S. America: Andean cities

Posted by Marty on 06/09/25 01:58 AM

Having spent four or five weeks in Europe every spring for the past four years, I am setting my sights now on South America. Specifically, I would like to visit Lima (maybe), Santiago, Buenos Aires, and Montevideo for a trip of similar length in either Mar/Apr or Sep/Oct 2026.

I live in the Pacific Northwest, so I will stop over in Mexico City for a couple of nights on my way to and from the southern hemisphere, planning to spend four weeks in the Andean countries.

I speak Spanish proficiently.

I understand that the distances between cities, not to mention the terrain, means I will either fly or take the bus for most of my travel. Certainly, I would enjoy a ferry ride between Buenos Aires and Montevideo.

Advice, please: start in Lima, fly to Santiago, take a bus to Buenos Aires, stopping off at several cities on the way? Or make the same stops, but just in a different direction? Or forget about Lima and just focus on the more southern cities? Open-jaw ticket or ?

Thank you for any information that you can share.

Posted by Arnold

Denver, CO, USA

06/10/25 04:06 AM

1658 posts

Take the weather into consideration. If you go in Aug/Sept, I would think Santiago, BA, and Montevideo will be cold.

If you fly between the major cities, what you laid out should work. I’m not sure where you intend to take a bus from to get to BA. If from Santiago, realize it is on the other side of the continent and will likely take multiple days.

Have fun - I found all four cities enjoyable

Posted by geovagriffith

06/10/25 11:50 AM

8962 posts

Don't miss Cusco, the Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu in Peru.
Also, taking a two week cruise around the Horn of SA is a great way to see key sites in Argentina and Chile.

Posted by Faedus

06/10/25 07:38 PM

207 posts

Lima is the only city in your list (besides Mexico City) I have visited, but I like it a lot. This may not be the common consensus, but then, most tourists in Peru make a bee-line from Lima’s international airport to Cusco, and never acquaint themselves with the city very much. (Incidentally, Peru’s “Sacred Valley,” Cusco-to-Machu Picchu, is great, but it's also Peru's "tourist-central," and may require advance ticket purchases; so don’t feel too guilty if you can’t squeeze it in. I gave up “must-see” tourism a long time ago, and I’ve never regretted it, though I know it works for many tourists.)

Anyway, this may not be the best forum to consult for South America; you may get more results, and from more experienced South-America travellers, in either the Fodors or the TripAdvisor Peru forum. (I posted two trip reports, with photos, on Lima in the Fodors forum, respectively 22 Nov. and 3 Dec. 2024. I can’t seem to extract the precise web-site names, but if you're interested, typing key words like “Fodors trip report Lima Faedus” into Google may be the easiest way to turn them up.)

Also, for some insight into a safe, interesting, but little-explored part of Lima, check out the website pueblolibrelima.com.