South America
20 curated road trips
- Salar de Uyuni CircuitAcross the world's largest salt flat, a 10,582 km² mirror of white that becomes a perfect sky reflection after rain, then through volcanoes, lagoons of pink flamingos, and geysers at 5,000m into the Altiplano.
- Costa VerdeThe Rio–Santos coastal highway (BR-101) threads between the Serra do Mar mountains and the Atlantic, colonial fishing villages, the world's largest urban forest at Tijuca, islands, and Brazil's most spectacular beaches.
- Carretera AustralChile's Ruta 7 is one of the world's great adventure roads, unpaved, remote, cut through Patagonian fjords and ancient rainforest. Glaciers, hanging valleys, thermal pools, and almost nobody ahead of you.
- Calchaquí ValleysThrough the high-altitude Andes of northwestern Argentina, the world's highest vineyards at Cafayate, the sculpted red rock canyons of Quebrada de Cafayate, pre-Inca ruins at Quilmes, and the colonial splendour of Salta.
- Serra do Rio do RastroSC-438 climbs the Serra Geral escarpment in 18km of relentless hairpins, from the subtropical coastal plain to a cold gaucho plateau at 1400m. Above the clouds, apple orchards, frost-dusted dawns, and the sheer-walled canyons of Aparados da Serra await.
- TranspantaneiraThe only road into the Northern Pantanal, 147km of raised dirt track on 122 wooden bridges through the world's largest tropical wetland. In the dry season, caimans line every bridge, capybaras graze the shoulders, and the Cuiabá River banks are the best place on Earth to see a wild jaguar.
- Estrada RealThe Royal Road built in the 1700s to carry gold and diamonds from the Minas interior to the coast. This stretch, the Caminho dos Diamantes, connects UNESCO Ouro Preto through the colonial hill towns of Tiradentes and São João del-Rei to the diamond capital of Diamantina, birthplace of President JK.
- Estrada da GraciosaThe historic colonial road carved through the Serra do Mar Atlantic Forest in 1872, PR-410 descends 900m from the Paraná plateau to the coast through dense rainforest, roadside waterfalls, and the colonial riverside town of Morretes, the home of barreado.
- Rota RomânticaThe RS-235 through the Serra Gaúcha follows the valleys settled by German and Italian immigrants in the 1820s, half-timbered architecture, sausage and Gemütlichkeit in Gramado, the Parque do Caracol waterfall, and the Vale dos Vinhedos where Brazil's best Merlot and Moscato are made.
- Chapada DiamantinaThe highland plateau of Bahia, Brazil's walking and driving heartland. Diamond-rush colonial villages, table-top cerrado mountains, 100m waterfalls into swimming holes, underground lakes glowing with refracted light, and the most extraordinary cerrado scenery in Brazil.
- Lençóis MaranhensesThe "Maranhão Bedsheets", 1500km² of white sand dunes rising from a flat coastal plain, filled between July and September with hundreds of turquoise and emerald rainwater lagoons. One of the most surreal landscapes on Earth, reached from São Luís via the Preguiças River delta.
- Linha Verde, Coconut CoastBA-099 traces Brazil's most beautiful coastal highway from Salvador north through the "Estrada do Coco" and "Linha Verde", past sea turtle reserves, endless coconut-palm beaches, coral reefs at Praia do Forte, and the dune world of Mangue Seco immortalised in Jorge Amado's novel Tieta.
- Aparados da SerraThe Serra Geral escarpment splits the Rio Grande do Sul plateau with two of the deepest canyons in South America, Itaimbezinho (720m deep, 5.8km long) and Fortaleza (900m deep). The araucária pine forests above and the Atlantic Forest below create two entirely different worlds within 20km.
- Chapada dos VeadeirosA UNESCO cerrado highland 250km north of Brasília, the ancient quartz-crystal plateau that generates one of the highest concentrations of natural crystal in the world. Waterfalls, cerrado canyons, the New Age capital of Alto Paraíso, and the clearest night skies in Central Brazil.
- Rota das MissõesThe Jesuit missions route of western Rio Grande do Sul, a UNESCO World Heritage trail through the ruins of seven 17th-century reductions where Guaraní communities and Jesuit priests built the most advanced utopian society in the Americas, before the Portuguese destroyed it in 1756.
- Ruta 40Argentina's longest highway traces 5,000 km of the jagged Andes from the shores of the South Atlantic at Punta Loyola through Los Glaciares, Bariloche, Mendoza, Salta, and the Bolivian border at La Quiaca, traversing 20 national parks, crossing 18 major rivers, and climbing over 27 mountain passes. One of the most epic drives on the planet.
- Che Guevara, Motorcycle DiariesIn January 1952, Ernesto "Che" Guevara and Alberto Granado left Buenos Aires on a 1947 Norton 500 named La Ponderosa II, riding the lower part of Argentina to San Carlos de Bariloche before struggling through Chile to Santiago. Though the motorcycle was eventually abandoned, retracing the route from Che's birthplace in Rosario reveals the grazing country, Andean crossings, and political awakening that made the man.
- Pan-American Highway, PeruPeru's stretch of the Pan-American Highway takes in everything from pre-Inca history to world-renowned wineries, the road winds through coastal desert, tiny fishing villages, the Islas Ballestas wildlife islands, the mysterious Nazca Lines, colonial-era towns, and the Atacama at Tacna. Drive only during daylight hours; fuel up wherever you can.
- Santiago to San Pedro de AtacamaFrom the Pacific Coast to the world's highest and driest desert, north from Santiago via Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, La Serena, and Copiapó to the Atacama. Parts haven't felt rain in 400 years (possibly ever), yet snowflakes occasionally fall. The Salar de Atacama, Valle de la Luna, and El Tatio geyser field are the rewards.
- Route of the Seven LakesThe most beautiful short drive in South America, Ruta Nacional 40 and Ruta Provincial 234 through the Andes foothills between Bariloche and San Martín de los Andes, threading through seven glacier-fed Andean lakes of extraordinary blue-green clarity: Nahuel Huapi, Espejo, Correntoso, Escondido, Villarino, Falkner, and Machónico. The Swiss Alps transplanted to Patagonia.