The most breathtaking places to visit in South America right

From Machu Picchu's cloud-draped ruins to Iguazu's nearly 300 waterfalls spanning two miles of the Argentina-Brazil border

Matheus Oliveira / Unsplash

South America resists the kind of summary that makes a continent feel manageable. The geography alone defies easy categorization: the world’s largest tropical rainforest, the world’s largest salt flat, the world’s highest navigable lake, the world’s largest waterfall system, and a mountain range that runs the full length of the western coast all exist within the same landmass. The cultures built across this terrain are equally varied — Incan ruins preserved at altitude, colonial Spanish cities on Caribbean coastlines, wine regions producing some of the world’s most sought-after red varieties, and Amazonian ecosystems that scientists continue to document with new species every year.

Travel across South America rewards both the adventurer and the urban explorer, often within the same trip. A week in Peru can move from Lima’s sophisticated food scene through the Sacred Valley’s Andean villages to the altitude of Machu Picchu without once repeating an experience. A trip to Argentina can pair Buenos Aires’s late-night tango culture with the Mendoza wine country and the glaciers of Patagonia in a sequence that crosses three entirely different landscapes and registers of South American life. The continent’s scale means that most visitors choose a region rather than attempting the whole, which gives each trip a focus that the breadth of South America can only partially satisfy.

The destinations below appear in Travel Leisure, informed by the expertise of Harry Hastings, founder and director of Plan South America, and Emmanuel Burgio, president of luxury travel company Blue Parallel, both of whom have spent decades coordinating travel across the continent. The selection covers the full geographic and experiential range of South America across 10 destinations that each represent something the continent does at its most distinctive.

1. Machu Picchu anchors Peru’s Incan heritage in one of the world’s most spectacular settings

Eddie Kiszka / Unsplash

Machu Picchu sits on a ridge where the Peruvian Andes descend toward the Amazon $AMZN Basin, in a position that places the 15th-century Incan ruins above the cloud line on most mornings, surrounded by peaks and valleys that the civilization deliberately chose rather than by accident. The site carries UNESCO World Heritage status and the distinction of being the best-preserved major Incan ruin accessible to visitors, with stone terraces, temples, and agricultural platforms intact enough that the function of each section is legible to a guided visit and suggestive to an unguided one. The true purpose of the site remains debated — a royal estate, a religious center, and a military outpost all have archaeological support, which gives Machu Picchu an interpretive openness that the physical completeness of the ruins amplifies.

The setting’s visual impact is consistent across conditions. On clear days, the surrounding peaks frame the ruins in a panorama that photographs universally and reads even more forcefully in person. On foggy mornings, the mist that rises from the valleys below and drifts through the terraces gives the site a quality that clear-sky visits do not produce: the ruins appear and disappear as the cloud moves, which gives the architecture a drama that the weather collaborates in rather than diminishes. Both conditions are genuinely worth experiencing, and visitors who arrive expecting the clear-sky postcard and end up with fog often find the atmospheric version more memorable.

The Inca Trail that connects the Sacred Valley to Machu Picchu gives hikers who book far enough in advance the most complete approach to the site: a multi-day walk through Andean terrain, past smaller ruins, that deposits arrivals at the Sun Gate above the site in the early morning. The alternative approach by train and bus from Aguas Calientes, shown below, provides visitors without the time, physical conditioning, or advance booking for the trail with a fully practical way to reach the same destination.

2. Torres del Paine National Park gives Patagonia its most dramatic wilderness experience

Olga Stalska / Unsplash

Torres del Paine in Chile’s Patagonia region concentrates the landscape elements that make the southern tip of South America one of the world’s most compelling wilderness destinations into a single national park: granite towers rising thousands of feet above glacial lakes, glaciers descending from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field, and valleys and moorland that guanacos, pumas, Andean condors, and Chilean flamingoes inhabit at visible densities. Hastings recommends visiting in April or late November, when the landscape holds color, weather conditions are relatively stable, and trail crowds are thinner than in the peak summer months.

The hiking infrastructure within Torres del Paine gives visitors access to terrain that would otherwise require specialist expedition planning. The W Trek, named for the shape its route traces across the park’s primary landmarks, covers the towers, the Grey Glacier, and the Valle del Francés in a multi-day circuit that mountain huts and campsites along the route make accessible to hikers without advanced wilderness experience. The longer O Circuit extends........

© Quartz