Traveling in South America

People all around the world also seem to underestimate South America’s vastness. Many might think that the distance from tropical Key West Florida to the capital of Canada might be comparable to the length of South America, but actually this distance would only represent a third of the continent. I actually fault these misunderstandings to the majority of the world map makers! It’s rare to find a wall map that doesn’t have the northern hemisphere unproportionately larger than the southern hemisphere. This makes South America appear much smaller than it really is when compared to other continents, sometimes it appears not too much larger than the United States, but Brazil alone is actually the same size of the US.

One last common assumption seems to be the belief that with the exception of high up in the Andes mountains, all of South America is made up of hot tropical jungle. You might be surprised to know that the capital of Argentina, Buenos Aires, is the same distance away from the equator as Little Rock, Arkansas is! Parts of Brazil located far from the Andes mountains often receive snowfall. And the most southern parts of Chile and Argentina are no closer to the equator than the capital of Alaska is. I could go on forever, but in summary South America is a vast and diverse continent with much more to it than tropical rainforests!

Argentina

Bolivia

Chile

Colombia

Ecuador

Peru

Uruguay