rajesh2472

Hello All,

Me and my wife planning an trip to South-America, iterinary as follows:

Day 1: Arrive in Lima, Peru
Day 2 - 3: Travel to Cusco. Sightseeing of old Incan Empire
Day 4: Trip to Incas Sacred Valley
Day 5: Trip to Machu-Picchu
Day 6 - 7: Return Cusco. Journey to Puno for Lake Titicaca
Day 8: Cross border into Bolivia. Travel to La Paz
Day 9: Travel to Uyuni
Day 10 - 11: Travel to Salt Lakes
Day 12: Cross border from Bolivia to Chile
Day 13 - 14: San Pedro de Atacama & Tatio-Geysers
Day 15 - 16: Travel to Santiago-Chile for onward Journey

Traveler's are Couple (Husband 40 yrs. + Wife 35 yrs.), so all Accommodation/Food/Transport/Sightseeing will be SHARED.

I have also browsed website of several leading Organized (but also called BUDGET) Travel companies, every one seems to be charging anywhere from US$ 4,000 to US$ 6,000 per person for the whole-trip.

Budget: US$ 1,600 per person (total US$ 3,200 for Couple). About US$ 100 person per day average including Accommodation/Food/Transport/Sightseeing. Can this trip be done in above budget ? Please suggest/help/advise, thanks in advance.

mlgb

You are a bit short of days there. In order to do this much cheaply in such a short time, I think you will be spending a lot of time on buses (uncomfortable night buses in Bolivia). Then you miss the scenery you came to see.

The first 7 days is okay, although I would suggest flipping days 4/5 with 2/3. When you arrive to Cusco, go first to the Sacred Valley.

On Day 7 you have a few choices. One would be to take a day (tourist) bus (Inka Express is a good one). You probably arrive too late to go out on the Lake. Or, you can gain a day by taking an overnight bus at the end of Day 6, then day 7 can be spent on the lake.

I think you may need another day to go La Paz to Uyuni to Chile.

Where are you going after Santiago?

Is it possible to return instead to La Paz and fly onward from there?

Jeff_Costa_Rica

Are you locked into flying into Lima and leaving from Santiago? Do you need to go to Bolivia? Do you need to go to Chile? Covering such a huge territory will add a lot to your costs. It will also add a lot of travel time if you're trying to do the trip on a budget. Lima to Cusco is 20 hours one-way on the bus, for example.

Are you U.S. citizens? You'll require a visa to enter Bolivia to the tune of $135 per person. There goes more than one day's worth of what you've budgeted.

Distances are huge in Chile. If you could lift it out of the map and lay it on its side, it would stretch from NY to LA. The Chile portion of your itinerary would be the equivalent of a bus trip halfway across the US. Do you want to do that? You could fly and shave a lot of hours off that trip, but at greatly increased cost.

crellston

I would say your trip is entirely doable within your budget. Visa costs aside, the two most expensive items will be any airfares and a Uyuni tour. A three day tour of Uyuni will transfer you to SPdeA and should cost around $250 pp on share basis. Your main issue is time as it will doable but is likely to be a bit of rush.

Having done one night and several day buses in Bolivia none were particularly enjoyable except the one from Copacabana to La Paz which was one of the most scenic I have experienced! I also much preferred Copa to Puno and would probably move straight on to Copa and do a Lake Trip from there which would save a day. I second mlgb's suggestion of Inka Express. It makes the journey into a tour and again, the scenery is spectacular.

I recently took the Lima - Cusco bus and at 20 hours it did drag a bit but you do save on one nights accomodation cost and it really wasn't too bad as the buses are quite comfortable.

Jeff makes a very valid point re the length of journeys in Chile. LAN tends to be expensive to fly but other airlines like Sky do offer cheaper fares and may be worth looking at. Agin an overnight bus may be cheaper but you will miss out on the scenery.

NB. We were in Uyuni last week and it seems that the airport is now open so it may be worth checking out flights as a way of skimming maybe a days travel off of your plan

Huentetu

That bus from San Pedro to Santiago takes 24 hours, so it would be interesting to know why Santiago is in your itinerary and where you plan to go from there. Also, what I always consider one of the basic questions: what time of year would you be doing this?

brunsoncalifornia

The first thing that you have to be aware its about the agencies in Peru.
I had a terrible experiencie because I got a full package to colca cayon, Machupicchu, tour to Sacred valley and others while I was in Arequipa the agency its called VIKINKA TRAVEL and they have the same agency in Cusco. Well they lied about the schedule, the tour guides that dont know about their jobs. The hotel that we stayed noisy, dirty.
Sometimes its better if you just travel by your own discovering the cities witouth this fraud of agencies.