I am taking a year off to travel and I dont have a very big budget. I think i want to travel central and south america and i am trying to figure out the best way about it. I want to try and experience as many countries as possible where i go however i have been told it is sometimes dangerous crossing borders in some of these countries. Also i realise that I cannot cross the border between panama and columbia. Any suggestions on how to travel here would be helpful.
I did a fair bit of travel around Mexico, Guatemala, Belize, El Salvador & Honduras at the end of last year/beginning of this year. I never really had any problems at borders (aside from the occasional bribe request or an over zealous currency changer). I think that the danger issue in latin America is played up sometimes by the press. Obviously crime is a concern in some of these places, but if you use common sense, you can pretty easily minimise the risk in a lot of areas. I havent dont the Panama/Columbia route yet (Im going to South America at the end of this year, so I might do it then), but from what Ive read on it, if you can afford it: Fly. It's by far the easiest, and safest way to do it that I can see. Feel free to hit us with any specific questions about your trip as well. I hope it'll be a good one.
The pan-american highway goes all the way from alaska to panama. It would be easy to hitchhike, if you're into that kinda thing. I plan on doing the same thing youre gonna do, so let me know how it goes! I went to Costa Rica last March and it was beautiful. People drive crazy though, and people walk in the middle of the road even when its 90km/h! But the people are so freindly, i bet if you were to backpack the whole way they would be genorous in helping out. Like "hey im just walking through and i was wondering if i could get a drink of water" and chances are they'd be like "of course!" (It helps if you know spanish lol) I bet you could find a way from panama to colombia by a cargo ship or something. Not sure about south america, but in central america, june to october is the rainy season. It would be alot harder to get around when the roads get flooded and it rains so hard you cant see straight. I hope your adventure goes well!
