Travel Within South America: New Rules

Last week the governments of 12 Latin American countries (Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Guyana, Paraguay, Peru, Surinam, Uruguay, and Venezuela) agreed to  allow citizens of these countries  to travel within them  without carrying passports.  Note that this applies only to citizens of those countries... the rest of us still need our passports.

That being said, airport travel is a lot easier in Latin America than pretty much anywhere else in the world these days. Even in the largest cities you'll usually breeze through unscathed. In fact, a few years ago when crossing into Peru for my honeymoon, I was in a panic at realizing that my tickets had been issued under my married name, even though my passport was still in my maiden name (a nice gesture on the part of the travel agent, but even in Canada you can't get a new passport issued in a day). I was shocked to find that, in a post-911 world, I was able to board my connection in Lima with a boarding pass that didn't match my identification...

For those of you who aren't from Latin America, you can find visa / entry requirement information  for Brazil, Argentina & Guatemala at On The Road Travel.

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Comments

Not every country in the world has the same knee-jerk reaction as the United States or England. England is now testing fingerprint scanners to be used on travelers.

It's good to see that there is some common sense prevailing south of the fascist border of the United States.

South America is looking better and better.