The questions worth answering first

Why these four questions, and not a packing list

Almost every trip that goes wrong in South America goes wrong for one of four reasons, and none of them is the hotel. It was booked in the wrong month, so the pass was shut or the falls were low. It gained altitude too fast, so two of the ten days were spent with a headache in a dark room. It was budgeted against a headline price that left out the internal flights and the park fees. Or it tried to fit three countries into twelve days and became a series of airports.

So these guides are organised around those four decisions rather than around destinations. They are the questions we ask you before we plan anything, and they are worth settling before you compare one itinerary against another — because two trips that look alike on a page can differ by a thousand dollars and a week of acclimatisation once you read the detail.

What is in them, and what is not

Every figure in these guides carries its source and the date we checked it, because prices, park fees and opening rules in this part of the world change without notice and most pages you will find are quietly out of date. Where two sources disagree, we say so rather than picking the convenient one. Where the honest answer is that there is no good month, we say that too: the Peruvian Andes and the Galapagos want opposite halves of the year, and no amount of writing makes that go away.

What you will not find is a packing list, a list of the ten most beautiful places, or an article that ends by telling you to contact us. If a guide does not help you make a decision, it should not exist.