Hi, was hoping for some information traveling around South America.
It will almost always be cheaper to simply arrange everything yourself - why pay someone else to do something you can do on your own?
Another consideration in terms of budget is to not try and see everything. Instead of Mexico, Central America and the entire South America pick a single area or a couple of areas and concentrate on them - it'll safe you lots of money on transportation.
For example, drop the south end of South America and do Colombia, Peru, Ecuador, Bolivia instead. Why do Belize only? If you're going to go there them why not elsewhere in Central America too?
Using common sense with your travel logistics will save you tons of dough and make it way, way easier to arrange everything yourself.
Have fun.
Cheers,
Terry
Agree with Terry, but with slight modification. If you plan to visit Mexico--and your destination is Cancun, then Belize makes sense--but if you plan to visit Mexico City or west or central Mexico--then skipping Belize is the way to go.
Also, I preferred the southern part of South America (Brazil, Argentina, and would have liked to have gotten to Chile) to the northern part (Panama, Columbia, Venezuela, Peru). If you check the statistics on crime, you'll see this is also a much safer route to take.
Another option is to try to visit countries for a few days each--5 days Brazil, 7 days Argentina, 4 days Chile--and figure out what it is you can see on a budget this way. For example, in Brazil, just Rio and the surrounding mountain cities (Petropolis, Terrazopolis), in Argentina, maybe Buenos Aires, Mendoza, and the areas in between, then it is cheap to get a bus across the Andes over to Santiago and the beach cities of Chile (and the winery region in-between). This could be combined with a trip to Machu Pichu (Peru) on the way back.
Lastly, consider making a list (as Terry said) of your "must-sees" and focus on those. If you like archeological structures and waterfalls, this would be Chichen Itza (in Mexico near Cancun), Teotihuacan (near Mexico City), Machu Picchu (in Peru), and maybe Iguazu Falls or Tikal or Uzmal or Angel Falls (Venezuela--but very hard to get to this one).
Good luck with whatever you decide.
You may have underestimated the distance you are planning to cover, but you don't say how long you have to do the trip. It could easily take a year to cover the places you mention and cost a lot of money even using ground transport.
From the middle of Chile to its northern border with Perú is 30 hours on a bus. That is the sort of distance you need to cover in South America. In Central America the distances are less, but you will still spend a lot of time on a bus. You need to plan where you will be in each season. The highlands of the Andes are best visited in what corresponds to the NA summer but Patagonia is easiest to visit in the opposite season. So you need some rough plan of when you will be in each place. Flights in SA are expensive, some countries vastly more expensive to visit than others.
I would suggest looking at a good guidebook and deciding where you want/can afford to go and how much time you have to do it.
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