Women Who Travel Podcast: A Solo Backpacking Trip Across South America
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In the second installment of our solo travel series, we hear from Christie Bowers, who spent six months backpacking across South America, stopping everywhere from the Amazon to Argentina. She shares how she planned the trip, budgeted for it, and navigated both the joys and challenges of going it alone far from home.
Lale Arikoglu: Hi there. I'm Lale Arikoglu and welcome to the second part of our series on solo travel. This week we share the highlights and challenges of a bold journey to South America. Christie Bowser went to seven countries in six months. We'll hear how she planned and budgeted, how she juggled solitary days with sociable times, and we'll find out if her life actually changed when she got home to New York.
Christie Bowser: I flew into Bogota and then I went down to Leticia, which is at the crossroads of Peru, Brazil, and Colombia. I took a boat from Leticia along the Amazon to Manaos. That was basically my starting point. It was like a 36-hour speedboat ride. From there, I was in Brazil for nine weeks. I did Argentina for a couple weeks, Chile for about a month. Then I went to Bolivia for three to four weeks, Peru for only a week or two because I had done it before and then I ended in Ecuador.
LA: Christie's plan to go on a South American journey was triggered by a classic New York scenario. Her landlord gave her notice to leave her Brooklyn apartment. For Christie this looked like an opportunity for a reset.
CB: I guess my reaction was like, well, if I can't live in this apartment, I'm leaving the country. So I thought about it for a couple months, but then it just Landed on the decision of it felt like a good time. I felt like I had enough money saved anyway, my thought was I can get a new job when I got back.
LA: I get the impression you were a pretty experienced traveler to begin with if you were going into this, but how long did you spend planning?
CB: I bought the Lonely Planet, just South America book just to get started. I spent a lot of time just reading that and getting excited more than anything else. But then I wanted to be a little spontaneous.
LA: I'm sure a lot of people are listening to this right now and thinking, "Oh my God, I would love to do something like that, but how do I even start? Where do I begin? Do I really just go to a bookstore and buy a travel guide?" Is there anything you wish that you knew before you started planning that you would offer as advice?
CB: I think if you're excited about a place, if there's a place you really want to go. Also, I'm not married, I don't have kids. I don't have a mortgage. I was in a pretty good position to do that, but even if you have some of those things, I think if you're feeling like you're going to do it, you should, now's the time. I just remember hanging out at my apartment, just reading about Brazil, especially in South America, and I was like, I've wanted to go there for years. I did my study abroad in Spain, but I'd never done South America.
LA: My Spanish is non-existent, but I've been to a handful of South American countries and I've always had the most wonderful time, but I have found myself wondering what I'm missing out on, and I don't even know what it is, but I'm like, there's stuff I'm not accessing simply because I can't speak the language.
CB: I mean obviously I've been to other countries where I don't speak the language and it's hard. You just don't know what you don't know kind of thing. But that was a big reason why I wanted to do South America, if I was doing a trip of that length was because I can get by and meet people and brush up on my language skills. So that was an important reason.
LA: Now, this wasn't a hopping from hotel to luxury hotel kind of trip.
CB: I set out with an initial budget of $75 a day. I think people could do it for far less. I like to eat out. I think that's an important part of a city. I like to get the vibe, especially when I'm alone. So I ended up eating out quite a bit, and so I know a lot of people who cooked and things. You could do it for cheaper, but my initial budget was $75 a day. I went over, Chile is more expensive. I spent more there. Bolivia is a lot cheaper. I spent less there, so it kind of evened out. I've had a kind of intense budget tracker and kept spreadsheets for everything, and my budget tracker was definitely the most used, so I could tell you what I spent in every country like that.
LA: Did the $75 include accommodation?
CB: It did. Included accommodation, included flights and things. I would average out a week, and so obviously I would go over on a day, but I would average it out on a week, but it included everything.
LA: I do love that you still found ways to prioritize things that were important to you when you're traveling and that it wasn't about deprivation, it was about actually you're like, "I don't care about shopping" or "I don't care about a fancy hotel, but eating well and experiencing the country through its food is important to me, and so that's what I'm going to make work."
CB: Absolutely. Yeah, I had a big backpack, obviously. I couldn't fit more clothes in it. I wasn't shopping, I was staying in hostels almost the whole time. But yeah, I prioritized kind of experiences and restaurants and things like that. So I like to scuba dive. That can be expensive in places like Brazil, but I made a point to do that if that's what I wanted to do.
LA: Were you by yourself most of the time, and how much were you meeting people along the way and tacking onto their trips or them tacking onto you?
CB: I had a friend come from the States. We did our study abroad together, her name's Alexandra. She came for five weeks of my trip, but for all intents and purposes, in terms of the logistics of travel, unless it was the five weeks Alex was with me, I was solo traveling
LA: Coming up, how Christie's route overlapped with other backpackers doing similar trips and some utterly magical moments in different countries.
Welcome back. More from Christie on her adventures in South America. I guess traveling for a long time throughout a continent or a series of countries, you start to realize people are doing similar routes and it usually lends itself more to backpacking. And it sounds like you were out there running into people taking buses. What was your trick for starting up conversations?
CB: It was just everyone has this kind of major thing in common with your other European travelers. Everyone's doing a big trip, so it's kind of like, "Where'd you come from? Where are you going?" All of that. And you either hit it off or you don't, and it's just such an easy conversation starter. And to your point, everyone's kind of doing roughly the same route, especially once I got to Chile. It's kind of just one way up, and so you're just running into people constantly and swapping stories and tips and things like that.
LA: Are there any memorable characters that you'd come across?
CB: Yeah, there was this Italian guy who I met doing the W Trek in Patagonia. He's a big traveler. He might be listening to this. Hi Luca. He was kind of like a professional, that's not the right word, but constantly itinerant was my understanding. He hadn't had a place for three years, he was just kind of bouncing around and he would volunteer at hostels for months at a time, that sort of thing. So he had always had a lot of cool stories.
LA: In the five weeks Christie spent in Brazil, she visited a beach that's hidden and protected by sand dunes in a national park.
CB: Once I got my groove in Brazil, I would say that started in Jericoacora, which is on the Atlantic Ocean and kind of the northeast part of Brazil. The vibes in Jericoacora were so awesome, and I met people there. We would go out and drinking Caipirinhas and just felt like I was integrating in the culture a little more and just found my feet. Honestly, from there through the rest of Brazil, that was just a high. Brazil, I can't say enough good things about it. It was just a wonderful pLAce to be. I met my friend Alex came, we did Carnival in Rio.
LA: Oh, tell me a little bit about that.
CB: There's a lot to know and we did not know anything.
LA: So you don't just rock up and dance.
CB: You could and we tried, but it's a huge city. Think about New York City and there's what they call Blockos, like there are block parties that are everywhere, so it's not just one centralized place for the most part. You'd be like, "Oh, I have to go to the equivalent of Bushwick. I have to go to Harlem for these." So it's like we were in cabs searching for Blockos, kind of a lot, but covered in glitter.
LA: You're like all dressed up, not quite sure where we're going.
CB: Literally. And we'd search, we'd follow the crowd, the trash on the ground of glitter looking for the blocko. We went to an early morning one that we knew about from someone I had met that lived in Rio that ended up being the most fun. We got up early. It was at 8:00 a.m. Everyone's just dancing in the streets. It was awesome.
And then some of the bigger Blockos, like the more famous Blockos were a little less fun because the local ones ended up being our favorites. And then we did the famous kind of parade, it's called Sambadrome, this huge, auditorium is not the right word, but just pavilion where they do the famous dancing and everyone's dressed up, kind of what I think Americans would think of when they think of Carnival. That started 10:00 P.M. on a Sunday and went till, I think 6:00 A.M. We left at three, so we were tapped, but it was a spectacle of... Yeah, it was amazing
LA: That obviously you were with a friend and you were surrounded by people, as many people as you can imagine, going to something like Carnival. Was there another high point that was just you, where you felt really by yourself?
CB: I went to the Galapagos toward the end of my trip in Ecuador, which was kind of a dream come true. And, like I said before, I scuba dive. So I did this dive with, we were searching for hammerheads, and the whole dive week didn't find any, and actually we didn't see much else. We were just kind of in the blue waters searching for these hammerheads. But right toward the end of the dive, I was about to signal to our guide that I was low on air and I saw a hammerhead swim by, so I attracted his attention and pointed and we followed it. And I look up at one point and it's like the sun is shining through the water and it's like 30 or 40 hammerheads circling above us. It was like a National Geographic thing. It was amazing. Definitely one of the coolest things I've ever experienced.
LA: What did you feel like in that moment?
CB: I just felt awe, to be honest. I was like, "I can't believe I'm here and I'm seeing this." And also I've told that story to some people and they're like, "You didn't feel unsafe, you weren't alarmed?" But they didn't care about us. They were circling. It was a very serene sharknado. It was very cool.
LA: A serene sharknado.
CB: Yeah.
I did this glamping thing in Chile north of Santiago where the stargazing is supposed to be some of the best in the world. The U.S. has a big observatory there, so it's like this gorgeous gLAmping thing kind of in the desert mountains and everyone else there was Chilean, so they were all speaking Spanish, and I was the only person who wasn't Chilean. And honestly, Chilean Spanish is a little hard for me, so I didn't understand everything they said, but I was able to get to know them, hang out around the fire while we're cooking dinner and stuff before we started to stargaze. I think if you didn't speak Spanish, it would just be a little more isolating. It would've been welcoming regardless.
LA: The joy of hanging out with a group in such a dramatic setting is obviously going to be unforgettable. But to make alone time invigorating is a challenge for most solo travelers. Were their days when you just didn't talk to anyone?
CB: There were probably days where I didn't talk to other travelers, but I never spent a day doing nothing unless it was going to the beach. And I consider that a very important activity. So there was never a day where I just didn't do something. That's kind of where I get my energy. I like being on the move. I like going out and checking out what's around me. So even on days where I wasn't feeling super social necessarily, I was out with my book at a cafe or wherever, if I was in a city.
LA: Were you always happy with your own company or is that something this trip learned you?
CB: I'm very comfortable hanging out by myself. I'm a big reader, so I'm pretty happy just, I got a Kindle, especially for this trip. So I was pretty happy regardless.
LA: I feel like being a reader is a really, really positive attribute if you're traveling alone, because I'm a big reader too, and I don't know, then I'm kind of fine.
CB: Totally. If I have a good book, I'm good.
LA: Christie's favorite hike was in one of my favorite trekking spots, Patagonia. An extremely beautiful vista, paired with a ham sandwich after the break.
Welcome back. And now Christie on some of her favorite natural spots. Is there one moment or pLAce that you really kind of experienced the natural world and felt sort of truly present in it?
CB: I did the W Trek in Patagonia. It's in Chile, it's called that because of the route. It's a five-day route and it makes the shape of a W. I wasn't a big hiker before this trip. I had done day trips in Colorado and things like that, but I'd never done an overnight trek. So it was kind of a new territory for me, but it was like every day was just mind-boggling. The first day was a glacier, the second day was this gorgeous lake, the third day where you hike to this big lookout point where you're just literally surrounded by mountains and it was fall in Chile, so the leaves were all turning. And you're also, because it's a through hike, you're just experiencing literally every step of the way and seeing how the LAndscape is changing and shifting as you move through it. And that was, it was probably the highlight of my whole trip was the chance to be in Patagonia and see the amazing LAndscapes they have there.
LA: Was there a specific view that really blew you away?
CB: Yeah, it's called Mirador Britanico. It was a pretty hard hike to this lookout point, but once you're there, it was just like 360 mountains. We saw an avaLAnche at one point also. And yeah, just all the leaves were turning. And I also had a really good group. Everyone's doing the same direction and on the same timetable, so you meet people on the trail and you're spending the night in these refugios, I think there were 10 of us, and it was one person's birthday, so we sang happy birthday to her at the top, and it was just a really cool moment in time.
LA: When you were at the top, what were you looking out on? What did it feel like and smell like and just the whole experience?
CB: Yeah, it was cold that day. We're all wearing jackets. I rented a big jacket in town before the trip. So you're kind of getting up there. You're flushed, but still a little chilly. You can see your breath, you get to the top of this rock, but it's not a summit because you're surrounded by peaks that are higher than where you are, but just like the point of view you get from climbing up this rock is just like you're ringed by these mountains, and then they're kind of equal with where the tree line ends, and just all the trees around you are touched by fire. The fall colors and everything. And we all got up there and shared ham sandwiches and it was just... It our biggest day for sure, just several hours to get to that point. And you just kind of breathe a sigh of relief and you're just like, no matter where you look, it's just like one of the most beautiful vistas I've ever seen in my life.
LA: And I am sure that ham sandwich was the best ham sandwich you've ever eaten.
CB: It sure was. It sure was.
LA: That's quite the contrast with a bout of food poisoning earlier on in the trip, which led to a much shorter boat trip than intended on the Amazon. And additionally, there were a few uncomfortable encounters.
CB: One of my lowest single moments was I was doing a canyon hike in Peru, Canyon Coca. I had done a couple treks at that point already, but I just did not prepare properly for this one. I brought my actual backpacking backpack and took a few things out, but it was still too big. I had a filtered water bottle everywhere I went, and I was used to just being able to fill it up at any source. But this canyon didn't have water until you got to the bottom, so I ran out on my way down. And so I was just hot, tired, thirsty, and lost. I got lost toward the end.
And so I finally found a stream. I'm like crouching over it, kind of like a little gremlin with my huge backpack on filling up my water bottle, and this man appears out of nowhere and I asked him where my hostel was. He told me where it was, and then he started talking a little bit. We started talking a little bit more and he asked me if I wanted to come home with him, and-
LA: I was really hoping that this story was going to prove me wrong.
CB: No, unfortunately not.
LA: And that this man was going to have been great, given you your directions, asked if you needed some water and then left.
CB: No, I wish that it had been what happened, but predictably it was not. He wasn't super forceful. He just said that, and then he said that I was mamacita y gorda, which is kind of hot and LArge, which in Spanish is a different meaning, but the moment I was not feeling it, I was just like, "You could have stopped at mamacita, man. Why did you have to do the gorda?"
LA: Like, "Mate, I'm crouching over a street trying to get water. Just leave me be."
CB: Leave me be. Leave me be. But I was like, also, you already told me where I needed to go before you asked me. So I was just like, I peaced out. And it was funny, even as I walked away, I was like, that was a funny encounter, but in the moment I was just like, I wish-
LA: Perspective's the wrong word. You can I think spin something into an anecdote in your head pretty quickly. But when it's happening, it's really hard. And that must've been a really hard moment.
CB: It was, but yeah, it was funny later at least.
LA: And you made it and you got to your hostel.
CB: Exactly.
LA: It's no surprise that a trip over six months to so many regions is bound to, in retrospect, fall into distinct chapters.
CB: I feel like the first part of my trip, Brazil is just so bright and colorful and fun. And then I did Argentina with my friend Alex, and then we did Patagonia for a couple weeks. I kind of consider my midpoint to be that time in Chilauea. After that, I felt like just being on what I recognized as now the back end. There was kind of a mindset shift. It took me a couple weeks to shake. I did feel like when I look at those two parts, if I partition the trip that way, it does feel like different people were doing them.
LA: I feel like solo travel at this point kind of gets sort of almost kicked into these tropes where it's empowering and transformative and glamorous, and it's some woman standing on a cliff finding herself. It does sound like you had some of those moments, but what does solo travel actually look like to you? How would you describe it?
CB: I would not call it gLAmorous, at least not the way I do it. I guess at the risk of sounding buzzwordy, I do think it's centering. I guess the best answer to that question is I've never felt more alive than when I was there. Every day, something new. Every day was something different. Something I did learn about myself is that I really crave those moments to see what the planet's got to offer.
LA: Do you find that after you got back you wanted to change certain ways that you were living to allow those things to enter into it?
CB: I honestly planned to alter my lifestyle a little bit more than I actually did.
LA: It's like an extended version of when you get back from holiday and you think you're going to change everything.
CB: Literally. Yeah, literally. I came back with very low funds. I was going to try to take the opportunity to maybe find a different career path or maybe live somewhere else, and then real world logistics just came into play. I'm not upset with how I ended up, but my life looks pretty simiLAr to what it looked like before I left.
LA: Christie is planning a short trip to Guatemala later in the year with her friend Alex, but is it too soon to start planning for another extended trip?
CB: I would love to do six months again. I think three months might be a good sweet spot. If I can get to that at some point, I would love to do India. That's pretty high on my list. And I would really like to do, Egypt and Jordan are also pretty high on my list. So I'm always looking for places where I can dive.
LA: Christie, thank you so much for sharing your stories and your tips.
CB: Thank you.
LA: And I hope that people listening feel inspired to plan their own trips, big or small. If people want to follow along with your travels, is there anywhere on the internet they can find you?
CB: Sure. Yeah. I'm on Instagram @Christie.bowser as in the Mario Kart character. So you can see some of my South America trips, and I'm happy to provide tips for anyone thinking of doing something similar.
LA: Love it. Next week, our third and final solo travel story is about world record-breaking Explorer Preet Chandi, who skied solo across Antarctica. 700 miles in 31 days.
Thank you for listening to Women Who Travel, I'm Lale Arikoglu and you can find me on Instagram @LaleHannah. Our engineers are Jake Lummus, James Yost, Vince Fairchild, and Pran Bandi. The show is mixed by Amar LAl at Macrosound. Jude Kampfner of Corporation for Independent Media is our producer. Stephanie Kariuki is our executive producer, and Chris Bannon is Conde Nast's, Head of Global Audio.
Originally Appeared on Condé Nast Traveler
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