By popular request, I’ve created another follow-up to my posts about computing optimal road trips across the U.S. and Europe. This time, I made an optimal road trip around South America. If you’d like to get into the nitty-gritty of how these road trips are created, check out the first post about the U.S. road trip.
South America is yet another massive and diverse continent, so again there’s no way I’ll be able to pick a series of stops that will please everyone. However, by combining recommendations from TripAdvisor and Huffington Post, I was able to create a trip with a nice mix between beautiful outdoor sights and lively cities across the entire South American continent. Below is the optimized route between those stops.
This trip ended up mostly following along the coastline of South America, covering roughly 18,148 miles (29,206 km) of driving, ferrying, and flying. You should plan to spend 3 or more months on this trip if you want to really enjoy it.
Google Maps isn’t routing between Colombia and its neighboring countries, so I drew direct lines between Quito <--> Bogota & Santa Marta <--> Isla Margarita that may need to be taken by plane instead. Your best bet with this trip is to start at Isla Margarita, Venezuela and follow the route south from there.
Here’s the full list of stops in order:
- Isla Margarita, Venezuela
- Angel Falls, Venezuela
- Jericoacoara, Brazil
- Fortaleza, Brazil
- Natal, Brazil
- Salvador, Brazil
- Trancoso, Brazil
- Belo Horizonte, Brazil
- Buzios, Brazil
- Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
- Sao Paulo, Brazil
- Curitiba, Brazil
- Florianopolis, Brazil
- Gramado, Brazil
- Punta del Este, Uruguay
- Asuncion, Paraguay
- Buenos Aires, Argentina
- Torres del Paine, Chile
- El Calafate, Argentina
- San Carlos de Bariloche, Argentina
- Santa Cruz, Chile
- Santiago, Chile
- Vina del Mar, Chile
- San Pedro de Atacama, Chile
- Nuestra Senora de La Paz, Bolivia
- Lake Titicaca, Bolivia/Peru
- Arequipa, Peru
- Urubamba, Peru
- Cusco, Peru
- Lima, Peru
- Mancora, Peru
- Quito, Ecuador
- Bogota, Colombia
- Cartagena, Colombia
- Santa Marta, Colombia
- Taganga, Colombia
Make your own road trip
If you’d like to customize your own road trip, I’ve released the Python code I used in this project with an open source license and instructions for how to optimize your custom road trip. You can find the code here.
Happy exploring!
Dr. Randy Olson is the Lead Data Scientist at Life Epigenetics, Inc., where he is bringing advanced data science and machine learning technology to the life insurance industry.
Just eliminate assuncion and it will save you a lot o time…
Really, Asuncion is not that great… And from punta to Buenos Aires you can drive to Colonia Del Sacramento and take a ferry…
This is nonsense .. it was not researched if the road is actually possible, there is no way to get the Transamazonia, it’s just a plan, the road is only possible during the dry season and if you have a 4×4 suv, and it is also not indicated. And he missed the path to Foz do Iguacu, one of the most beautiful landmark between the triplice border between AR BR PY. If the algorithm just analysed the possible path thry the Google Maps, so, it’s a waste of time as you need to know if the road really exists, if it’s safe, if there’s an alterantive and so on.
Perfect!
The transamazonica road never was a road… Any Google image search will show that it is just impossible to assume that you can cross it without special vehicles…
http://www.newsrondonia.com.br/imagensNoticias/image/transamazonica.jpg
Right – you’ll likely need a ferry for part of this trip. It was difficult (impossible?) to find a road route around the entire continent.
Hey Randy! I just discovered you blog and I love it! I don’t know anything about programming (I’m an economist) but I do love travelling and your “optimal roadtrips” got me.
I’m from Venezuela and I was recently at Angel Falls, you really can’t get there by car, you need to take a plane and then take a canoe like 5hrs down the river to get to the base of the sightseeing spot, then a long hike in the jungle.
It could be good to change that destination with Gran Sabana, which is in the same State as Angel Falls, same geological formations (you can also find tepuyes there) and has a much easier access.
Another advice is to do some reaserah on the Venezuelan-Brazilian border, it´s a very dense jungle in most of its parts and it’s very dangerous.
Try to cut one of the Peruvian places and include Machu Pichu (I think the only way to get there is by train), one of the most magical places I’ve been to.
Bye 🙂
Skip Paraguay (no offense Paraguayanos) and include the Salar de Uyuni and Foz do Iguacu. Also please don’t try to drive through the Amazon.
Hi Randy; (I’m Alumni MSU Engineering Dept), I tried to click on the code for the link and it comes up FORBIDDEN. Am I doing something wrong, or is the link broken?
thanks so much! Laura
Now it works! thanks!
This is an amazing job, but to be honets there are some places in the list not worth visiting, and it’s missing lots of amazing places. I decided to make a better list if anybody is willing to use it for this (or any other pursposes) is wellcome to use it. Please share it! Southamerica is one of the most amazing places for a road trip
1.
Bariloche
, Argentina
2.
Buenos Aires
, Argentina
3.
Córdoba
, Argentina
4.
El Calafate
, Argentina
5.
Humahuaca
, Argentina
6.
Iguazú
, Argentina
7.
Mendoza
, Argentina
8.
Puerto Madrin
, Argentina
9.
Rosario
, Argentina
10.
Salta
, Argentina
11.
Termas del Rio Hondo
, Argentina
12.
Ushuaia
, Argentina
13.
Valle de la Luna
, Argentina
14.
La Paz
, Bolivia
15.
Lago Titicaca
, Bolivia
16.
Potosí
, Bolivia
17.
Belo Horizonte
, Brasil
18.
Bonito
, Brasil
19.
Florianopolis
, Brasil
20.
Fortaleza
, Brasil
21.
Manaos
, Brasil
22.
Porto Alegre
, Brasil
23.
Recife
, Brasil
24.
Rio de Janeiro
, Brasil
25.
Salvador de Bahía
, Brasil
26.
Sao Pablo
, Brasil
27.
Punta Arenas
, Chile
28.
San Pedro de Atacama
, Chile
29.
Valparaíso
, Chile
30.
Barranquilla
, Colmbia
31.
Bogotá
, Colmbia
32.
Cartagena
, Colmbia
33.
Medellín
, Colmbia
34.
Santa Marta
, Colmbia
35.
Baños de Agua Santa
, Ecuador
36.
Cuenca
, Ecuador
37.
Guayaquil
, Ecuador
38.
Montañita
, Ecuador
39.
Quito
, Ecuador
40.
San Cosme y Damián
, Paraguay
41.
Callejón de Huaylas
, Peru
42.
Cuzco
, Peru
43.
Lima
, Peru
44.
Máncora
, Peru
45.
Nazca
, Peru
46.
Colonia del Sacramento
, Uruguay
47.
Punta del Este
, Uruguay
48.
Canaima
, Venezuela
49.
Caracas
, Venezuela
50.
Mérida
, Venezuela
Thank you for sharing and expression. ev dekorasyon
You’re missing some of the most amazing places to visit in south america and driving a lot of miles to… Asunción??? No no no! You should forget about Asunción and go straight from Curitiba to IGUAZU FALLS!!! (if want to go to every country, you can go to Ciudad Del Este (Paraguay) on the Triple Frontier, if not, forget about it) Then down to Punta del Este, Montevideo, a ferry to Buenos Aires, Rosario, SIERRAS DE CORDOBA, San Luis and Mendoza. And you should definetely include USHUAIA (the southernmost city in the world!). And in Bolivia you can not miss COPACABANA, at the shore of Lake Titicaca and ISLA DEL SOL!!!
Just so I know, where did you see anyone recommending a visit to Belo Horizonte? That’s where I live, and although it’s a great place, I would never recommend for a tourist to visit it. It’s specially embarassing because you didn’t include Brasília nor must-sees like Foz do Iguaçu or any place in Pantanal.
So you are telling is more important to go to Punta del Este than Montevideo? You are kind of crazy. Asunción is irrelevant, if you go to Bolivia only for La Paz you will miss a lot, I strongly reccomend you to go to Iguazu and, if you have time, quebrada de Humahuaca is totally worth it.
Lots of beautiful spots missing, too many boring spots included in the above list – I would NOT drive this way. Yeah well, if you turn off your brain, don’t do any research of your own, and leave your planning to computer apps = the result.
We’re DRIVING Latin America in our 5th year.
Some discrimination against the 3 Guianas countries (Guyana, Suriname, French Guiana) going on here I think! Also, if you get to the latter you can tick off the European Spaceport and European Union itself..
I think you’ve missed lots of beautiful places in Argentina….Purmamarca, or Humahuaca in Jujuy, Iguazu Falls, Perito Moreno, and so on…