To celebrate the launch of our free ebook South America Highlights, it’s South America Week on Never Ending Voyage. We’ve compiled the favourite destinations on the continent of 31 experienced travellers and today we share exactly how much we spent during our one year in South America.

We began our new life as digital nomads in South America in March 2010 and spent a year travelling slowly up through the continent. Although we have shared our expenses before this is the first time we’ve included Colombia and presented the total expenses in one place.

Here are the details of how much we spent for two people.

Expenses for One Year in South America (for two people)

The second table above is the breakdown of how much this works out on an average daily basis.

Notes on Our Expenses

• These costs cover our basic daily expenses for two people. Larger items are accounted for separately (see below).
• We definitely could have spent less as we did not skimp on food and sometimes stayed at more expensive hotels. Even when we could find cheap hotels and hostels we usually had a double room with private bathroom.
• We rented apartments in Buenos Aires and Salta in Argentina and Medellin, Colombia which helped keep costs down. Although we rented quite luxurious apartments it usually cost about the same per night as a hostel room, plus we could cook for ourselves, and saved money on transport by not moving around quickly.
• Entertainment includes going out to bars and events (which we don’t do often) as well as non-major activities such as horse riding and entrance fees to attractions and museums.
• Other includes laundry, medical supplies, extra clothing, and other miscellaneous items.

Country Notes & Extra Expenses

The above costs are for our basic daily expenses. We budgeted separately for major activities, tours and flights. Here are some notes on our travel style in each country and our extra expenses (for two people).

Brazil

• Brazil was the most expensive country we visited but we did spend our three weeks in some of the most expensive parts of the country: Rio de Janeiro, Isla Grande and Paraty.

Extra Expenses Brazil
Flights Rio-Buenos Aires	£358
Total	£358

Argentina

• We spent two months in Buenos Aires and Salta plus shorter trips to Iguazu Falls and a road trip around northwest Argentina.
• We couchsurfed for one week and house sat for three weeks in Salta so had no accommodation expenses.
• Transport costs included hiring a car for a week (US$275).
• Other costs included buying extra warm clothes.

Extra Expenses Argentina
Spanish Classes (60 hours of group classes each)	£444
Spanish Classes (35 hours of private classes)	£327
Total	£771

Paraguay

• We spent four nights couchsurfing which saved on accommodation costs.
• Eight nights were spent in catered accommodation which included all our meals.

Bolivia

• Bolivia was the cheapest country we visited.
• We were able to find decent double en-suite rooms for £10 (US$16) a night.
• You could spend less by staying in more basic rooms and eating local food. As we are vegetarian we had to eat in more expensive tourist restaurants most of the time.
• Although our daily expenses were low we spent a lot on tours (to the salt flats and Amazon jungle) and flights to and from the Amazon region. See breakdown of extra expenses below.

Extra Expenses Bolivia
Flights to/from Amazon	£320.43
Salar de Uyuni (salt flats) tour	£222.22
Spanish lessons (10 hours private)	£36.11
Pampas tour	£101.85
Jungle lodge	£275.55	Total	£956.16

Peru

• Peru was more expensive than Bolivia and we particularly felt this in accommodation prices. In Bolivia we could get a comfortable room for US$16, butin Peru what we got for US$25wasn’t great so we sometimes paid more.
• Most buses are overnight and distances are long so we went for cama class with the best bus companies (Cruz del Sur & Movil Tours). You could get much cheaper, less comfortable buses.
• We volunteered at a mountain lodge, where we got free food and accommodation for nearly three weeks.
• We got stuck in Huaraz for two days because of protesters blocking the roads. We missed our flight to Colombia and had to pay to change it.

Extra Expenses Peru
Machu Picchu (train, bus and entrance)	£197.53
Flights Lima – Medellin, Colombia	£470.10
Changing flight date	£73.83
Total	£741.46

Colombia

• We rented an apartment in Medellin for two months and then spent a few weeks travelling around the country.
• We got tired of the long bus journeys and flew from Bogota to the Caribbean Coast.

Extra Expenses Colombia
Spanish classes (10 hours private)	£87
Flights Bogota-Santa Marta	£97
Total	£184

Grand Total

If you include our extra expenses in total we spent £16,734 (US $26,246) for two people during our year in South America. This works out at £23.57 (US $37) per person per day.

We could have spent less as we by no means travelled on a rock bottom budget. We stayed in decent double rooms with private ensuites, rented luxurious apartments when we needed a break from travel, didn’t skimp on food, took the occasional flight, and did plenty of activities and Spanish classes. The fact that we travelled slowly helped to make up for our splurges and keep our costs down.

Although South America wasn’t as inexpensive as most of Asia it’s still a very affordable place to travel.