After a few nights of searching for deals and researching best options for our route we bought the tickets. The plan was to fly in to Bogota from Boston and return fro Sao Paulo back to Boston. Continental Airlines had a great deal for our travel dates ($400 for multi-city round trip).
The rationale behind this air travel plan was:
- We have a friend in Bogota
- Cheapest flight into South America from Boston was to Bogota
- We wanted to cover amazon in the beginning of the trip rather than towards the end, when the energy levels were higher
- Flying out of a major city would make it easier for us to get US visa stamped
- We can get our visa paperwork at a friends place in Argentina
The countries we decided to travel were Colombia , Peru, Bolivia , Argentina, Brazil.
We really didn't have too much time for preparing our route so we picked up lonely planet travel books for all the countries we planned to visit from the Boston Public library. Their suggested itineraries was a great starting point for us to flush out the preliminary plan. After researching blogs, reading Thorn Tree and other travel websites, we decided to carry Lonely Planet : South America on a Shoestring with us. We had to watch the weight of our backpack and there was relief that youth hostels will have guidebooks for the country we were visiting.
Quick tips:
- Shop around a lot for travel deals. Use websites like sidestep and orbitz but also visit individual airline websites. Tuesday late night, early Wednesday mornings are best days for getting great deals.
- Don't spend too much time on the initial itinerary as far as you are comfortable with the shell. Plans will change if you are going on a long trip
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