By Constance Abad — Founder and director of Qwerty Travel
Most travellers calculate how long a flight takes. We calculate how much time it actually consumes. It might sound like the same thing. It isn’t.
After years of designing itineraries across Argentina, Chile, Peru and Brazil, we’ve found that many of the problems that arise during a trip have nothing to do with the destinations chosen. They have to do with what happens between them.
A one-hour flight can consume half a day. An airport can be over an hour from the hotel. An apparently perfect itinerary can start to fall apart simply because nobody correctly calculated the real door-to-door travel times. Internal flights are an indispensable tool for travelling across South America — but also one of the most misunderstood elements in the planning stage.
A one-hour flight rarely consumes one hour. To the flight time you need to add the airport transfer, the recommended check-in window, boarding, waiting times at the destination and the transfer to the accommodation. What looks on paper like a quick connection can easily turn into five or six hours of real day. It’s a gap that doesn’t appear in any flight search engine and that directly shapes the design of the calendar.
A concrete example
The Lima–Cusco flight takes approximately 55 minutes. But the door-to-door time — from a hotel in Miraflores to accommodation in Cusco — typically runs between five and seven hours once you add transfers to both airports, waiting times and settling in on arrival. When this kind of transfer is repeated three or four times in an itinerary, the cumulative toll becomes significant.
South America is the fourth largest continent in the world. Looking at a screen, Buenos Aires, Iguazú, Cusco and Patagonia can appear relatively close to each other. The reality is very different: distances are enormous and connections don’t always follow an intuitive geographical logic.
A traveller wanting to fly from Buenos Aires to Cusco, for example, will find no direct flight. The usual route goes via Lima, turning that connection into a full day of travel. Many routes that look direct also require stopovers because no direct connection exists between the destinations the traveller wants to combine. That’s why we insist on analysing the complete itinerary before booking any individual flight. The order of the destinations matters as much as the destinations themselves.
| Warning sign | What tends to happen | Our recommendation |
|---|---|---|
| More than 2 internal flights per week | Logistics starts consuming a significant portion of the trip. | Reduce stages or group destinations by region. |
| Fewer than 3 nights per main destination | The traveller barely has time to understand the place. | Prioritise depth over quantity. |
| Flying directly to Cusco from sea level | Higher risk of altitude-related discomfort. | Add a prior stage in Lima. |
| Constant country changes | The sense of continuity disappears. | Build routes with geographical logic. |
| No free days across three weeks | Any delay affects the rest of the trip. | Leave margin for the unexpected. |
The South American air market has a different structure from the European one, and it’s worth understanding it before you start searching for flights. These are the main carriers we use in our itineraries:
| Airline | Main area of operation | Profile |
|---|---|---|
| LATAM Airlines | Across South America. Andean hub in Lima. | One of the largest airline networks in South America and the benchmark carrier for multi-country itineraries. |
| Sky Airline | Chile, Peru and regional routes from Lima. | Operates an extensive network of regional routes within Chile and Peru. |
| JetSMART | Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia (domestic). | Ultra low-cost airline. Competitive base fares, with optional paid extras. |
| Aerolíneas Argentinas | Argentina (domestic and international). | The leading carrier for domestic connections across Argentina, with an extensive national route network. |
| Gol / Azul | Brazil (domestic). | The two main airlines for domestic travel within Brazil. |
A practical note on JetSMART: its base fare can look very competitive, but the ultra low-cost model separates almost everything as an add-on — checked luggage, seat selection, changes. On routes where the fully-loaded price is similar to other options, we also weigh frequency and operational reliability.
Buenos Aires has two airports with different functions and very different distances from the city centre. Ezeiza International Airport (EZE), around 30 kilometres from the centre, handles most international flights. Aeroparque Jorge Newbery (AEP), around 7 kilometres from the centre in the Palermo neighbourhood, handles domestic flights and some regional international routes to Brazil, Chile and Uruguay.
The practical implication is concrete: a traveller arriving from Europe lands at Ezeiza, but if the following day they fly to Iguazú, they will almost certainly leave from Aeroparque. Getting from one airport to the other means crossing the city, with journey times ranging between 45 minutes and well over an hour depending on traffic. It’s a detail that appears on no route map but directly affects how the first day of the trip is organised.
Lima is not just another destination within a South America route. Jorge Chávez Airport is the main regional connection hub for the southern Pacific: it currently connects to 49 international destinations operated by 28 airlines, and serves as the operational hub for LATAM and Sky Airline across the entire Andean region.
Many routes combining the Southern Cone with Peru must pass through Lima, making the city a structural element of the itinerary beyond its own value as a destination. Including Lima in the route is not only a tourism decision. It’s a logistical decision that facilitates connections, enables progressive altitude management and gives the trip a geographical coherence that is hard to achieve any other way.
You can see how we apply this logic in a real itinerary on our South America in Full page, where Lima acts as the natural transition between the Southern Cone and the Andean world.
Cusco sits at approximately 3,400 metres above sea level. Machu Picchu at 2,430 metres. Lima, where most flights from Europe or the Southern Cone arrive, is essentially at sea level. This difference has real effects on the body: headaches, fatigue, difficulty sleeping and nausea are common in the first days in the Andean zone when the ascent is too abrupt.
There is no universal answer — some travellers feel no effect at all, while others need several days to adjust. What accumulated experience does show is that a progressive entry into the Andean world significantly reduces the likelihood of problems. That’s why we recommend spending at least 48 hours in Lima before flying to Cusco: not only because Lima deserves a visit in its own right, but because that transition protects the rest of the trip.
| Destination | Approximate altitude |
|---|---|
| Lima | 154 m |
| Cusco | 3,400 m |
| Sacred Valley | 2,800 m |
| Machu Picchu | 2,430 m |
Sources: MINCETUR (Peru) · UNESCO World Heritage Centre
There are journeys in South America where flying is clearly the best option for time or distance. But there are also routes where the overland journey is part of the travel experience itself. The crossing of the Andes between Argentina and Chile, certain stretches in the Peruvian Andean region or some routes in Patagonia offer landscapes that a flight eliminates entirely. The right decision is not always to fly: it’s to choose the mode of transport that best fits the purpose of each individual leg.
When we design itineraries, we analyse each leg individually. There is no universal rule that works the same for every trip or every type of traveller.
There’s no exact number, but there is a clear pattern in the itineraries that work well. The most satisfying trips tend to involve fewer moves than the traveller originally imagined. In a three-week journey with four or five main destinations, exceeding two internal flights per week starts to compromise the quality of the experience at each stop. Every additional flight means a transfer, a change of accommodation and a day partly consumed by logistics.
The important question is not how many destinations fit into the trip. It’s how much time you actually want to spend at each one.
When we design a route, internal flights are not the last step in the planning process. They’re a variable we work on from the start, in parallel with destinations and pace. We study real door-to-door times, verify the availability of direct or connecting flights, assess the airport situation in each city — including which airport handles which type of flight — and evaluate whether any leg makes more sense to resolve overland.
The same route can work in very different ways depending on the order in which destinations are visited. Part of our work is finding the order that makes the most sense both logistically and experientially. We don’t start from a list of places. We start from the experience the traveller wants to live.
Constance Abad — Founder and director of Qwerty Travel
She has spent over fifteen years designing tailor-made itineraries across South America, working with local operators and guides in Argentina, Chile, Brazil and Peru. She has designed routes for over four hundred travellers with very different profiles: couples, families, solo travellers and groups. Her approach always starts from the same point: understanding the real rhythm of the territory before building any route.
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/constance-abad
On multi-country itineraries or during high season, usually yes. Confirming the full structure of the route before departure guarantees availability and logistical coherence. Some legs — especially Lima–Cusco in high season — can sell out with little advance notice.
It depends on the airport and the destination. As a reference, the Lima–Cusco flight takes around 55 minutes but the door-to-door time runs between five and seven hours. In Buenos Aires, if the international flight arrives at Ezeiza and the domestic flight leaves from Aeroparque, you need to add the inter-airport transfer, which can take between 45 minutes and an hour and a half depending on traffic.
No. The usual route goes via Lima, turning that connection into a full day of travel. That's one of the main reasons Lima appears in almost every itinerary that combines Argentina and Peru.
Yes, it's a common combination. What matters is building the itinerary with enough time at each stage and in an order that makes sense. Andean altitude and the distances involved in Patagonia are the two variables that most shape the design.
Our experience shows that between four and six main stages offers the most reasonable balance between variety and depth. Below four, the trip may feel light on diversity. Above six, flights and transfers start to dominate the calendar.
No. There are routes where flying is the most efficient solution and others where the overland journey is part of the experience. The decision should be made leg by leg, not as a general rule.
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