Before my first trip to South America, I had a lot of travel anxiety about whether or not I would be safe. Turned out that this fear was mainly fuelled by others who never even set foot in South America… So in January 2020, I finally put that fear to rest by traveling to this AMAZING continent.
So, in this blog post I will share my experience about how safe it is to travel in South America, and why you should go!
But before you start reading this post, I would like to apologize to all South Americans for being narrow-minded. I know that South America is a big continent, and you cannot just assume that all places are unsafe! That’s not what I’m saying here.
But I feel like I have to be honest about my travel anxiety in South America. And maybe by being honest, I can persuade other anxious travelers to go explore South America themselves.
Therefore, this blog post is not about triggering anyone’s fear about traveling, it’s about putting the prejudices and misconceptions about safety and travel in South America to a rest.
Because the truth is, South America is a beautiful continent that any keen explorer would love! I learned a lot during my trip, and I hope I can inspire someone else to follow their dream and go travel to this beautiful continent. Now, let’s begin!
My misconception of travel safety in South America
When I was 18, I went on my first trip around Europe, and I completely fell in love with traveling. Since then I have traveled to many places in this beautiful world, but for some reason, I never made it to South America.
I think that on some level, South America has always intimidated me. People told me it was dangerous, which made me feel scared. Looking back, most of those people who told me that South America is dangerous have never even been to South America themselves. So how would they know?
So… I started looking at statistics, and unfortunately I found that a lot of countries with the highest crime and murder rates are in Latin- and South America. Since I’m one of those people who are super anxious about thinking of death, these statistics definitely triggered my fear of visiting South America even more.
I mean, what if I died? *Nervous laughter*
Today I know that this is a super silly thought, and I don’t mind you judging me for it, but fearing for my safety was a really big issue for me before this trip.
Plus, Glenn and I carry a lot of electronics: Two computers, a camera + lenses, and most importantly all our travel vlogs on two hard drives. These hard drives contain all filming and pictures from the last year of our travels, and losing this would be heartbreaking for us.
Check out our YouTube Channel: Worldwide Walkers
I know you can get robbed anywhere in the world, but this was a serious concern to me before this trip.
It’s safe to say that I carried a big fear of traveling to South America… and googling stuff didn’t make it better. To be honest, I was sure that something bad would happen to us.
But in spite of carrying all this anxiety inside of me, I finally took my first steps in South America in January 2020.
I still had a lot of travel anxiety while I was there, but looking back now, I see that I was perfectly safe in the countries I visited during the whole trip.
So, I’m writing this blog post because I want to let any traveler who dreams of visiting South America know that you can do it! I feel like there is a big misconception about South America being a place that’s not safe to travel. The continent is enormous and you can surely travel to many places without running into problems.
It’s wrong to generalize a whole continent because of some bad eggs! Just make sure to do some research beforehand about where you can go and where you shouldn’t go.
My experience with safe travel in South America
Flying out of New Zealand in January 2020, we had two choices. 1) Fly to Mexico City or 2) fly to Santiago in Chile.
I was curious about visiting Patagonia at the end of the world, so we decided to fly directly to Santiago in Chile.
Chile is one of the safest country in South America. That’s why Chile is a great place to start for intimidated first-time-travelers in South America – just like myself.
We didn’t really think about the fact that in January and February 2020, there were still daily ongoing protests in Chile. However, we never really felt unsafe. Read my blog post about it here: Is it safe to visit Santiago in Chile during the 2020 protests?
Chile
We started our trip in South America with a full week in Santiago. Here we visited the tallest building in South America and ate a lot of empanadas stuffed with melted cheese. *drooling* – so delicious!
Then we flew down to Patagonia to see the penguins on Isla Magdalena and hike Mirador las Torres & Mirador los Cuernos in the famous Torres del Paine National Park.
Afterwards, we flew to the Atacama desert – also known as the driest place on earth! Here we visited Valle de la Luna by bike and went sandboarding in the desert of San Pedro de Atacama. We also met some amazing travelers in this place!
My comments on feeling safe in Chile
I think that Chile is absolutely amazing! I still can’t wrap my head around the fact that one country has so much to offer.
I never felt unsafe in Chile, and we never ran into any problems on our way. Chile was the best place to start my South American journey because it made me feel comfortable enough to venture into the next country – Bolivia!
Bolivia
I’m not gonna lie… Bolivia was rough on me.
Our first stop in Bolivia was the salt flats in Uyuni, which truly is an amazing place on earth! But unfortunately, I got altitude sickness and salmonella in Uyuni, which put my travel lust on pause.
From Uyuni, we went down to Sucre so I could go to the hospital.
And after recovering for a week in Sucre, we could finally go explore again! Did you know that the biggest dinosaur footprint area in the world is located just outside of Sucre? Pretty cool, right?! There used to be dinosaurs all around this place! I also wrote a blog post about all the best things to do in Sucre
Because of my altitude sickness, we decided not to go back to high elevations. Instead we explored Bolivia’s low altitude cities such as Santa Cruz de la Sierra, Cochabamba and amazing little Samaipata.
My comments on feeling safe in Bolivia
Just like in Chile, I didn’t feel unsafe while traveling in Bolivia. There were a couple of times where we almost got scammed, but nothing serious in a way that made you feel unsafe. However, anxiety about feeling safe hit me hard when planning our next step in South America…
My anxiety took over again – I wasn’t ready to travel Brazil
So what happened that again made me question whether South America is safe to travel or not?
Well… Our initial plan was to head into Peru and do some more hiking in the mountains, but my altitude sickness put an end to that. Instead, we were planning on taking the bus to Asuncion in Paraguay, then head to Iguazu Falls in Brazil, and end our trip in Sao Paulo.
For some reason, I just couldn’t do this leg of the trip.
Paraguay was so unknown to me. It was hard to find anything online about the country, and the thought of traveling to Brazil afterwards made me very anxious.
I had read a lot about bus robberies and once again my fear overtook my rationality. I told Glenn that I just wasn’t going.
Fear had won.
I wasn’t ready to travel in Brazil, so instead we stayed in Bolivia where I already felt comfortable. That way we also got to explore all the great things to do in Cochabamba, which I dedicated a full blog post to!
I realized that it was okay not to push myself. I would love to travel in Brazil someday, but now just wasn’t the right time for me. When I do travel to Brazil, I want to look forward to the trip and appreciate traveling!
And looking back today, I’m 100% happy about my decision to stay a bit longer in Bolivia, because what happened next, was absolutely crazy!
If we had gone to Paraguay and Brazil, we would probably have been stuck somewhere in South America during the Covid-19 outbreak.
Instead of going to Brazil, we luckily had pre-booked flights out of Bolivia to meet my family in Thailand for a vacation. However, this never happened due to the pandemic, but because of those booked flights, we did get out of South America (just in time!) unlike many other travelers who got stuck due to border closings.
What a crazy time that was!
Do I want to travel more in South America?
YES! South America is enormous! There is so much I have yet to see. I definitely want to go back someday.
I’m really grateful that I spent almost 3 months exploring Chile and Bolivia, because it made me realize that it can be perfectly safe to travel in South America. I don’t have the same anxiety anymore when I think about going back to South America.
I’m not saying that it cannot be dangerous to travel in South America, because of course it can, but what I’m trying to tell you is that bad things can happen anywhere in the world.
Today I actually feel quite excited about the thought of going back, and I’m currently planning a trip to Argentina in my head.
Of all the places I have traveled, South America has some of the craziest landscapes I have ever seen! I just have to go explore some more. No doubt about it.
I’m so happy that I overcame my anxiety about whether or not it’s safe enough to travel in South America. Because today I have some incredible travel memories from Chile and Bolivia, for which I’m grateful!
6 tips on how to travel safe in South America
Even though I felt perfectly safe in Chile and Bolivia, I still learned a thing or two about how to stay safe during a trip to South America. I mean, you can do a lot yourself to create a safer situation.
So here are my 6 tips on how to stay safe during your travels in South America.
Although, I’d like to point out that most of these tips count for anywhere in the world. You shouldn’t be afraid to travel, but it’s always a good idea to think about how you can prevent anything bad from happening while you’re on the road.
1. Research Research Research
My first tip about staying (and feeling) safe during a trip to South America is to do some research beforehand.
You can for example research, how to get from A to B. Then you don’t show up at a bus station looking like a big question mark. Looking as a confused tourist makes you an easy target for scams. So even though you have no clue what you’re doing – Look determined!
2. Use your common sense
This tip is pretty simple (that is, assuming you possess common sense).
Let me give you an example.
We arrived at 4 AM in the bus station in Sucre, Bolivia. We didn’t have any money, so we went to an ATM and took out a lot of cash. Then we started walking in the dark towards our hostel. This is when we realized how vulnerable we were.
Sucre is a pretty safe city, but we had never been there before, so walking around the dark empty streets with a lot of cash is just not a good idea! Instead we turned around, went back to the bus station, which was full of people, and hopped in a taxi to our hostel. Just use your common sense and you’ll be more safe when traveling in South America.
3. Don’t carry a lot of cash
Kind of refers to the safety tip above…
If you take out a lot of cash at once, just hide it in different places in your bag or on your body. So if you should get mugged, at least you won’t lose it all. We do this anywhere we travel.
4. Don’t flash expensive belongings
Since we have a travel channel on YouTube, we are always filming. This means our camera is always out in the open.
However, in some places, we felt like we had to put it away when we weren’t filming.
In all honesty, we did put our camera away more often in South America than we did in Southeast Asia. However, we never felt unsafe while filming. If it looked like we were walking through a bad neighborhood and too many people were staring at our camera, then we naturally just put it away.
5. Have your valuables on you in the bus
South America is massive! And it’s not unusual to take a 10-hour bus ride to get from city to city. And we’ve heard some stories about people having their valuables stolen on buses.
This never happened to us, but we always had our valuables by our feet or on our body. Never put your most important valuables in the overhead compartment or underneath in the big luggage compartment. And bring your valuables with you if you leave the bus to go on the toilet.
6. Learn some Spanish
I wish I had made a bigger effort to learn Spanish before our travels in South America – this definitely would have made me feel safer. Not only can you understand people’s intention with you, but you also get to interact more with locals. Win-win!
Here is an example of how it can also be useful: Glenn knows more Spanish than me. So when we were taking a taxi in Sucre, the drivers discussed in Spanish about what to charge us extra (to scam us). Glenn understood this and he told them. So they gave us the real price.
Is it safe to travel as a solo female in South America?
Before finishing this blog post, I thought I should mention something about solo female travel in South America, and whether or not you can feel safe as a woman. I obviously travel with Glenn which means that I’m not traveling solo at any time.
However, I did meet a lot of amazing solo female travelers in South America who made it through Chile, Bolivia, Peru, Argentina, and Brazil – and they were perfectly safe traveling alone.
That being said, some of my girlfriends did share stories about men groping them, which is just disgusting… Unfortunately, we women often need to keep an eye out for this when we travel the world alone. Just felt like I needed to mention this.
There are plenty of information online about solo female traveling in South America. Jessie on a Journey also wrote about solo female travel in South America here. Her conclusion is that if you can overcome culture shock and adapt to unfamiliar situations, then you’ll have a good time. If not, then you should consider going somewhere else than South America.
I 100% agree with this statement.
I hope you found this blog post about travel safety in South America helpful. Bad things can happen anywhere, and in some places in South America, they do happen more often than not. Just make sure to do some research before you set out on your adventure so you can avoid these places.
I cannot guarantee that you will be 100% safe no matter where you travel in South America. Nobody can. That’s just the risk you have to take when you go travel.
One thing I can say is that South America has some of the most beautiful places on earth, and I personally cannot wait to go back and explore some more. Thanks for reading and happy travels!
