Wish We'd Known!

What We Wish We'd Known Before Travelling Through South America

You learn a lot in the first few weeks of a long trip, some of it by getting things slightly wrong, some of it by getting things right without fully realising it at the time. Looking back at our time in South and Central America, here's what we wish we'd known before we set off, and one decision we're glad we made.

eSIMs: One Good International Plan Beats Country-by-Country

We bought a local eSIM in every country we visited. It worked, but it meant repeating the same small task over and over, researching providers, buying a new plan, setting it up, every time we crossed a border.

Looking back, we think it would have made more sense to find one international eSIM plan that covered the whole region, rather than starting from scratch in every country. It would have saved time, meant one less thing to think about at each border crossing, and probably worked out similar in cost, if not cheaper, once you factor in the plans we bought but barely used before moving on again.

If you're planning a similar route through multiple countries, it's worth properly researching regional or multi-country eSIM options before you go, rather than defaulting to buying local as you cross each border.

Spanish School in Guatemala: One of Our Favourite Things We Did

This one isn't a regret, it's the opposite. Early on in the trip, we spent a few weeks at a Spanish school in Guatemala, and it turned out to be one of the best decisions we made all year.

Beyond the language itself, it gave us a proper foundation to build on for the rest of the trip, rather than picking up Spanish piecemeal as we went. But the bigger value ended up being everything around the lessons. Staying in one place for a few weeks let us actually bed in, rather than just passing through, and we made friends there who we're still in touch with now, genuinely friends for life.

If you're planning a similar route through Spanish-speaking countries, we'd recommend building in a few weeks at a language school early on, not just for the language, but for the experience of slowing down and properly settling somewhere for a while. It's one of the few things from the whole year we'd do exactly the same way again.

South America and Central America Are Very Different

We went into this expecting the two regions to feel fairly similar. They don't.

South America is bigger and, in a lot of places, more developed. The distances between destinations are genuinely vast, vast enough that at a certain point overland travel stops being practical and flying becomes the sensible choice rather than a luxury. We hadn't quite factored in how much time long overland journeys in South America would eat into a trip, or how often flying would actually be the better use of our limited time.

Central America felt different again. Less developed in terms of infrastructure, with roads that aren't always in great condition and a much heavier reliance on local buses to get around. It's also noticeably cheaper as a result. What Central America lacks in polish, it makes up for in how far your budget stretches and, in a lot of ways, how much more raw and unfiltered the travel experience feels.

Neither is better than the other, they're just different trips, and it's worth planning with that difference in mind rather than assuming the pace and logistics of one region will carry over to the other.

You're More Responsible for Your Own Safety 

Coming from the UK, we were used to a certain baseline of regulation around things like transport and organised tours, safety standards you don't really think about until they're not there.

Across parts of South and Central America, that same level of regulation isn't always guaranteed. Tour operators and travel buses vary hugely in quality, and it's not always obvious from the outside which ones are properly run and which aren't. It's not a reason to be anxious about travelling in the region, but it is a reason to do your own due diligence rather than assuming a booking automatically means a certain safety standard, and to trust your instincts if something about an operator or a bus feels off.

Don't Flush the Toilet Paper!

Not the most glamorous lesson from a year of travel, but a genuinely useful one. Across a lot of the region, the plumbing isn't built to handle toilet paper, and it goes in the bin beside the toilet instead. It's a small habit to break, but one worth knowing before you arrive rather than working out the hard way.