South America

Travel through South America by country:

Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Suriname, Uruguay, Venezuela

Travel through South America by popular city:

Bogota, Buenos Aires, Sao Paulo, Rio de Janeiro

Travel through South America by popular things to do:

Adventures in the Amazon, Falkland Islands, Iguazu Falls, Tierra del Fuego


RoadJunky Looking for Travel Writers with Flavor

In my eyes the Internet has enabled so many talented and not-so-talented some bodies and nobodies to sit up during late night hours, burning the midnight oil, typing up a storm to later divulge beautiful heart-felt pieces or thought provoking political essays from their minds or even bland pull-my-finger material. Really, sometimes it’s hard to surf through it all without wasting a whole lot of your precious time. The point is – the worldwide web is this incredible vessel allowing those with a voice and a decent typing speed to become “writers.”

With that out the way I wanted to let you know that RoadJunky is seeking travel writers. By this they are looking for people with flare and flavor who probably aren’t so good at taking precise notes on hotel and restaurant addresses in Caracas, but have a very cool story to tell instead. They want to know what it’s really like to travel THERE to that place that YOU went, because every experience like every voice is different. Got it? Comprende? Capeesh? So now onto the guidelines – writers should have an edge and desire to cover areas in Central and South America, Europe and South East Asia. Oh, and they pay a little sumthin’ sumthin’. Now get your finger out your nose, check out the submission guidelines, samples and get to whipping something up!

More University Students Taking Part in Study Abroad

Not to rip off the Washington Post or anything today, but they’ve just got the travel news that seems worth sharing. In this article they talk about the rate at which student study abroad travel is going. I don’t know about you, but I’d say it’s booming – it has tripled in the last 20 years. Basically it used to be a time when only foreign language geeks would scurry off some place exotic like Cairo for a semester, but now more students in a wide range of majors are seeing the benefits of studying outside their mother country. Bravo, bravo!

Something like this should be a university requirement if you ask me, but it warms my heart more students are doing it anyway. I never got the chance to participate in the whole study-abroad experience in my colleges days, but I didn’t go to a traditional college and I seem to be making up fine for it these days. Kudos to the college kids out there doing it right!

Photo of the Day (8/5/06)


Now it is true I have eaten many a questionable dish and species in my lifetime, but looking at this South American plate I’m thinking probably not as much as some folks have. Um, yes. According to Morrissey who left this fine gastronomic shot in our Gadling Flickr pool the meat is delicious. What kind of meat is that you ask? Well it’s a Cuy (or guinea pig). If you stare a little harder you can make out a limb or two and yes, that looks like a head there too. Can anyone else see this? Would you sample this while hanging out in Peru? I would.

Stomach growling or turning yet?

World Recipe Book

People that like to cook already know about these things, but since I just blogged about fortune cookies I figured I may as well provide those of us that occasionally like to try something new every now and then with a worldly recipe site. The World Recipe Book online has over 21,000 free recipes online now as of 2005. I went looking through some and I have to tell you pictures are everything and what many of these recipes are missing. I like to see what the dish I’m going to be cooking is supposed to look like, but that could just be me. Other than that I haven’t any real complaints. Look up Jewish fare, Korean or a chutney dish to whip up for the weekend. Yum.

Chile by Road


I have got to go back for a moment to an older article that I just re-discovered from last year in theThe LA Times. This one takes us along the long, stretchy spine of chile, one of my favorite countires. The road trip mentioned, here is, IMHO, one of the best there is in the world, because it takes us along Chile’s entire length. That is saying a lot, by the way. Chile is one damn long country, some 4000 miles. I’ve seen Chile from top to bottom, but my trips were all broken up and often I went by bus or plane to places like Atacama or Punta Arenas. But the idea of doing the country’s string bean geography – from tip to tip – has immense appeal. And that is exactly what Dan Neil does in this fine article in the LA Times.

It is more that just the length of Chile that amazes. It is also the incredible change in topography, climate and culture from top to bottom. And the writer here, who pilots a Land Rover LR3 down Chile’s unfathomable expanse, doesn’t seem quite prepared for what Chile has to offer. Neil is driving the LR3 as part of the Land Rover’s G4 Challenge program, an extreme-sports competition I’ve never heard of, but which I would gladly sign up for in a heartbeat. Along the way, he sees many of Chile’s greatest sights: the Martian-like beauty of the high desert and the vast loveliness of the South. He also meets a somewhat unfriendly Carabinieri, and loses his driving partner who can’t hack the drive. A fun piece. Highly recommended.