South America offers some of the best value travel anywhere in the world, particularly along the Andes, where favourable exchange rates make food, accommodation and transport remarkably cheap even by backpacker standards. The region has decades of budget infrastructure built around this kind of travel.
The destinations on this list range from established backpacker circuits through the mountains, with hostels and overnight buses on every route, to pricier countries further south, where costs run noticeably higher but still well below North American or European equivalents.
Long-distance overnight buses remain the backbone of budget travel across the continent, covering huge distances for a fraction of flight prices. Shared dorm rooms typically cost only a fraction of private accommodation. Booking accommodation a few days ahead rather than on arrival tends to secure better rates during busier periods.
