Backpacking South America: the gringo trail

The plan fit on one line in my notebook: Peru, Bolivia, the far south, then Colombia on the way back up. Everyone calls it the gringo trail, and there's no shame in that — it's a worn groove for a reason. What nobody fully prepares you for is the scale. South America isn't a country you cross, it's a continent you negotiate with, one twenty-hour bus at a time.

I left with a 60-litre pack, two pairs of socks too few, and far more time than money. Three months later I came back lighter in every sense. Here's roughly how it went, and the handful of things I wish someone had told me at the start.

Peru: thin air and old stones

Cusco sits high — around 3,400 m — and the city makes sure you know it. I climbed one flight of stairs to my hostel and stood at the top breathing like I'd run a marathon. That's soroche, the altitude, and the only real cure is patience: arrive, slow down, drink water, give it a couple of days before you push higher. Locals swear by coca-leaf tea, which is everywhere in the Andes and helped take the edge off. I'm no doctor — if altitude hits you hard, listen to your body and ask a local pharmacy or guide.

From Cusco I did the Sacred Valley slowly, then Machu Picchu. I won't try to sell you the sunrise over the ruins — you've seen the photo, and the real thing is better and quieter than it suggests. Book the entry ticket ahead, because slots are timed and they do sell out. That booking, done from a hostel bunk over a shaky connection, was the single most useful thing my phone did all week. Which is the whole connectivity story, really: outside the cities the signal comes and goes, and on the long-distance buses it vanishes for hours. A regional Latin America eSIM meant I wasn't hunting for a new SIM at every border, and a few bars at the right moment — to confirm a hostel or send a "still alive" home before a night bus — smoothed the rough edges. Nothing more. The trip was never about the phone.

« The continent isn't crossed. It's negotiated, one twenty-hour bus at a time. »

Bolivia: the mirror and the altiplano

La Paz is the highest big city I've ever set foot in, draped across a canyon at around 3,600 m, and you feel it again. But the postcard is further south: the Salar de Uyuni, the world's largest salt flat. I went in the wet season, when a thin film of water turns the whole thing into a mirror and the horizon simply stops existing — sky below, sky above, you in the middle. I have never felt so small and so happy at once. Out on the altiplano the signal is essentially zero, which is rather the point; you just plan ahead, download an offline map before the jeep tour and tell the hostel roughly when to expect you back. Old-school, and it works.

The far south: Patagonia, in winter clothes in summer

Here's the brain-bender for a northern traveller: the seasons are flipped. The austral winter runs roughly June to August, so while Europe sweats, Patagonia is cold, short on daylight and gloriously empty. I crossed from northern Chile down through Argentina, the landscape sliding from desert to steppe to granite. El Chaltén, the little trekking village under the Fitz Roy, became my favourite place on the whole trip — you walk out of the hostel and you're already on the trail — while across the border, Torres del Paine in Chile served up the kind of wind that rearranges your face.

Distances down here are brutal and the buses are your lifeline. Splash out on a cama seat for the overnight hauls if the budget stretches — it reclines almost flat, and a twenty-hour ride becomes survivable instead of memorable for the wrong reasons. Border crossings are by land, slow and stamp-heavy; rules and visas shift by nationality and over time, so check the current requirements before you go rather than trusting a forum post from three years ago.

Colombia: the warm finish

I saved Colombia for the end, up north, like a reward: Bogotá's grey energy, Medellín reinventing itself on a hillside, then Cartagena — heat, colour, salt in the air, the Caribbean shrugging at the cold I'd left behind. People had loaded me with warnings before South America, and yes, you keep the usual city wits about you — watch your bag, take registered taxis or the app at night, don't flash valuables. But the catastrophe everyone predicted never showed up. Common sense did most of the work.

What to remember

The gringo trail works because the hard parts — altitude, distance, those endless buses — are exactly what buys you the freedom. You wake up not knowing which town you'll sleep in, and that stops being scary and starts being the best part. Respect the altitude, pad the bus rides, keep one eye open in the cities, and let the rest unfold. Three months, one backpack, a continent that felt bigger every single day.

— Romain, still finding salt in my boots.