This post may be one of the most important and most helpful to fellow world travelers. Over the months, we (and by "we" I do mean mostly "Tanya") have found some really great resources in planning our trip. Some of them are books, and some are websites. There's no way a complete list of these resources will really be practical (who is actually going to click on every single link, right?), but we'll try to go over the most useful ones. And maybe, just maybe, a future traveler will see our website and find this helpful, saving them time and frustration. To that traveler, we humbly say, "You're welcome."
This first two websites are from the U.S. government. First, is U.S.Embassy.gov, which is a great resource for particular countries you're visiting. It gives you information about the U.S. Embassy (location, happenings, etc.), entrance visas, emergency contact information, and many other resources. The second one is a STEP program, and if you sign up (FREE!!), it will give you updated information about goings on at your destination. This can be especially useful if, say, some major civil unrest breaks out or, fate forbid, a major natural disaster happens. The greatest feature is that if something is happening while you are there, it will send information to a person back home for you in case you can't make contact. Of course, this is useful for any destination. I'm making it bold so you don't skim over it.
GetToAndFrom.com is a great resource for estimating bus travel times between cities. This can be especially helpful if you are doing all your own travel plans, which we are. This way you can have more realistic ideas of opportunities and tours in the areas to which you are traveling and how long you will actually want to stay there.
This next website has proved to be a particular gem for us. Hostel Bookers seems to have a greater variety of locations for the places we are traveling than other hostel booking websites. Most of our hostels were booked here. Another similar website is Booking.com. It has one or two additional locations, but they are at a higher price than we were looking for.
Tanya recently came across this in her searching. Customs and Border Protection has a lot of really great resources including advisories and common questions and complaints about things like traveling with pets or medication, bringing food into the the U.S., and documentation you will need. Probably the coolest thing, however, and this is already being saved on each of our travel Flash Drives (more information on this to come), is the Know Before You Go PDF documents. This is incredibly helpful!! And it can be found HERE.
One more helpful resource for the general world traveler is a YouTube video, The Coolest Travel Hacks. Now, you may be thinking, "Ladies, there are BAZILLIONS of videos and websites on life and travel hacks." Trust me. We know. Tanya assures me that this is among the best she's seen.
P.S. She tried the money in the chapstick tube thing, and the cash is way too difficult to get out. But there are lots of ways to hide cash - cash belt, old shampoo bottle, old deodorant tube, etc.
THE BEST RESOURCE for travel information - and this is pretty much just information about where you are going, not so much ticket buying - is National Geographic Travel. It's awesome. Use it.
TWO:
I know. But Two will be shorter. Maybe. I just want to make sure you get some general travel resources AND some more specific ones about South America and the fun places we're going. I'll limit it to the major destinations. Some I'll give travel resources, some just cultural.
Easter Island
So I'm a teacher, right? The year that I taught Biology and Earth Science I relied heavily on a few internet resources, and one that I fell in love with is NOVA, a product of PBS. Anyway, they have a pretty cool website dedicated to the Secrets of Easter Island, so if you are one who likes to know about the history and culture of where you're visiting (you should be!), check this out.
Galapagos Islands
I became obsessed with visiting the Galapagos once I started kayaking. It was one of those, I knew it existed but I hadn't thought much about it. Then I saw a couple pictures and I was suddenly hooked. It helps that I'm a believer in evolution and have read about Darwin's travels here. If you haven't, you should - this is where he took many of his notes about differences in animals of the same species depending on their locations. Anyway, World Atlas gives a pretty broad overview about basically everything Galapagos.
Machu Picchu
I don't have to do much convincing that this is one of the top must-see places to visit before you die. Let's not waste time with tourist websites. Tanya booked our tickets at http://boletomachupicchu.com/.
Here are Tanya's words on the matter:
"You are supposed to be able to buy MP tickets on the official government page but it hasn't been working for a long time. There are a lot of scam sites that will have you pay and send fake tickets, but one way to protect yourself is to pay with a credit card and once you get the tickets they should have a reservation code on them. Then simply go to the official site and type in reservation code (as if to print tickets again) and your reservation should pop up. If it doesn't, then you got scammed, but at least you can dispute it with a credit card. Otherwise, smart tour agencies have found the value in slightly over charging (~$10 more) per ticket to have people be able to buy tickets ahead of time to physically have them as it sells out quickly with daily occupancy limits."
The official website for Machu Picchu is http://www.machupicchu.gob.pe/.
There are also lots of ways to get information about the area and traveling there. I'll let you find those - we used travel books, mostly. Moon and Lonely Planet are both really great. Make sure they are up to date! For you, though, here is an article in the NY Times. NOTE: The last line of the article says to stay in Cusco to acclimate the altitude. This is actually not all that necessary. Cusco is at a higher elevation than Machu Picchu. You should probably stay in Sacred Valley for a couple days, then go to Machu Picchu, and end your trip in Cusco to gradually get your body used to the high altitude.
Lake Titicaca
I may have said this, but much of our travel destination info came from Moon and Lonely Planet travel books. Actual books made of paper that you have to hold in your hand and physically turn the pages. I read quite a bit about the floating islands and the cultures found on them. I can't give you a link to a book, but here is the Lonely Planet website that will give as much or more - and more up to date - information as I have.
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