Most of my travels, whether local or international, have been do-it-yourself trips where I book my own hotels and transportation, determine which places I want to visit and figure out how to get there, and book my own day tours if any. In this case, I decided to work with travel companies - Condor Travel and Journeyou - to organize practically my entire South America tour, including most flights, hotels, and day tours. So why did I book a full tour this time instead of taking my usual DIY approach?
For this trip, I considered several things:
It didn't take me too long to decide, though. I determined that the convenience, comfort, and ease of a tour would more than offset the significantly higher cost. The question I then had at that point was from what travel agency should I book a tour?
Condor Travel
Since I knew what the places were that I absolutely had to visit, I started doing research on travel agencies that offered a tour of Peru, Brazil, and Argentina that included these places. A few of the options I found were expensive - as expected - and they didn't include a trip to Perito Moreno. A friend of mine who had previously visited South America suggested Condor Travel because she had a good experience with this company. I checked out the Condor Travel website and discovered a Peru-Brazil-Argentina tour that was cheaper than the other tours I found. This 2-week itinerary included almost all of the places I wanted to visit except Perito Moreno. However, their website did also have a Perito Moreno Glacier tour. I thought that maybe I could just book both tours or ask them to combine the two tours together. I then decided to contact them.
Condor Travel and Journeyou
When I reached out to Condor Travel via email, they responded saying that they have partnered with Journeyou, which is their partner for custom tours in South America (I guess my trip was customized because I wanted to combine two standard tours together). Shortly after that, I was contacted by Angelica from Journeyou. After exchanging emails with Angelica for about a month or so, I no longer got responses from her. I then decided to use the chat function of the Journeyou website to ask if Angelica was still with them and I confirmed that she wasn't anymore. They then assigned Sara to work with me. I forwarded the itinerary that Angelica prepared to Sara and Sara took things forward from there.
Why do I recommend Condor Travel and Journeyou?
1. They are very patient and helpful.
I mentioned this previously but Sara and I sent more than 200 emails to each other for about a year and a half. A lot of adjustments were made - including providing multiple itinerary options to help me decide, changing flights, rescheduling day tours, and reducing days and adding them back, among other things. In fact, for maybe the first 100 emails, Journeyou had no guarantee that I would book the tour they prepared and yet the continued to patiently communicate with me and make all the changes I was asking them to make. As if that wasn't enough, the price they quoted to me in November 2016 was still the same price I paid in 2018. (The original plan was for us to take this trip in 2017.)
2. The entire tour is very well-organized.
All our airport, hotel, and tour pick-ups were on time. Whenever we would arrive in a new country, the guides who met us at the airport shared our tour schedule with us and what time we would be picked up each day (in Peru, our guide also gave us the train and bus tickets we needed for our Machu Picchu visit). Checking into and out of our hotels was always quick and easy.
3. Our guides were friendly and professional and many times, they went the extra mile.
The guides from Condor Travel, Journeyou, and their local partners were amazing. They were friendly, helpful, and punctual,. They had good communication skills and were very knowledgeable as they shared a lot of great information with us about the sights we visited. As if that wasn't enough, each time we were taken to an airport for a flight, our tour guide would always help us check in, either by doing it themselves at the LATAM check-in kiosks or by waiting with us until we had fully checked in. A couple of tour guides even walked with us all the way to immigration. Also, our tour guide in Peru, Karina, even tried to direct traffic when our bus was stuck in a traffic jam. These tour guides are definitely focused on giving guests as great an experience as possible.
Our tour officially ended once we arrived in Buenos Aires from El Calafate. At this point, we needed to get our own taxi from the airport to our hotel and for the first and only time in this trip, we needed to check into our hotel by ourselves. It was at this point that I confirmed that I made the right decision in booking a tour; it was not cheap to book a taxi at the airport so I ended up going to a few airport taxi/car operators to compare rates and I had to confirm with passenger service if the prices we were quoted was accurate. There was also a bit of confusion during check-out because apparently my agoda booking required us to pay the hotel directly and I thought that I had already paid for it. I realized then that if we had to always worry about getting taxis - from the airport to our hotel and back - and checking into and out of hotels for our entire stay, we would surely have ended up a lot more exhausted and stressed and we would not have been able to do or see everything that we got to do and see. While booking a tour was very expensive (I did save for more than four years for this trip), it really was the right thing for us.
Condor Travel: https://www.condortravel.com/en
Journeyou: https://www.journeyou.com/en/home
Next: My South America Trip Summary and Final Thoughts
Iguassu Falls on the Brazil side
For this trip, I considered several things:
- We would take a total of 12 flights, check in 11 times in 10 hotels, and visti several cities in 3 countries.
- Not only is that itinerary jam-packed and exhausting, it would also be possible and even easy for something to go wrong, like missing a flight.
- My mom is not that young anymore, and neither am I. A trip like this would be very physically demanding and potentially stressful to both of us.
- The language barrier would make it a bit more difficult to get around.
Plaza de Armas in Cusco, where we had the most time to explore on our own
It didn't take me too long to decide, though. I determined that the convenience, comfort, and ease of a tour would more than offset the significantly higher cost. The question I then had at that point was from what travel agency should I book a tour?
La Ventana, where we enjoyed a fancy dinner and Tango show as part of our tour
Condor Travel
Since I knew what the places were that I absolutely had to visit, I started doing research on travel agencies that offered a tour of Peru, Brazil, and Argentina that included these places. A few of the options I found were expensive - as expected - and they didn't include a trip to Perito Moreno. A friend of mine who had previously visited South America suggested Condor Travel because she had a good experience with this company. I checked out the Condor Travel website and discovered a Peru-Brazil-Argentina tour that was cheaper than the other tours I found. This 2-week itinerary included almost all of the places I wanted to visit except Perito Moreno. However, their website did also have a Perito Moreno Glacier tour. I thought that maybe I could just book both tours or ask them to combine the two tours together. I then decided to contact them.
Condor Travel provided a tour to Perito Moreno Glacier.
Condor Travel and Journeyou
When I reached out to Condor Travel via email, they responded saying that they have partnered with Journeyou, which is their partner for custom tours in South America (I guess my trip was customized because I wanted to combine two standard tours together). Shortly after that, I was contacted by Angelica from Journeyou. After exchanging emails with Angelica for about a month or so, I no longer got responses from her. I then decided to use the chat function of the Journeyou website to ask if Angelica was still with them and I confirmed that she wasn't anymore. They then assigned Sara to work with me. I forwarded the itinerary that Angelica prepared to Sara and Sara took things forward from there.
Our tour included a visit to Ollantaytambo in Sacred Valley, Peru.
Why do I recommend Condor Travel and Journeyou?
1. They are very patient and helpful.
I mentioned this previously but Sara and I sent more than 200 emails to each other for about a year and a half. A lot of adjustments were made - including providing multiple itinerary options to help me decide, changing flights, rescheduling day tours, and reducing days and adding them back, among other things. In fact, for maybe the first 100 emails, Journeyou had no guarantee that I would book the tour they prepared and yet the continued to patiently communicate with me and make all the changes I was asking them to make. As if that wasn't enough, the price they quoted to me in November 2016 was still the same price I paid in 2018. (The original plan was for us to take this trip in 2017.)
Guides put on our crampons for our mini-trekking in Perito Moreno.
2. The entire tour is very well-organized.
All our airport, hotel, and tour pick-ups were on time. Whenever we would arrive in a new country, the guides who met us at the airport shared our tour schedule with us and what time we would be picked up each day (in Peru, our guide also gave us the train and bus tickets we needed for our Machu Picchu visit). Checking into and out of our hotels was always quick and easy.
Machu Picchu
3. Our guides were friendly and professional and many times, they went the extra mile.
The guides from Condor Travel, Journeyou, and their local partners were amazing. They were friendly, helpful, and punctual,. They had good communication skills and were very knowledgeable as they shared a lot of great information with us about the sights we visited. As if that wasn't enough, each time we were taken to an airport for a flight, our tour guide would always help us check in, either by doing it themselves at the LATAM check-in kiosks or by waiting with us until we had fully checked in. A couple of tour guides even walked with us all the way to immigration. Also, our tour guide in Peru, Karina, even tried to direct traffic when our bus was stuck in a traffic jam. These tour guides are definitely focused on giving guests as great an experience as possible.
Our guide in Brazil took us to Escadaria Selarón, which was not originally part of our itinerary
Our tour officially ended once we arrived in Buenos Aires from El Calafate. At this point, we needed to get our own taxi from the airport to our hotel and for the first and only time in this trip, we needed to check into our hotel by ourselves. It was at this point that I confirmed that I made the right decision in booking a tour; it was not cheap to book a taxi at the airport so I ended up going to a few airport taxi/car operators to compare rates and I had to confirm with passenger service if the prices we were quoted was accurate. There was also a bit of confusion during check-out because apparently my agoda booking required us to pay the hotel directly and I thought that I had already paid for it. I realized then that if we had to always worry about getting taxis - from the airport to our hotel and back - and checking into and out of hotels for our entire stay, we would surely have ended up a lot more exhausted and stressed and we would not have been able to do or see everything that we got to do and see. While booking a tour was very expensive (I did save for more than four years for this trip), it really was the right thing for us.
Sunrise in Patagonia
Condor Travel: https://www.condortravel.com/en
Journeyou: https://www.journeyou.com/en/home
Next: My South America Trip Summary and Final Thoughts
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