South America

From Patagonia to the Amazon: start with Rio de Janeiro and Buenos Aires, from our own trips.

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🧭 Why Visit

South America is the continent of superlatives — the Amazon, the Andes, Patagonia — and our guides start with its two great city gateways: Rio's beaches beneath Corcovado and Buenos Aires' boulevards under blooming jacarandas, both from our own trips.

🏛️ A Little History

Portuguese Brazil and Spanish everywhere else: two colonial paths that produced wildly different giants. Independence swept the continent in a single generation under Bolívar and San Martín, and its cities kept the European grandeur with the volume turned up.

💡 Did You Know?

South America contains the world's largest rainforest, longest mountain range, highest waterfall, and driest desert — and in Ushuaia, the southernmost city on Earth, where cruise ships leave for Antarctica.

Our South America City Guides

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Rio de Janeiro

City guide from our own December week — live tours and honest advice
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Buenos Aires

City guide from our own spring trip — live tours and honest advice

More in South America

Argentina

Buenos Aires first: spring jacarandas, serious steak, and the best free walking tours we've found.

Brazil

Rio first: we spent a December week in Leblon and barely wanted to leave the beach.

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Bruges’ cooler sibling: medieval towers, student energy, no crowds.

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Neon canyons, silent shrines, and the best food city on Earth: all running exactly on time.

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Rubens behind a cathedral door, guild houses on the Grote Markt, and a castle on the…

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Singapore

Hawker stalls with Michelin stars, a garden city that means it: Asia's easiest deep dive.

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National Orchid Garden

A thousand orchid species inside the UNESCO Botanic Gardens.

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London

Royal parks to riverside pubs: the world's most visitable capital, one Tube ride at a time.

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