RIP South America Forum?
 

A week with no activity! Such a shame.

It isn't only the South America forum.

The Europe forum hasn't got much activity either. It's all just trip reports. I joined the Fodors forum only a few months ago, but I used to be a more or less regular user on other travel fora(Lonely Planet, Virtualtourist, Tripadvisor, Ricksteves) and all of them are much less active than even 10 years ago. I think it's mainly because of facebook.

It is sad! I'm hoping that it's like Twain: "“The reports of ... death are greatly exaggerated.” It's still getting views and clicks, if not posts, so let's hope!

Here I was perhaps naively thinking that lack of activity was an indication of lower level of interest on the part of would be visitors, this being an advantage over the often over-touristed Europe :) :) :) Absence of insane crowds now seems to be an increasingly important attribute to my too quickly aging mindset when planning travel; I hope it is not a sign of impending senility on my part !!!! LOL :)

Curious about this one, too....

You may well be correct kanadajin. My wife and I travel a lot in South American, maybe a total two years in total in the last decade. We have always wondered we have met lots of Europeans and Australians but few visitors from the USA. I find that surprising as there is such a wide diversity of things to see and do. Bering in mind that the vast majority of Fodors members are American, perhaps that is the case, there is just not the interest here. If absence of crowds is an important factor for you then do go. With the exception of a few famous hot spots like Machu Picchu and The Galápagos, it is remarkably crowd free. Don’t tell anybody though, wouldn’t want it to change:p

BDKR - surprised by your comment re the Europe forum as that is the busiest of all the forums with some 20 posts when I look a few minutes ago. 40% were trip reports. A high proportion but at least that is some decent turnover.

I agree that this forum is not very active. I suppose it is true that most who come here for advice are from the USA. It is interesting that many of the questions asked on the Tripadvisor Chile forum (english version) are now often asked by people of other nationalities. Of course, this has always been true on the spanish version. Judging by some of the questions asked by posters from the USA they are looking for specific places they have seen on TV or Instagram and often want to cobble together two or more of these places which are thousands of kilometers from each other. We are seeing more first posts by people who have been scammed in various ways because they did not ask questions on a forum first, this or any other. They never looked at a guidebook either. I get private messages all the time from people wanting me to plan an entire itinerary. It could be that more people are unwilling to post a question on a public forum and prefer lurking or private messaging.

The thing I like about this forum is that people are always polite. This is not rue on every forum and some are now a minefield of trolls, angry people and bloggers/vloggers. I can see why that would put people off. But that is not the atmosphere here. So let's just hope for more activity in the future and keep on answering the questions we can answer.

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I think we could try to increase the activity on Fodors by mentioning the Fodors froum on other travel forums. I recommended Fodors forum on the Lonely Planet forum a couple of times, encouraged users to sign up and post their questions here as well.

Well I'd be happy to take a trip to Buenos Aires, ask tons of questions in the planning of it, and write a lengthy trip report afterward if someone would like to fund the trip! ;)

Me, too, me, too! And I won't restrict my offer to Buenos Aires! But you do have to get me time off work, too. :(