Our Travel Plans for the next 6 months, winter 2011

Summary

Check our travel plans for the winter that include Bolivia, Ecuador and Spain. This post includes how we managed to save $1000 at least on our tickets from South America to Europe.

When we first landed in the United States we planned to stay for couple of months before heading to South America, we did so far a decent travel from east cost crossing the country to west cost and a total of 7,251 KM (4,505.5 Mi). We have visited 6 states, 9 cities and experienced 4 different time zones.

We had our ups and downs but in general we had a wonderful and rich experience.

Last week we went to search for a plane ticket to South America and our plan was basic, go to Bolivia then take the bus to Ecuador and from there travel to Europe. We checked around 8 or 9 travel agencies between downtown Los Angeles and Santa Ana and every time we got different prices, but we also learned that we couldn’t take the bus from Bolivia to Ecuador as I need a visa to enter Peru since I hold a Syrian Passport which I can’t do as I don’t have residency in the United States!

By now we have a clear route and specific plan, we will go either to Ecuador first or Bolivia and all depends on price. It took us a total of 4 days of search between these travel agencies to find our ticket which was way less expensive -$1000 less- than we’ve budgeted. We managed to get a plane ticket from Los Angeles flying to Bolivia, from Bolivia flying to Ecuador and finally from Ecuador to Spain and all this for $1620 pp!

So, our plans for the next 6 months or so will include Bolivia, Ecuador and then Spain.

Bolivia

By cluster fotos, on Flickr

This one is the most difficult one, we will travel from Los Angeles to San Jose (Costa Rica) in 6 hrs and then will have to wait for another 6 hrs to fly to Lima (Peru) in a 4 hrs flight before getting to La Paz (Bolivia) after 2 hrs flight.

After landing in La Paz, we will spend around 3 months between the cities of Bolivia. There are so much to see and so much to experience. Maybe we will be able to stay at a Lama farm with a local Bolivian family, who knows!

Ecuador

By Tristan27, on Flickr

Our tickets are to Guayaquil, not the capital, but this is the best deal we were able to get for our tickets. We are also planing to spend another 3 months in Ecuador visiting the country and also visiting Cuenca “…the center of the city is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Trust site because of its many historical buildings. Wikipedia”.

The main reason of our trip to Ecuador is to visit their famous Galapagos Islands.

Spain

By marcp_dmoz, on Flickr

Spain wasn’t in our plan when we’ve planned our 6 months trip but due to ticket prices we’ve decided to include it. It turned out that it’s way much cheaper to fly to Spain from South America than flying to any other European country. With this changed we managed to save not less than $1500 per ticket!

We will land in Madrid where we are planning to spend a week or so before heading to France as per our plan.