and Brazil has most of it. Go for the scale and the river and the lodges. Do not go expecting a wildlife documentary, because the canopy is closed and the animals are in it.

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The Caribbean and Atlantic coast. Cartagena, Santa Marta, Tayrona, the Bahian beaches and the whole Brazilian shoreline. Warm water, colonial ports, and the part of the continent that feels closest to the islands.

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Patagonia and the far south. Shared between Argentina and Chile. Glaciers, granite, wind and expense. It is a trip of its own and it deserves to be treated as one.

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The desert north and the Pacific coast. The Atacama, the Peruvian coastal desert, the Nazca lines and the Humboldt current. Almost no rain, unreal night skies, and cold gray sea the entire way up.

Getting Around a Continent

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Fly the long legs and stop trying to be clever. Domestic flights inside Peru, Colombia and Ecuador are cheap. Inside Brazil, Chile and Argentina they are not, and they need booking months out. LATAM, Avianca, GOL, Azul and Sky cover most of the map.

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The buses are far better than their reputation. Argentina, Chile and Brazil run long distance coaches with seats that lie flat and meals included. An overnight is a comfortable way to save a hotel night between adults. With small children it is a long night.

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Drive in Chile, Argentine Patagonia and small pockets elsewhere. Chile is the easiest driving country on the continent. The Colombian coffee region and Ecuador work with a driver rather than a rental. Do not plan to drive between regions in Brazil or Peru.

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Use ride apps in every city. Uber, 99, DiDi, Cabify, Beat. They are tracked, cheap and the local default. This is the most useful single security habit on the continent and it costs nothing.

Money Across the Continent

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Every country is different and one uses the dollar. Ecuador is officially dollarised, which removes the whole question. Argentina has its own currency situation that changes faster than any printed advice. Peru, Colombia, Brazil and Chile are ordinary and card friendly in the cities.

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Cards in cities, cash in markets. That rule holds everywhere. Take money out at a bank ATM inside a branch, never a standalone machine on the street, and always decline the machine’s offer to convert to your own currency.

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What things actually cost. Roughly, from cheapest to dearest for the same family week: Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Argentina, Brazil, Chile. Chile costs about what southern Europe costs. Colombia costs about half that. Patagonia and the Galapagos sit outside the pattern entirely and cost what they cost.

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The flight is the big line and it does not scale. Getting five people to South America is the single largest cost in most of these trips, and it is the same if you stay nine days or nineteen. That is the strongest argument for going for longer and for fewer countries.

An Andean condor soaring over a canyon in the Andes

An Andean condor. Three meter wingspan, and the reason the Colca canyon in Peru is on so many second trip lists.

Safety, Said Plainly

This is the conversation that stops families booking, and it deserves a straight answer rather than either reassurance or alarm.

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Read advisories by region, never by country. Every one of these countries has areas at the reassuring end and areas at the alarming end, and the tourist regions are almost always at the reassuring end. A country level headline tells you nothing useful about the place you are actually going.

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The real risk is theft, not anything dramatic. Phones and bags in crowds. It is the same risk profile as Barcelona, Naples or Paris, at a somewhat higher frequency. Nothing flashy, nothing in your hands on the street, a cheap phone for the beach.

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Cars at night, walking by day. Universal advice from everybody who lives there. Ride apps after dark, even short distances. This is not fear, it is the local norm.

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Where I would not take a family right now. Venezuela. The Colombian and Ecuadorian border departments. Coastal Ecuador around Guayaquil, which has changed for the worse since 2023. Rural areas away from established tourist corridors in most countries. There is more than enough continent left.

When to Go

The continent crosses the equator, so there is no single season. Roughly, the northern countries run on wet and dry and the southern ones run on an inverted summer and winter.

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December to March is southern summer. Patagonia is open, Brazil is hot and at peak, Buenos Aires is emptied out by locals going to the coast. It is the only window for deep Patagonia and it is the priciest one.

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April, May, September and October are the sweet spot for most of it. Shoulder everywhere. Peru and Ecuador are between rains, Argentina and Chile are pleasant, Colombia is fine, Brazil is drier in the southeast. If you can travel outside school breaks, go now.

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June to September is the Andean dry season and southern winter. Best weather at Machu Picchu and in the Atacama, best wildlife in the Pantanal, skiing in Chile and Argentina, and Patagonia largely shut. It also lines up with the northern summer trips, which is why it is busy.

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January to March is wet in the Andes. Cloud on the ruins, the Inca Trail closed for February, and much lower prices. Perfectly travellable if you are flexible about views.

Food, Continent Wide

The single most underrated thing about South America and the thing people talk about most when they get home. Six countries and six different cuisines, with almost nothing in common except that none of them are spicy in the way people expect.

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Peru is the best of them and it is not close. Ceviche, lomo saltado, anticuchos, and four hundred years of Japanese and Chinese influence layered onto an Andean larder. Lima is a serious eating city by any measure.

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Argentina is beef and Italy. Asado, empanadas, milanesa, and ice cream that would hold its own in Rome. It is the easiest country on the continent for a fussy child and the hardest for a vegetarian.

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Brazil is regional to the point of being three cuisines. Beef in the south, Japanese and Italian in Sao Paulo, and West African cooking in Bahia that tastes like nowhere else in the Americas.

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Colombia and Ecuador are corn, plantain and fruit you have never heard of. Arepas, bandeja paisa, llapingachos, and a dozen fruits that have no English name and never leave the continent. Order the fresh juices at every meal.

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Chile is the sea. Four thousand kilometers of cold Pacific and shellfish that people fly in for. Mild, simple, and superb when it comes out of the water.

Doing It With Children

Poppy marks the family parts. Wherever you see her, that section is written for travelling with children.

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Eight is roughly the floor

Below that the flights, the altitude and the archaeology are hard to justify. Costa Rica and Mexico do the same job for a young family and this site has guides for both. From eight upward South America is one of the great trips of a childhood.

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Children are welcome

Across the whole continent. Late dinners, no sighing when a toddler is in a restaurant, and strangers who talk to your children rather than round them. It resets what families expect after Europe.

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Longer, not more

The flight cost is fixed. Sixteen nights in one country beats eleven nights across three, every single time, and it is usually the same money.

The Paperwork, Country By Country

Most of this continent asks nothing of a US passport holder. Two countries ask quite a lot, and one of those changed recently enough that plenty of people still have it wrong.

🇧🇷 Brazil needs a visa again, and this is the one people miss. Since April 2025, US, Canadian and Australian passport holders need an e visa to enter Brazil for any reason. It is applied for online, it costs about eighty one dollars per person, and for Americans it is issued with ten year multiple entry validity, which softens the sting. You can stay ninety days per visit and up to one hundred and eighty days in any twelve month period. Apply weeks ahead, not days, because processing is not instant and it is per person, so a family of five is over four hundred dollars and five separate applications.

🇧🇴 Bolivia is the expensive one. US passport holders pay a visa fee that runs to a few hundred dollars, and it wants a yellow fever certificate, an itinerary and proof of accommodation. It is very doable. It is not something you sort out at the border with three kids in tow. If Bolivia is in the plan, it goes on the calendar first.

✅ The easy ones. Peru, Chile, Argentina, Colombia, Ecuador and Uruguay all take US passport holders visa free for ninety days, nothing filed in advance. The old reciprocity fees that Chile and Argentina used to charge Americans at the airport are gone. If a site tries to sell you one, it is not a government site.

📘 Passport validity and blank pages. Six months beyond your return date is the safe rule across the continent even where a country technically asks for less. Two blank pages per passport. Check the children first, since their passports are the five year kind and they expire quietly.

💉 Yellow fever, again. It is not required to enter Brazil, Peru or Ecuador as a tourist arriving from the US, but it is strongly recommended if you are going into the Amazon basin in any of them, and several onward countries will ask for the certificate if you have been in an at risk area first. If your route touches the Amazon, get the vaccine at least ten days before you fly and carry the yellow card with the passports.

🧒 One that catches divorced and single parents. Several countries in this region ask a parent traveling alone with a child to show a notarized letter of consent from the other parent, or a custody order, or a death certificate. It is inconsistently enforced and completely non negotiable when it is enforced. If one adult is flying with the kids, get the letter notarized before you go. It costs almost nothing and it is the difference between boarding and not.

Machu Picchu, and Why It Gets Booked First

This is the one place on the continent where the ticket decides the trip, rather than the trip deciding the ticket. Book it before you book flights.

You do not buy a ticket to Machu Picchu. You buy a ticket to one route through it. Since 2024 the site runs three circuits containing ten defined routes, and your ticket locks you to one of them at purchase. You cannot switch on the day. You cannot double back. Guards move you along a one way path.

Circuit 2, route 2A is the one you actually want on a first visit. That is the classic. It gives you the postcard view from above and then takes you down into the urban core, the temples and the terraces. Circuit 1 is the panoramic upper route with the view but not the city. Circuit 3 covers the lower royalty sector and is the one that pairs with the Huayna Picchu climb.

The mountain climbs are separate and they sell out first. Huayna Picchu is the steep peak in every photograph, with a very limited daily quota and a minimum age. Machu Picchu Mountain is the longer, gentler, higher climb. Both are add ons to a specific circuit, so you are choosing them at the moment of purchase, months out.

Tickets are timed, capped, and matched to the passport name. Turning up with a ticket in the wrong spelling is a real problem, so the passport numbers need to be right when you buy. High season entry slots for the good circuits go months ahead. Late June through August, and anything around a Peruvian holiday, goes earliest.

The Inca Trail is a different beast again. Five hundred permits a day total, and that number includes the porters and guides, so the real number of trekkers is far smaller. They sell out six to eight months out and sometimes within hours of release. The trail closes every February for maintenance. There is no standby, no waitlist and no buying one on arrival in Cusco. If a family teenager wants to do the trek, that permit is the single fixed point that everything else in the itinerary bends around.

🐕 And the part about altitude. Cusco sits considerably higher than Machu Picchu itself, which surprises people. Do not fly into Cusco and go straight up. The Sacred Valley is lower and is the right place to spend your first two nights. There is a fuller section on altitude further up this page and it applies to every child in your group.

The Galapagos, and What It Actually Costs to Stand There

Nowhere else on this continent has quite this gap between the price of the flight and the price of the trip. Here is the honest arithmetic.

Before you have slept anywhere, each person owes two fees. The national park entrance is two hundred dollars for a foreign adult and one hundred for a child under twelve. It is paid in cash, in US dollars, at the airport on arrival, and the machines that take cards are not there. On top of that is the transit control card, about twenty dollars, bought online through the Ecuadorian government site at least a week before you fly. For a family of five that is roughly eight hundred dollars of fees before a single boat leaves a dock.

Then the real fork. Cruise or land based. A small ship, sixteen to a hundred passengers, sails overnight and wakes up at a different island, which is the only way to reach the outer islands and the wildlife that lives on them. Land based means a hotel on Santa Cruz or San Cristobal and a day boat out each morning, which is far cheaper, far more flexible, and limits you to the central islands.

For a family, land based is usually the right answer and nobody says so. Children get their own beds, their own bathroom, a pool and a town, instead of a cabin and a schedule. Bad weather does not trap them. You can take a day off. The trade is that you see fewer islands and you will not get to Genovesa or Fernandina. If your children are teenagers and good on boats, the small ship is the better trip.

Everything is guided and that is not a sales tactic. Almost every visitor site in the park requires a licensed naturalist guide and a fixed group size, and the itineraries are pre approved by the park. So the guide quality is what you are actually buying between two operators at similar prices. Ask about the guide, not the boat.

When to go. There is no bad month, only different ones. December to May is warmer, calmer water, better for snorkeling and swimming, and the sea is around eighty degrees. June to November is cooler and rougher with more nutrient in the water, so more marine life and better diving, but a sea temperature that will make a nine year old get out. Pick by which one your family will actually enjoy.

The Caribbean Half of This Page

The Caribbean sits in the same guide as South America and it deserves saying out loud that it is nothing like it. It is short, easy, and the most common first international trip an American family takes.

The three hour rule is the whole appeal. From most of the eastern and southern US you are on a beach the same day, with no visa, no vaccination, no time change worth mentioning, and in several places the US dollar in your pocket. It is the softest possible landing for a family that has never traveled internationally together.

Hurricane season is June through November, and the sharp end is August to early October. That is the season, not a warning to avoid it. Prices in September are a fraction of February prices and most Septembers are fine. What matters is that you do not book a non refundable September week without insurance that covers a named storm, and that you understand the policy has to be bought before the storm is named. This is one of the few cases where I would insist on the coverage rather than suggest it.

The islands outside the belt are the ones people forget. Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire sit far enough south that hurricanes rarely reach them, which is why they hold their prices in autumn and why they are the answer for a family that cannot move its dates. Barbados and Trinidad sit low too.

All inclusive is a strategy, not a downgrade. With three children, knowing the food, drinks, kids club and most activities are already paid for changes how the week feels. What it does not include is usually the airport transfer, the spa, the excursions and the tips. Ask for the number with those in it before you compare two resorts.

Choose by what your family does, not by the photograph. Turks and Caicos and Grand Cayman have the calm, shallow, wade out water that suits small children. Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic give you a real country and a rainforest as well as a beach. St Lucia and Dominica are for walking and water rather than lying down. The photographs all look the same. The weeks do not.

📘 Passports. Every family member needs one for a flight, infants included, and infant passports take as long as anyone else’s. If you are sailing round trip from a US port, the rules are looser, but do not use that as a reason to skip it. If something goes wrong and you have to fly home from an island, the passport is the only thing that gets you on the plane.

Where I Would Actually Start

If you have never been to South America and you are choosing one country, here is the order I recommend and why.

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Peru first. It has the single biggest set piece on the continent, the best food, easy internal flights and a tourism industry built for exactly this trip. It is the only one of the six I have been to and it is still the one I recommend most.

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Ecuador if the budget is tight or the children are younger. Same Andes, half the distance, uses the dollar, and the Galapagos sitting there if you can stretch to it. The best value country on the continent.

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Colombia if you want warmth and a short flight. Closest to the United States, cheapest of the six, and the easiest first step for a family that is nervous about the continent.

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Brazil for beaches and a great city in one trip. And nothing else on this list gives you that combination.

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Argentina and Chile for landscape and a second visit. Both are superb and both cost noticeably more. Patagonia is a trip of its own and it is better as the one you save up for than the one you squeeze in.