20 South America Travel Tips! (learn from our mistakes 👀)

So we just got back from about five or six weeks in South America. We went to Bolivia, Peru, Argentina and Chile and it was amazing. No wait, it was amazing. So if you haven't seen those vlogs, make sure you go back and watch them. I think we've got 12 different vlogs. That's more of the day-to-day but what we wanted to do in this video is share 20 things for you to know that we learned on the trip. Because even as seasoned travellers, it was our first time there, so we learned a lot. And we're going to wrap up with some weird things as per usual. Yeah, there's definitely one weird one at the end. The first one is a little bit weird in itself but it did come up often and that is flashy suitcase or full backpacker. What should you take with you for your luggage? There's no simple answer for this. I think if you're travelling as a couple or a group of friends, hardcover suitcases are possible. We had one day where there was a gravel... Regret. Yeah, we had regrets basically. Look at this trip. But for the most part, we were happy. You do have to be able to carry it. So if I was by myself, I probably would just go for a backpack or a hybrid situation. Yeah, the groups that we were with who were backpackers constantly said, oh my god, I wish I just bought a suitcase. I thought I had to backpack South America. You do not need to. As long as you can carry a bag, you can get away with it. The other thing is all the backpackers had like seven other bags with them. They had things tied onto their backpacks, drink bottle over here, dropping stuff. Shoes hanging off, banging into people at airports and every single time it was like... To get them on off. But the next thing is in terms of what to pack for South America. Everything. Yeah, I think it depends on where you go. But there's, yeah, unfortunately, you basically have to take one of everything to make it fit. And generally speaking, you don't need too much cold clothes is what we thought. But you actually do, especially if you're going somewhere like the salt flats, which is shocking. And it's the one place in the world that we've been at extremes, like blew us away. Yeah, so the temperature can be 30 degrees during the day and then minus two degrees Celsius at night. So almost at sunset. Yeah. So we kind of had to pack a little bit of everything. Yeah. A little bit painful when you have to, you go to South America and you're taking a puffer jacket and a beanie, but you actually need to check the temperatures of each of the places that you plan to go before you pack for sure. Espanol. Espanol. I wish we knew a little bit more or took the time to do some lessons before we went. We always make an effort. I hope that comes across in the videos as well. Everywhere in the world, we always make an effort. So we at least know how to say hello, thank you, please. Some money or numbers and beer. And the beer. Chicken. So some of the basics. And we could do that. We can do that in Spanish. And we made an effort. The good news is they're really receptive. Just in general, we found people very, very receptive. If you make an effort, they really appreciate it. Unlike some other countries, France, that don't really, don't really appreciate it. I feel like that's pretty common knowledge these days. But yeah, maybe you think a little bit more would have been helpful. Yeah, I think so. The good thing is we were traveling in a group. So a lot of people within our group could speak Spanish and that really helped us. But English isn't as widely spoken in the places that we went to, as I thought it would be. And I think this is the thing that we didn't like is it made us feel ignorant. Ignorant and very touristy. And in other places, because we make an effort, we feel like we can connect a little bit more with locals. And I think we felt just maybe a little bit further away than I would have liked. So a recommendation would be probably learn a few more phrases that you can have a bit more of a conversation rather than piece together what you want to order. Chicken, please. Safety is a massive one. Huge topic for anything that you research, anybody that you speak to, and obviously for us in advance before going as well. Yeah, I think because we were traveling on our G tour, traveling in a group is always a good idea. And having a local guide definitely helps things because they can sort of tell you which areas of town to visit, which areas of town to avoid. But as a general rule, I think it's just a case of using your common sense, right? Yeah, that stuff, I mean, muggings or whatever could happen at any time, anywhere in the world, any time of day. But it is also there is like a correlation to evenings, drunken, dark alleyways, wrong neighborhoods. And like for us, carrying big cameras and stuff. So we would make decisions in certain places not to have that. Exactly. Like Nacho told us in Buenos Aires in particular, when we did the bike tour, don't take any big cameras. So we filmed a lot of stuff on phones or just I had a chest mount one day, do a little bit of this. And we were smart in the places that we were warned about. And then also just in general, we wouldn't leave stuff lying around on tables and cafes or whatever. But actually, just I said France before, I've seen that happen in a fancy area in France, somebody snatch a phone off a table and vault. So this stuff does happen anywhere in the world. But for the most part, yeah, we actually felt really safe. And a big consideration was doing a tour, which we'll talk about more later on. But that really took away a lot of that stress as well. Definitely. A bonus tip to go along with safety is trust. And while you wouldn't feel safe with a shark in the ocean, you should trust Surfshark to protect you, your identity and your privacy while you travel. So Surfshark is a VPN that can do all of that and more at a super affordable price on a bunch of different devices. It can also ensure you get access to your favorite and necessary sites while traveling. In South America, you might find your work, remote access or TV shows are not available. Don't find out the hard way like I did in Bali. Reddit. You can't go on Reddit here. So all of my memes, my sports stuff that I follow, all of my dorky stuff, can't get access to it. Can't do it. Flick over to Surfshark, change my location to New Zealand, go back into the app. Boom. Back in business. So use our code on the screen now or link below and you can get a crazy deal of 80% off and up to three months free. But speaking of cost, how expensive things is obviously a massive consideration, especially for a big trip. South America has a reputation for being a really cheap place to travel. What do you kind of generally feel? Um, my, the way I gauge if a place is good value or not is by the price of beer. That's my general rule. The price of beer was really good there. Yeah. Except for Chile. That was really expensive. Yeah. If you're going on a budget, consider where you want to go into Chile. If you're just grabbing a beer, like on the go, two or three New Zealand dollars gets you a beer. Honestly, in some places a lot less than that. So that's about what you'll pay in a bar as well. So yeah, really cheap. We bought fresh mango shakes at a market for a dollar 50. In Bolivia, we got two of these local chorizo sandwich burger things and a big beer, like a 600 or 700 mil, and that was nine bucks. So you can eat really well for 10 to $20. You can go out and have one of those kinds of meals, but there are nicer restaurants where you can spend a lot more. So for somewhere that might cost say a hundred, $150 for a couple to go out in New Zealand fancy would probably be 50 to 60 there. So there is a lot of value. I would say not as cheap as Asia, just in general. Yeah, probably not quite as cheap, but still good value for money. Absolutely. Especially if I'll get into this in a second about money exchange, how to handle that best, what we learned there as well. But just another example, we bought some local chocolates that were sort of a specialty. They were 70 cents each. So something like that is going to cost you probably more like four or $5 in New Zealand or anywhere else in the world. And I got a haircut in Buenos Aires for 4,500 pesos, which was only nine New Zealand dollars. And that was like a kind of hipster place too, right? Exactly. Yeah. So it's much cheaper for locals. I hunted out somewhere that was cool, but that's because I got it at the blue rate, which I'll carry right over into money exchange. And this is huge that you really have to consider this before your trip. And what you have to do is take a strong currency in cash with you. Don't get pesos or whatever before you leave. Take USD, take pounds, take euros and change it there. And the biggest consideration is Argentina. So they have a blue rate. I won't go into all the details as to why, but if you were to search what the current market rate is, Argentina has a secret in-country rate called the blue rate as well. Essentially when we were there, one US dollar was about 400, 450 pesos. Whereas the blue rate officially, whereas the blue rate in the country, if you had US dollars was one US dollar is 1000 pesos. So more than double at times, it actually got up to almost three times. So as an example, some people in our tour didn't take cash with them, had to try and get currency in the country. And we would eat collectively for cheaper than what one of them would because we had the cash. Credit cards are a big consideration too, because they, they, because it is. Yeah. Some of the credit cards don't give you the blue rate. They just give you the market rate. So you're paying double the blue rate. Yeah, exactly. And then they'll charge your currency conversion fee as well, which is just insanity. So ideally you take cash with you. And then the second option, I don't know why more people don't use this is you have to get a WISE card. It's so straightforward. We speak to so many people, how do I save money? And then they don't order a card or get a WISE card. Order a WISE card. It's 100% free. I'll give you a link below, which gives you a free transfer. Admittedly, we do get a little kickback if you use it, but like, don't use our link if you don't want to. Why is this the way to save money? I don't understand. So we were getting the blue rate or just under the blue rate. So it's just unbelievable. And no, no change fees. You exchange money once for like a dollar or two for hundreds, if not more. Anyway, this really gets me jazzed. Like I don't understand. I'm sure you can't tell. What is wrong with you? It's because we spent the first couple of years of our nomadic travels screwing this up and lost thousands of dollars. For reference, it does depend where you transfer money in the countries as well, because on the border of Peru and Bolivia, we transferred 500 US dollars. I checked on my phone at the XE rate. We lost one US dollar. That's insane. So good. Whereas if we tried to get that money here, we would have lost 50 bucks probably. In Peru though, we were desperate and we changed at an airport for $200. We lost $20. So it just depends on where you do it. Anyway, I'll take it back for a second while we talk about tipping. Okay. So in general, tipping is about 10% in most places, but if you are paying by card, just check. I think this is pretty common in most places, but they'll often add that 10% on. So just make sure you check. Now some more numbers, because as you can probably tell, I like numbers, but data, which kind of relates to safety as well. You always want to have some, I think you also want to have some kind of mobile connection wherever you are. If anything goes wrong, if you need to message anybody, if you need to make a phone call, even if that phone call needs to be sort of like a digitally Skype situation, whatever. So you can either do roaming with your home provider, which is often very expensive, doesn't cover all of the countries. And you don't get much data. True. Very good point. Or you can buy a local SIM card in the country. The disadvantage is you have to take your SIM card out obviously, or you can get an eSIM. Our preference is actually doing a combination of both of those. So we will buy the eSIM while either keeping some form of roaming or probably more so buying a local SIM card. So just as some examples, we bought a SIM card in Bolivia that was six gigabytes and that was for $16. In Peru, we got one for $11 and that was only three gigabytes, but still cheaper, I suppose. Whereas we ran Maya eSIMs, we paid $45 for five gigabytes each, but that lasted for 30 days and it worked in every country. And I think that's the advantage of having an eSIM is that you're crossing borders constantly in South America and you don't have to go and find the shop, make sure you've got the right currency, hope you can get it installed properly. You've literally just got data with you. So yeah, I mean, I think that's a good tip. And I'm choking here, but the big one is then you arrive and you need transport. True. Sorry. We used Uber in most places. I think Cabify is the other sort of like digital app that you can use. And you can select cash as your payment method. And I think a lot of the drivers kind of like that. We like that. We like knowing how much it's going to cost before we get there. But then having an eSIM with your WISEcard as a payment method, you're sorted and cheap. And we didn't spend more than $10 on transport. It is so cheap. I don't think we took one single regular taxi. No, we tend to avoid normal taxis because we just like the safety element of knowing what something's going to cost up front and then language barriers, costs, whatever else. This is the odd trickster here and there as well. So we kind of avoid that, I suppose. I forgot the other thing I was going to say. But yeah, basically transport is easy and very cheap. And when it comes to travel in terms of on the ground, it's a little bit bigger than transport. We recommend doing some kind of a tour. So we did our main tour with G Adventures and it was amazing. It was awesome. Yeah. It takes so much of the pressure off you in terms of having to plan. You wake up every day and the biggest decision you have to make is what your optional extra is going to be that day. Yeah, for sure. And so we got to find out the best places to visit. This isn't even part of the tour necessarily. It might be like, hey, we've got a couple of hours downtime. Great food if you go here. Go and do this. This is a highlight of the area. Here's an optional thing that you can book. Nacho was the man. He really helped us with all sorts. We had a really good group as well. I was so worried that because we did an 18 to 30 somethings, I was so worried that we were going to be the geriatrics in the corner, but there were people our age doing it. And yeah, it was just, it was a fun way to travel. It definitely took a lot of the stress off. And then another option is something like Peru Hop and there's Bolivia Hop as well, which is the buses, because figuring out the buses in between places can be challenging. Really hard to research in advance, I think. And so I think it was a story that a couple of Irish guys or something that realized this, they liked the hop on hop off or easy to book kind of system. And then they created this situation, which helps you get from place to place, but makes it a little bit easier to do. And they have local guides on board as well, so they can help you plan kind of activities in between your destinations, which is quite cool. But even still, it was a mission, the one that we did. It was long. Obviously you're covering a huge amount of ground. But that's what made it fun in some ways. But the reason that we use something like Peru Hop is another consideration, flights. Damn, they be expensive. Maybe not if you really planned in advance. Oh, there's one fly flying around. So you're going to say no if you're really rich. Yeah, that too, that too. Even domestic flights I found to be really expensive. And we were trying to book quite far in advance. So yeah, just kind of keep that in mind. There was one, I think one route we were looking, it was going to be about six or $700 per person. And we were like, the food. Amazing. I mean, you probably could have predicted that, but so good. Embrace it. Yeah. So our tip is to try everything because each country kind of has like their own cuisine or their own sort of dish that they're famous for. The empanadas were amazing. The steak was insane. Argentina. The ceviche in Peru. Yeah. Soups in Bolivia. It was like a volcanic soup with a volcanic stone in it. Rocks and stuff in it. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely crazy. But yeah. And then the sultanas as well in Bolivia, they were fascinating. Kind of good, kind of iffy in places. But even still, yeah, really amazing. So we just say basically embrace it. But I was stoked that Argentina lived up to the hype when it came to the steak and the meats. I mean, that is just me to a T. We had the best burger of our life there, which is very weird. We just felt like something a little bit more homely one night and the meat is what brought it home. But I should say, next one, try some of the random shit if you're experimental. So we'll just preface this a little bit by saying we had a couple of people comment saying, I can't believe you're eating like guinea pig or... The thing is, you can't win in this situation. No, you can't. We always take these experiences from a traveler's perspective and understanding from the local's perspective is this is how we feed my family or this is how my ancestors lived or my family have lived out in the middle of nowhere and we farm alpacas or llamas and they are like our cow or whatever. But yeah, I accidentally ate cow heart on a skewer, which looked like steak. What else did we have? Alpaca. Yeah, alpaca, guinea pig, llama. Yeah, there's some really weird and wonderful stuff. The tip is... I like trying it. Step outside your comfort zone if you're comfortable. Yeah, that's a good one. Stepping outside your comfort zone. That's a nice way to put it. PC. A big consideration if you're into hiking is altitude and altitude sickness, which one of us got. It was me. I was going to say something cheeky then, but no. My tip for altitude sickness is go to higher altitude ahead of time. Give yourself time to acclimatize if you're planning to go hiking and or make sure you take it seriously and have altitude sickness pills. We bought some over there and they happen to be this herbal kind of vibe. We would all be the same. It's not. So make sure you get actual medicine because I got altitude sickness and got oxygen for dinner. Oxygen for dinner. But in terms of like the symptoms, I had a headache, nausea, bloody nose, which are all super common. Hope it doesn't freak you out, but be wary of how high you go during the day. And if you're sleeping up high, that's when altitude sickness can get you. But if you come back down, you should be a bit better off. And that's why we're doing the tour with G Adventures was amazing is that the crew was so, so is their bread and butter. Like it's so normal. There was no stress. It was all very comfortable for you. I even had a van just on standby where we were in Peru, which is quite rural. And then they said, we'll drive you down to lower altitude if you want to sleep somewhere else to just make sure that you're okay. It's a super common thing, but you also can't predict whether you're going to get it right. Something else that we highly recommend you get into is the beer and the wine because it is so delicious. It's really good. Even if you're not a red wine drinker, if you're in Argentina, you've got to try the Malbec. It is so good. Like the hype is real. Yeah. Yeah. That's probably the best way I put it. Cause I was thinking we know wine. We're from New Zealand. Like we, we know good wine. We love, I personally love Pinot Noir, New Zealand Pinot Noir. We tried it over there just to comparison, no bueno, but the Malbec unbelievably delicious. And it's like $5. You can get a game changing bottle of wine. And then the beers were really good too. Yeah. Craft beer was really good. The IPA. They don't say IPA, they say IPA. Yeah. And we were confused a few times with IPA cerveza and we were like, yes. Top tip though, if you are drinking at altitude, make sure that you stay hydrated and take hydrolytes. Cause the hangovers are real. They can really kick in, but that reminds me as well. The next thing is that our recommendation is to always have one of those reusable bottles, always have a reusable bottle with you. One, because you can often fill up with cold water at your hotels or whatever. But two is because sometimes when you're out, uh, they don't, the fridges are questionably cold. Yeah. Same goes for the beer as well. Actually, not that we drank beer out of those, but I mean, we would, but it pays to have one of those because sometimes as well, um, you need to, you're constantly buying water because it's so freaking hot. Just a more of a general one when it comes to being out and drinking or eating and going out to restaurants and stuff is the service can be, even though there's tipping, can be slow, not particularly, uh, hands-on. Eager. Eager. But maybe that comes down to us not knowing a huge amount of Spanish as well and being able to be like, excuse me, hi, hello. I mean, we're not those kinds of people anyway. We'd rather just wait until they turn up. But yeah, pretty slow in most places. I mean, that's fine. We're saying it's just, you just have to go with the flow. That's the way, but what I'm thinking about it is there was a night when we were out with our multiple nights actually with our group, there's like 12 of us and it was clear we were there to, to get drunk and the rounds would be coming and then, or not even, sorry, the rounds would not be coming out. So we would, we'd drink and then there'd be people with empty glasses and we're sort of like ready. There's so much of an opportunity there for someone to make money. We're all sitting there, tourists all ready to drink and nobody's even coming around and being like another one or can I get you any more drinks? None of that kind of happens. So you're just a little bit like, oh, come on, I want to get drunk and help me out a little bit here. So in a lot of the places that we went to, the hotels and the accommodation was very modest. Um, so I guess the tip here is that if you're a bougie traveler, just prepare yourself for, um, the simple things in life and just be appreciative of those things because unless you're in a big hub like Cusco or Buenos Aires, you can't really find those flashy hotels, but the key is to embrace it, right? Absolutely. Yeah. I think that's part of the adventure in a way, but yeah, the thing, the moral is if you're a bit bougie, just be aware that to use somewhere as Bangkok, maybe as an example is that you can spend $5 on a hostel or $500 for unbelievable high end luxury with a view and a whatever else, you know, an apartment for a room. And that topping in a lot of places, I don't think it really exists. Like I feel like it's more in the middle, a lot of places and the quality doesn't necessarily always match the money, but there also are some really great deals. So, I mean, we had everything from terrible colored rooms to we stayed in like a salt hut, springy beds, two beds. And we were like, do you have a double? No. Okay. Whatever. You just, you just go with the flow and you have to go with the flow when it comes to directions. Yeah. We had a few issues with Google maps in a few different places. Um, and we ended up getting lost quite a few times. So factor that into your travel time. Yeah, that's a really good point. As simple as maps thinks you should be on one side of the street when something is on the other side. That happened a lot in La Paz, I don't know why. More complicated where sometimes it thinks you've arrived and you're still hundreds of meters away, or you're on actually, your location is on the wrong block compared to where it actually is. And in La Paz, we spoke to a guy and he was like, oh, down here, this way, just there kind of thing. So confident. And so we, off we go. And it turns out it was that way in a completely different direction. Maybe left is right and right is left. But yeah, it's just something to keep in mind. But that's again, that's just part of that whole going with the flow. When you go somewhere that is still on the up when it comes to tourism and getting established is just having patience to just go. We'll find it. And the last one, number 20, um, might test your patience depending on what your standards are when it comes to going to the banyos, to the bathroom. Yeah. So public toilets cost money. Not much. 20 cents or something like that. And in return for that, they get cleaned and stuff and you get toilet paper, which is awesome. But often you don't get much toilet paper. You might get like six squares. So it depends if you want to go number one, number two. Single player, sometimes. But I would recommend pack those travel tissues, pack like wet wipes for your hands, sanitizer, just BYO and you'll be fine. Yeah. And sometimes, did you say no toilet seats? Sometimes there's no toilet seats. Work on the squats. Yeah. Work on the hover. Yeah. I came back with bigger quads. My squat's gone up 20. No, I'm kidding. Yeah. It's just something to keep in mind that you have to be a little bit more thoughtful with that kind of stuff. And understandably restaurants and that don't want you just coming in to use their facilities. They kind of expect it to be a paying guest. So yeah, the banyos out in public can be a questionable quality and there's always someone sitting there ready to take your money. Yeah. I should really have coins in the pocket at all times to just pay for tips and whatever else. Tips and toilets. And on that, perfectly, perfectly round to note. I think that's everything that we had to share. Yeah. If we've missed anything though, let us know in the comments. Yeah. That's a good point. If there's anything that you think we should have spoken about, let us know as well. But that's the end of the South America series and we've got some cool shit coming up.