While planning the trip in South America, we really had a hard time. Part of your brain want to visit as many place as possible, while another part try to prevent it.
You check the map, the calendar, then the map again. You think about the people you met in Chile couple of weeks before that were visiting “all” Chile in two weeks. You definitel don’t want that!
At least we know the start and finish date and location: we’re in Bolivia on May 1st, and we have our flight back on September 15th here. Been twice in Chile in the last few months, let’s skip that country.
Anyway this place is so huge, you’ll need years to get over South America (we met a lot of backackers lost in there for years).
You think about limiting the number of countries, but still… “Oh, Rio looks nice”, “Wait, we can’t skip Macchu Pichu!” “And everybody is recommending Colombia…”, “And my brother is in French Guyana right now, let’s visit him!”… “And Argentina… We’re not going to Chile, Let’s at least enjoy Argentina…”. Well that’s how the trip was born:
Bolivia =>Argentina => Uruguay => Brazil => French Guyana => Suriname => Colombia => Ecuador => Peru => Bolivia
Think over it some monthes later, That was way toooo much!! Half trip, we made the decision to skip Ecuador and northern Peru (only focusing on the most touristic (Lima, Arequipa Cuzco). Equator will be for a next trip, and at least we get one month to enjoy Colombia.