Argentina
Best time: Dec to Mar for Patagonia; Jun to Sep for the north
Argentina is vast, stretching some 3,800 kilometres between the Andes and the Atlantic, and it rewards a journey that picks two or three of its six regions. Buenos Aires is the start, the home of tango, asado and mate. In the dry west, Mendoza makes Malbec, and Aconcagua, the highest peak in the hemisphere, rises in the Andes. Patagonia has the Perito Moreno Glacier, Bariloche, El Calafate and Ushuaia. The north is subtropical, with Iguazú Falls and the towns of Salta and Cafayate, and Puerto Madryn is the base for the Atlantic coast.
Bolivia
Best time: Apr to Oct
Bolivia is one of the most biodiverse countries on earth, yet it sees far fewer visitors than its neighbours. The Salar de Uyuni, the great salt flat, is the sight most people come for. Lake Titicaca, with Copacabana and the Island of the Sun, lies close to La Paz. Sucre, the first capital, founded in 1538, keeps its 16th-century churches and the house where independence was declared. Potosí, at about 4,000 metres in the Andes, grew rich on the silver of its mountain. Tiwanaku, Santa Cruz and Tarija extend the map further.
Brazil
Best time: Dec to Mar for the coast
Brazil is a continent in itself. Rio de Janeiro has the beaches and the samba, and Brazilian Carnival is billed as the largest popular festival in the world. Salvador, Paraty, Búzios and Ilha Grande each show another side of the coast, and Fernando de Noronha, out in the Atlantic, has beaches that win international awards. Inland are the Amazon, reached through Manaus, the wetlands of the Pantanal and the falls at Iguaçu. The climate is mostly tropical, warmer in the north, and summer, from December to March, is the season for the beach.
Chile
Best time: Nov to Mar; May to Sep for the Atacama
Chile runs for 2,653 miles down the Pacific coast of South America, and every stretch is different. In the north, the Atacama is the driest desert on earth, with some of the clearest night skies anywhere. The centre holds Santiago, colourful Valparaíso and the wine valleys. Further south come forests, lakes and volcanoes, then Patagonia, with Torres del Paine, the fjords and Cape Horn. Easter Island lies far out in the Pacific. Seasons differ by zone: May to September suits the Atacama, and November to March suits Patagonia.
Colombia
Best time: Dec to Mar, Jul to Aug
Colombia runs from the Caribbean coast to the snowcapped Andes, and its climate is set by altitude, not by season. Cartagena, with the Rosario Islands offshore, is warm all year. Bogotá is cool and high, Medellín has a mild, springlike climate, and the coffee region around Salento and Armenia is walking country. Santa Marta, Barichara and Guatapé are worth adding, and the Amazon, around Leticia, and the very wet Pacific coast are for the more adventurous. The drier months are December to March and July to August.
Ecuador
Best time: Jun to Sep for the Andes
Ecuador packs four worlds into one country: the Galápagos, the Andes, the Amazon and the Pacific coast. Quito has one of the finest preserved historic centres in the Americas, and Cuenca is another colonial city on the UNESCO list. The Avenue of the Volcanoes passes Cotopaxi and Chimborazo, the highest summit in the country, and Otavalo has the most famous craft market in the Andes. About 1,000 kilometres offshore, the Galápagos have giant tortoises, marine iguanas and Darwin's finches, seen on foot and by boat. Ecuador also calls itself the land of cocoa.
Falkland Islands
Best time: Oct to Mar
The Falkland Islands are an archipelago of more than 700 islands in the South Atlantic, with Stanley as their capital. They are one of the great wildlife destinations of the southern ocean: king, gentoo, rockhopper and Magellanic penguins nest here, alongside albatross, elephant seals and sea lions. Visitors reach the outer islands, such as Carcass, Saunders, Pebble, New Island and Sea Lion Island, by small plane or four by four. The penguins return from September, chicks hatch in December and most have gone to sea by March. Many visitors arrive on an expedition ship.
French Guiana
Best time: Jul to Nov
French Guiana is a French territory on the northern coast of South America, and most of it is Amazon rainforest. Cayenne is the main town, with museums on local heritage, and Kourou has the space centre, which can be visited. Offshore lie the Îles du Salut, including Île Royale and Devil's Island. Much of the country is discovered by river, on guided boat trips into the forest. The climate is equatorial and the territory lies outside the cyclone belt; the dry season runs from July to November, with September and October the sunniest months.
Guyana
Best time: Jan to May, Sep to Dec for the interior
Guyana lies between Venezuela and Suriname on the northern edge of South America, and ecotourism here is on the rise. Large areas of primary forest remain intact, with rare wildlife and towering waterfalls. Kaieteur Falls drops 226 metres, and the Rupununi savannah and its Indigenous communities are part of most journeys. Georgetown, the capital, is the starting point. The dry season suits general travel, while the wet months raise the rivers, make boat travel easier and show the waterfalls at their fullest. It suits travellers who want nature with very few other visitors.
Paraguay
Paraguay is landlocked and little visited, one of the quieter secrets of South America. Beyond Asunción and Encarnación, its great sights are the Jesuit missions of Trinidad and Jesús de Tavarangue, both on the UNESCO list. Trinidad, founded in 1706, is the most complete of the 30 missions that once spread across the Río de la Plata basin, with a stone church, a fine dome and carved decoration; Jesús has rare trefoil arches. The missions tell the story of the meeting between Jesuit priests and indigenous communities, and of the yerba mate they grew together.
Peru
Best time: Apr to Oct
Peru is three countries in one: the coast, the Andes and the Amazon. Lima, the capital, is one of the great food cities of the continent. In the Andes, Cusco and the Sacred Valley lead to Machu Picchu, the Inca citadel at 2,430 metres in tropical mountain forest. Arequipa and the Colca Canyon, Puno and Lake Titicaca, and Nazca and Paracas extend the route, and Iquitos and Puerto Maldonado open up the Amazon. Spanish, Quechua, Aymara and dozens of other languages are spoken. The dry season in the Andes runs from April to October.
South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands
South Georgia is one of the great wildlife sights on earth, a remote island in the southern ocean where millions of fur seals and penguins breed. There is no visitor accommodation ashore, so the only way to visit is by ship, on an expedition cruise or a private yacht. Grytviken, the old whaling station, is the first landing, with its museum, church and the grave of Sir Ernest Shackleton. Beyond it, landings such as Salisbury Plain, St Andrews Bay, Gold Harbour and Fortuna Bay have colonies of king, macaroni and chinstrap penguins, with albatross overhead.
Suriname
Suriname sits on the northern coast of South America, between French Guiana and Guyana. Paramaribo's historic inner city, laid out from 1683 around Fort Zeelandia, is a Dutch colonial town of timber buildings and is on the UNESCO list. Inland, the Central Suriname Nature Reserve covers 1.6 million hectares of untouched rainforest, with granite domes rising above the canopy and Juliana Top, the highest point in the country. More than 400 bird species live there, including harpy eagles and scarlet macaws, along with jaguars, giant otters and eight kinds of primate.
Uruguay
Best time: Dec to Mar
Uruguay is small and temperate, with warm summers and a clear rhythm of four seasons. Montevideo is the first stop, and on a peninsula in the Río de la Plata lies Colonia del Sacramento, founded by the Portuguese in 1680, whose cobbled streets and tiled roofs are on the UNESCO list. The Atlantic coast, from Punta del Este to La Barra and José Ignacio, has miles of beaches. Inland lie the Negro and Uruguay rivers, small towns, a geopark in Flores, and towns such as Carmelo and Rocha. Good food runs through all of it.
