Traveling As a Couple Through South America: An Interview With TwoBackpackers

In San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

TwoBackpackers.com documents the travels of Jason and Aracely Castellani, while they travel around the world.  This is not your typical gap year after college, it's the story of two successful corporate Americans feeling the need to escape the rat race to begin living a more personally satisfying life.  They share their experiences through HD adventure videos, travel photos and travel stories.  Follow their journey for travel tips, insights, adventure, inspiration and entertainment.

1. How would you define your travel 'style'?

Budget independent adventure travel with a partner.  That means we do it cheaply avoiding package vacations and seek out adventure together as a couple.  We seek out the best a place has to offer and we usually do it.  Steak in Buenos Aires, sushi in Lima, multi-day hiking in Patagonia, city tours in Colombia and the Uyuni Salt Flats in Bolivia.  We typically enjoy it all.



Bolivian tour from Tupiza to Uyuni

2. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you be and why?

That's a tough one.  There are always so many places we want to be, but right now we desire an African wild animal safari.  We want to see so much of the land, animals and their great migrations from the ground and the air.  We can't actually afford that right now, but it's a dream.

3. What was your best travel experience?

The highlight was trekking 9 days through Torres del Paine in Patagonia Chile. The natural landscapes of glaciers, mountain peaks and lakes appeal most to us. We also loved the challenge of the trek, and admit it was neither comfortable nor easy.

4. What was your worst travel experience?

While in Alegria, El Salvador we wanted to visit Laguna de Alegría, a green hot spring fed sulfur lake inside the crater of volcano Tecapa.  From Alegría’s town center you can easily walk 45 minutes in sandals along a cobblestone road or hire a guide to take you on a 2-hour hike up and over the crater’s ridge then down to the lakes edge.  Of course, Aracely and I opted for the hike.  Our hostel recommended a local 21 year old to guide us with complete confidence.  Our guide lost the trail inside the massive crater and we were close to spending the night in a bandit filled forest.  Thirsty, hungry and a little delirious, we made it out 7.5hrs later without arriving to the crater lake.  You can read the full story here.

Trekking in Torres Del Paine National Park, Patagonia

5. What is your best travel advice for the TravelPost community?

Flexibility has been our greatest behavior while traveling long term. Flexibility gives us the ability to spend extra time with new friends we suddenly met. We can venture out to a new city or a new hike that we just learned of from other backpackers in the hostel. Flexibility allows us to relax and wind down in a single place and put our travels on hold. Great experiences and friendships would have been missed had we not been flexible during our journeys.

6. What have been your greatest challenges and rewards of travel writing?

We struggle to provide content on a regular basis, especially when traveling.  I know this sounds contrary to what most others do, but when we are traveling, we don't want to write, take photos or make videos.  After returning home, we can churn material out regularly.  Our greatest rewards have been watching our blog recognition and traffic grow as a result of our photography and HD travel videos.  The success drives us to continue learning and gaining a better understanding of what makes a picture interesting.


Getting Engaged on their journey!

Bonus Question: Most memorable travel mishap?

We really screwed up in Mendoza, Argentina when we were buying our bus ticket to Salta.  Our departure time was in the evening so we checked out of the hostel at noon and just hung around till late that evening. We arrived to the bus station at 10pm, tired and ready for our 14hr overnight bus ride to Salta, in northern Argentina. Oops, we missed our bus.  After 8 months of traveling we suddenly got confused on military time (24hr time).  20:00 hours is 8pm, not 10pm.  Mistakes happen, but this one was very costly.  No refund on these $120 bus tickets.  It's a mishap, because when you are budget traveling, that's a large amount.  I just want to point out that Aracely was in charge of handling the tickets.