South American tours

South America is the continent for travellers whose wish-lists have outgrown a single country: lost cities, glaciers, waterfalls, tango, rainforest and beaches that invented the word. Luxury South America tours stitch these wonders into one journey, and stitching is exactly the right word. Here is how I approach it.

The icons, honestly ranked

Machu Picchu leads almost every brief I receive, and it survives its own fame: arriving through the Sun Gate at dawn, mist tearing off the peaks, remains genuinely overwhelming. Iguazu Falls, thundering along the Brazil-Argentina border, is somehow under-hyped: it makes Niagara look like a garden feature. Patagonia's granite towers and calving glaciers reward those who travel furthest south, Rio de Janeiro throws the continent's best party, and the Galapagos remain the closest thing on earth to Eden with a naturalist guide.

One trip or several?

The honest answer: South America is enormous, and the classic mistake is treating it like Europe. Flying Lima to Buenos Aires is London to Moscow. My advice is to build each South American tour around one anchor experience, add two or three complementary chapters, and save the rest for the return visit you will absolutely want.

Classic pairings that work beautifully: Peru's Sacred Valley and Machu Picchu with the Amazon or Lake Titicaca; Argentina and Chile's Patagonia with Buenos Aires and the wine country of Mendoza; Brazil's Rio and Iguazu with a beach finale; Ecuador's highlands with a Galapagos cruise.

Small group or private?

Small group tours to South America solve real problems: the logistics are genuinely complex, the guides unlock Quechua villages and tango halls alike, and solo travellers find instant company. Groups of twelve to sixteen are the sweet spot, and several operators run departures with no single supplement.

Luxury South American tours, tailor made and private, are the continent at its finest: boutique haciendas in the Sacred Valley, estancias in Patagonia where the horses outnumber guests, the Belmond trains and the better Galapagos yachts. The gap in price between good and extraordinary is smaller here than almost anywhere; it is a wonderful continent in which to upgrade.

When to go

The continent straddles hemispheres and altitude, so there is always somewhere in season. Machu Picchu and the Andes are driest from May to September. Patagonia's window is the southern summer, November to March. Rio peaks at Carnival in February, Iguazu flows hardest after the rains, and the Galapagos are superb year-round. A well-sequenced itinerary can catch two or three regions at their best in a single trip; that sequencing is precisely the craft.

The comfort of a companion

South America rewards preparation: internal flights that actually connect, altitude acclimatisation built into the route, permits (Machu Picchu tickets and Inca Trail places are strictly limited) secured months out. All of it is my department, wrapped in full ATOL protection. Your department is deciding whether the llama photograph becomes your new profile picture. It will.