Vacation in november/december

August 4, 2008 5:17 PM

Help us with our yearly guy's vacation! Trying to plan a wild and crazy trip to somewhere in central/south America and need your help in making this the best trip yet. Details inside :)

Trying to plan a trip around November/December. We are super flexible in where we want to go, and have come up with this scale of most important to least important when trying to gauge where we will be going! Before I present the scale, here is a bit more about us!


There will be 5-6 of us on the trip
All of us are between 27-30
Trip should be around 5-7 days
Anywhere in South/Central America is fair game
We will be leaving from Miami/Fort Lauderdale area
All of us are single
Though budget is not a major concern we would like to stay under 3k for the 7 days

1. Best Bang for the buck (places where the dollar will go the furthest.)
2. Beaches
3. Partying/Nightlife
4. Girls (normal and errrr.... working ones)
5. Other Adventure things to do i.e tours, rafting, zip lining, and more tamer ones such as golf, fishing etc
6. Partying/Nightlife
7. Any other must things we have to try!

Thank you in advance :)

posted by boyinmiami to travel & transportation (8 answers total)

Buenos Aires is lovely that time of year. A Truly Great City.
posted by dbiedny at 5:26 PM on August 4, 2008

Boca Del Toro Panama. Way too hot for us older folks but it hits all your goals. Beaches, girls, cheap everything, loads of water and assorted doings there. There are hostels and bars in Bocas Town and loads of close by islands to water taxi out for visits. Requires a flight from Panama City or elsewhere to get there but it is a one of kind place. Currency is the dollar. Beer is like a buck. TripAdvisor would help fill in the blanks
posted by Freedomboy at 6:09 PM on August 4, 2008

Mancora in Peru is supposed to be pretty awesome for beaches/surfing as well as partying. Plus Peruvian soles are three to the dollar, and there's tons of easily accessible outdoor adventures (zip lines, bungee jumps, ruined inca cities, deepest canyons, white water, big huge snow covered mountains).
posted by genmonster at 7:19 PM on August 4, 2008

Seconding Buenos Aires for nightlife, pretty cheap for what you get (good food, good wine, clean hotels, cheap bars...), nice girls, plenty to do around the city. You won't spend hours on the bus once you land. And since you mentionned nightlife twice, let me repeat that argentinans really know how to party. However, I think you'd have to go south (towards, but really not to Mar del Plata) for nice beaches.
posted by ddaavviidd at 7:23 PM on August 4, 2008

Break the law and go to Cuba, perhaps via Veracruz. An astonishing place with a dynamic culture, fabulous scenery, rich history and warm people. And it is outside the current of globalization. Not to romanticize it (I would not want to be a Cuban under Castro) but it is a unique place in all the world, and the Cuba that exists today will be swept away when Castro dies. Go, now!
posted by LarryC at 9:26 PM on August 4, 2008

Unlike all my other advice on Latin countries, I'm going to third-or-whatever going to Argentina, and say skip Cuba. Let me tell you about a day in Argentina:

5-6pm: If it's a workday, work ends, and you nap or prepare whatever you're wearing for the night.

9pm: Dinner starts. Often involves lots of steak, or something fried and yummy. Have you read Argentina on Two Steaks a Day yet? You should.
12am: Dinner ends. You start discussing where to go to start drinking.
1am: You either decide where to go for the rest of the night, or you've already been at one bar for an hour and head to another.
1am to ??: Drinking, dancing, being sleazy with the girls. ?? is often around 5am, or later on weekends.

10am: If it's a weekday, and you live here, you're back at work.

If you want to charm girls instead of pick them up, you can take a night off and go learn to tango somewhere. Group lessons can be had for cheap, and girls who know what they're doing can make you feel like you're leading.

There's also a lot of history, great food, and easy adventures. Maybe take a quick flight to Iguazú and see the ginormous waterfalls. Spend a couple days in Uruguay without the tourists in the rolling plains. Montevideo is lovely and only a 3-hour ferry ride away. Bargains are better in UY but the nightlife isn't quite as long-lasting.

I recommend skipping Brazil because the $100 visa is a lot of hassle for a 5 day trip. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the place but it's not giving you good value right there. Cuba I recommend skipping because the night life is way inferior to Argentina's, and if you are involved in the night life there, you'll be paying tourist prices which are not a bargain. Also the illegal thing makes flying there a PITA because you have to build in extra time for delays. Shit happens. Also love this country, but wait until you can go longer and have more interest in not-nightlife activities.
posted by whatzit at 4:10 AM on August 5, 2008

Hurrrr for all of us looking at South America. November/December trip means South American beaches will not be as tropical as you might want, unless you're all from the Great Lakes region or something. If the beach is a priority, you might look more at Central America and the Carib.
posted by whatzit at 4:25 AM on August 5, 2008

Wait I'm being a total moron this evening. Flagged my above comment as "posting while stupid and cranky." BA should be pleasantly warm in December. Rio gets stinkin steamy hot.
posted by whatzit at 6:19 AM on August 5, 2008