The Lone Traveller's Base / TSR Travel Society

Any tips for a South America aspirant? I want to take a year off after graduation and just loiter around SA and Portugal and Spain. LIve it, like, get the whole experience all good and proper. Tips, budgeting blah blah blah? Any experienced peeps here? I want to do a sort of hostel-hopping, shoestring budget backpacking expedition (well, me and a buddy of mine, but he's notorious for cold feet)

Extremely good choice of destinations! ;-)

I went to Chile, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru (and over the border for a few hours each in Paraguay and Argentina) five years ago and right now I am drawing near to the end of a 14-month stint in Ecuador. There are tons of places I can recommend!

I've also been to three places in Portugal, all of which I really recommend. The capital, Lisbon, is one of my favourite cities in the world. I think it's wonderful.

Until now I've only ever passed through Madrid Airport and not been into Spain properly, but when I leave Ecuador at the end of this month I'll be spending a few days in Madrid, so will be able to report back on that. I aim to go on a day trip to Toledo while I'm there too. My sister has been to Seville and she's raved about it ever since... I've heard Granada is also a fabulous place to visit (along with Barcelona, of course).

Hostelbookers.com is your friend! It certainly has been mine ;-)

Oh wow, finally someone with a few good words for Latin America. Whoever hears of my grand plan tries their level best to dissuade me, but you make it sound absolutely wonderful. I'll keep that bit about hostelbookers in mind. Is SA terribly expensive? And a year is not too long to spend hiking around, right? What all did you do?
And do post about Spain when you visit! :O

Booking a trip to my beloved south of France to celebrate my degree results

I've seen £60 return. So tempted.

unbelievable

if you have the money and time I would go for it. I'm in eastern europe (romania) at the minute and everyone (travellers) who's been has positive things to say about russia...

Though I was happy to travel to Argentina alone, the one thing I really sought after was the chance to get to know the culture outside of the standard hostel scene. For this reason I participated in a sporting opportunities program and can't recommend it higher enough. Amongst others it gave my parents the satisfaction of knowing I would be safe and taken care of, sorted out all accom and transport, got me a placement at a top futbol club something that surely helps the CV, and most importantly gave me the privilege of meeting and becoming good mates with some local Argentinian lads.

A year is most certainly not too long to go travelling for! Latin America is absolutely amazing. Highlights of what I've done in Ecuador so far are in the blog in my signature, and I will be posting in that blog about Spain as well.

As for my other South American trip, I'll post the link of the blog I wrote at the time in a PM. That contains posts from Asia and Australasia as well, but feel free to ignore those and just skip to the South American posts.

As for expense, it depends on which countries you go to. Overall I'd say South America is cheaper than Europe. Brazil, Argentina and Chile are the most expensive, along with French Guiana. Brazil wasn't very expensive when I was there 5 years ago, but due to the World Cup atm and then the Olympics in 2016, I imagine it's much more expensive now. Ecuador is cheap apart from electronics (because they import them) and trips to the Galápagos Islands. Depends on what type of accommodation you go for - there are really expensive hotels around but also lots of cheap hostels. Bolivia and Peru, when I was there at least, were also cheap - Bolivia was the cheapest of all and Peru was second. Now I would add Ecuador to be joint second.

I'm thinking of travelling alone to SA, are these countries as good as they sound?!

I thought Chile, Brazil, Bolivia and Peru were amazing when I went 5 years ago - and I am in Ecuador right now (leaving on Tuesday after 14 months though) and I think it's amazing.

And do post about Spain when you visit! :O

Hi,
I am 26 years old and I want to do a 7-10 day travelling thing in the middle of October. Short notice I know. I am not sure where to start. I think that I want to go inter-railing. I don't really know where to start from in terms of organising to be honest. Can someone offer me some sort of tips. I don't really want to be a lone wolf and want to meet new people whilst I travel. I want to go to the eastern type of countries like Poland etc.

Would 300 pounds be enough money for 7-10 days?
When you get to a certain place how would I know where to go?
Is there too little time to organise something now given that I want to go this October?

I'm quite scared overall but really want to do this with my fortnight off. Help appreciated.

Bolivia sounds like a dream. Cheap, warm ish, established backpacker network, really interesting culture and people and of course the Spanish language.

Established backpacker network, yes, but you're lucky if the hostels have 24 hour running water (that's what I heard anyway - the closest I made it was Lake Titicaca. Tried to make it there but food poisoning struck )

Still, if you can deal with that (I mean, it's not that bad as long as you're prepared) then Bolivia sounds incredible. The salt flats are supposed to be breathtaking. I wish I could have gone!