It is summer in Chile, and with it, a number of regional festivals take place throughout the country, highlighting rich traditions, local food, music and dancing. Here we highlight a few, to make the best experience while exploring Chile.

Some people have problems with altitude sickness when traveling at high altitude destinations in South America such as Cusco, Lake Titicaca, Uyuni Salt Flats and the altiplano areas in Chile and Argentina - and sometimes even when in Quito, which is at about 9,000 feet. Cusco is at about 11,000 feet and other areas mentioned can be up around 14,000. The best viewpoint at Rainbow Mountain, which is becoming more popular, is at about 17,000 feet. You can get up to 13,000 feet and higher on treks from Cusco.

I've never had a problem in Cusco, but my wife did. I did have a headache at Lake Titicaca though after too much walking on my arrival day. Luckily my guide gave me a pill that helped.

Rapid ascent to heights exceeding about 8,000 above sea level can cause oxygen saturation of hemoglobin in the body to decrease.  Breathing and heart rate increase immediately, and the heart beats faster. For most people, that's the worst of it since their bodies adapt and the concentration of red blood cells increase. For others, that feeling of breathlessness soon leads to a pounding headache, nausea and vertigo.

What can you do to try to prevent this, or at least make it more tolerable?

More and more I've been reading about problems with overcrowding at tourist destinations. While it's great that more people have the means and desires to travel, they don't all have to go to the same places. There are plenty of other magical places to visit in the world, and plenty of them are in South America. Instead of following friends to places they have been, why not go to some great places first and have the others follow you?

We wish to inform you that, according to the latest news provided by the Ministry of Culture, on the timetables and reservations for the purchase of entrance tickets to Machu Picchu  the following is reported, from January 2019, new time-slots will be implemented for visiting the citadel of Machu Picchu, these slots are the following:

I had a meeting today with the sales rep for the Antarctic air-cruises and he asked me how he could help. I told him he could help by getting more space on their tours! As of October 31, of the 1,924 berths available for the 2018-2019 departures, 1,914 of them were already booked. For the 2019-2020 season the have a new ship coming on board and he told me it was already almost sold out for January 2020 departures!

​Why are they so popular?

You may or may not know it, but there are probably about 13 ships that sail in the Peruvian Amazon. What makes cruises on the Aria special - what sets them apart from other ships?

Recently, due to the death of some zip liners in the Cusco region, the government had considered shutting down all adventure tour operations there. Of course this is not the first time that anybody has died while doing an adventure activity and as of now, most activities are still operating

Many people seem to think that travel to South America is dangerous. The U.S. Department of State recently came out with a new system of grading the safety of countries and it shows some interesting things

Are you thinking about visiting your local travel agent to get help in planning a trip to South America? If so you might consider a recent survey about U.S. travel agents. The results of that survey indicate:

• ​agents said that about 75% of their business was big ship cruises, all inclusive resorts and airline tickets
• for those that indicated a specialty, almost 67% said it was big ship cruises
• only .6% said that South America was their best-selling destination