My plan is to stay in South America for 3 months. The mission is to find which entry point is the easiest and the most convenient given where I'm departing, Vancouver, Canada.
I started off reading travel websites and blogs to find out which city in SA (South America) is the cheapest entry point and which airlines in general provide better offers. Reading other people's experience and advices provided an overview.What really helped me was simply going to Expedia and type in the capital cities of the countries I'm going to and look at which destination (and its corresponding airline) is the cheapest. The result will probably vary widely for everyone locating in different places on earth and also depending on how far in advance from the planned departure. It came apparent that from Vancouver to South America, Lima, the capital of Peru, is the most economical entry point and works with my vague travel itinerary.
After that, it was pretty straight forward. I went on to the airlines website and searched for the location on flexible dates to obtained the cheapest possible plan ticket within the time frame.
- Point 1: Be sure to check how long the layover is if there are transfers, sometimes it is better to transfer more than layover for a strange long amount of time.
- Point 2: Check the time of arrival at the destination and the departure time back to home town. It would do you good to pause here and do a little bit of homework before booking flights that depart or arrive in late hours. Make sure to know that you'll know how to get from the airport to your accommodation. Sometime it is better to pay a little bit more for a better landing time.
- Point 3: Check the flexibility rules on the tickets, you may decide its too awesome and want to stay for another month, who knows?!
Cost of the ticket booked 1 month in advance: 700CAD
Travel Insurance
Same idea as vaccination, it's to provide yourself some cushion in case of a rainy day. I previously travelled to a few places without buying travel insurance, but those are all places that are familiar for me and usually does not involve an extensive amount of sports activities.This time, it's a unfamiliar place with sports activities involved plus the known profile of the destinations... It's a no brainer that travel insurance is in need.
World Nomads is the travel insurance company I went for after researching a couple offers. The quotes of this company for Canadian residents are reasonable, the reviews of the previous users are great and there are a couple of travel books recommending this company. Overall, it is reputable and great value with very clear access and explanation of the their coverage plan.
In addition, have a good read on their website, it provides quite a lot of updated information on the current conditions of countries and tips of how to be safe.
The result: approximately 300CAD for 3 months for Canadians.
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