South America gives motorcyclists the two things Europe cannot: scale and emptiness. Argentina's Ruta 40 alone runs about 5,194 km (3,227 miles) and crosses 27 Andean passes. Chile's Carretera Austral covers 1,240 km (770 miles) and serves around 100,000 people in total. If you want a short answer on where to ride, it is the Andean spine from Colombia to Tierra del Fuego, with Patagonia and the altiplano as the two headline regions and Brazil's coastal ranges as the outlier. Here is how the continent breaks down.
How the continent works for riding
Think of it as one long north–south mountain corridor with four distinct sections. In the tropical north — Colombia and Ecuador — the Andes split into parallel cordilleras with green, humid, densely populated valleys between them, and the riding is technical and warm. Through Peru and Bolivia the range widens into the altiplano, where the roads run at genuinely high altitude and the landscape is desert. In Chile and Argentina from Santiago south the mountains narrow again into Patagonia, which is the emptiest riding on the continent. Brazil sits outside all of that, with its own coastal escarpment roads.
Distances are the thing most visiting riders underestimate. A day that would cover three countries in Europe covers one province here. Two weeks realistically gets you one region, not one continent, and the trips that work are the ones that pick a section rather than a line on a map.
Top roads at a glance
| Road or region | Distance | What it is | Start and finish |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ruta 40, Argentina | About 5,194 km (3,227 miles) | Longest route in South America, 20 national parks, 27 Andean passes | Cabo Vírgenes, Santa Cruz to La Quiaca, Jujuy |
| Carretera Austral, Chile | About 1,240 km (770 miles) | Route 7 through fjords, forest and glacier country | Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins |
| Ruta 3 to Ushuaia, Argentina | 3,045 km (1,892 miles) | Atlantic-side road to the southernmost city, with a Chilean transit and a ferry | Buenos Aires to Tierra del Fuego |
| Salar de Uyuni, Bolivia | Salt flat of 10,582 km² (4,086 sq mi) | World's largest salt flat at about 3,656 m, flat to within a metre across its whole area | Uyuni, Potosí department |
| Yungas Road, Bolivia | 64 km (40 miles) | The old "Death Road", 3,500 m of descent, now bypassed by a modern asphalt route | La Paz to the Yungas |
| Atacama Desert, Chile | 1,600 km (1,000 mile) strip | Driest non-polar desert on earth, about 15 mm of rain a year | Northern Chile, west of the Andes |
| Serra do Rio do Rastro, Brazil | Escarpment climb on the SC-390 | Switchbacks to 1,460 m with the Atlantic visible 100 km away on clear days | Lauro Müller to Bom Jardim da Serra |
Open the Carretera Austral from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins in Google Maps and send it to your navigation as one route.
Chile and Argentina, the Patagonia end
The Carretera Austral is Chile's Route 7, running about 1,240 km (770 miles) south from Puerto Montt to Villa O'Higgins through Aysén and southern Los Lagos. Construction began in 1976 and the Chilean Army's engineering corps used thousands of conscripts between 1975 and 1985 to build it; despite its length it provides road access to only about 100,000 people, and the largest town on the whole road, Coyhaique, had 53,715 residents at the 2010 census. That ratio of road to population is the entire point.
On the Argentine side, Ruta 40 parallels the Andes for roughly 5,194 km (3,227 miles) from Cabo Vírgenes near Río Gallegos to La Quiaca on the Bolivian border, crossing 20 national parks, 18 major rivers and 27 Andean passes, and topping out at Abra del Acay in Salta province at about 5,000 m (16,404 ft). It is the longest route on the continent and much of the southern half is now paved.
The two together make the classic Patagonia loop: south on one, north on the other, with border crossings in between. The far end is Ushuaia, capital of Tierra del Fuego, founded on 12 October 1884 and sitting below the 54th parallel south with a claim to being the world's southernmost city. Ruta 3 gets you there over 3,045 km (1,892 miles) from Buenos Aires, but it is interrupted by the Strait of Magellan — the road forces you through Chilean territory and onto a ferry across a 4.65 km (2.89 mile) crossing that takes about twenty minutes.
The altiplano: Bolivia, Chile's north and Peru
The Atacama is the driest non-polar desert in the world and the largest fog desert on earth, a plateau stretching along a 1,600 km (1,000 mile) strip of northern Chile west of the Andes, covering about 105,000 km². Average annual rainfall is around 15 mm and some weather stations there have never recorded rain at all. It is the most alien riding on the continent and the one where fuel and water planning stops being optional.
Over the border, the Salar de Uyuni is the largest salt flat on earth at 10,582 km² (4,086 sq mi), sitting at about 3,656 m (11,995 ft) with a salt crust roughly 8 m thick and an average elevation that varies by less than a metre across the entire area. After rain a thin layer of standing water turns it into a mirror 129 km (80 miles) across. Bolivia's other famous road, the Yungas Road, runs 64 km (40 miles) from La Paz towards the Amazon with 3,500 m (11,500 ft) of descent and sections under 3 m wide; it was built in the 1930s by Paraguayan prisoners taken during the Chaco War, and until the mid-1990s it recorded between 200 and 300 deaths a year. It has since been replaced as the through route by a modern two-lane asphalt road with guardrails, and the old alignment now carries around 25,000 tourists a year, mostly on mountain bikes.
North of that, Peru's Andes deliver the continent's highest ordinary roads — the Central Highway crosses the Ticlio (Anticona) pass at 4,818 m (15,807 ft) about 120 km east of Lima — along with the descent from the altiplano to the Pacific desert.
The tropical north: Ecuador and Colombia
Ecuador's Avenue of the Volcanoes is the corridor between the two Andean cordilleras south of Quito, with Cotopaxi — 5,897 m (19,347 ft), the country's second-highest summit — standing about 50 km south of the capital. It is a small country with a lot of altitude in it, which makes it one of the easiest places on the continent to ride high without long transits.
Colombia's coffee axis, the Eje Cafetero, covers the departments of Caldas, Risaralda and Quindío plus parts of Tolima, Valle del Cauca and Antioquia, centred on Manizales, Pereira, Armenia and Ibagué. Growing conditions there run between 8 °C and 24 °C in Andean rainforest, which translates on a bike into warm, green, endlessly twisty roads at moderate altitude — the closest thing the continent has to riding in the Alps with palm trees.
Brazil
Brazil is the odd one out: no Andes, but a coastal escarpment that produces some genuinely good roads. The best known is the Serra do Rio do Rastro in Santa Catarina, where the SC-390 climbs the range between Lauro Müller and Bom Jardim da Serra to a high point of 1,460 m (4,790 ft). On clear days the Atlantic is visible about 100 km (62 miles) away from the top, and frosts are common up there with occasional snow — not what most people expect from Brazil.
Seasons, paperwork, fuel and altitude
Season. The continent spans both hemispheres, so there is no single answer. Patagonia and the Carretera Austral are summer propositions — roughly November to March — with wind rather than cold as the limiting factor. The altiplano is best in the dry season, broadly May to October, when the Uyuni crust is driest. The tropical north works year-round with a wet-season caveat. Trying to do Patagonia and the altiplano in the same trip means accepting that one of them will be in the wrong season. Verified as of August 2026; check regional forecasts.
Vehicle paperwork. This is the area with the most misinformation. Published country lists still show a Carnet de Passages en Douane as required for Brazil and as required or recommended for Colombia, Ecuador, Peru and Venezuela, with Argentina, Chile and Uruguay listed as recommended — but the same sources note that in practice the carnet has been rarely used on the South American continent since around 2016, with most countries issuing a temporary import permit at the border instead. Canadian-registered vehicles are treated differently again in several of those lists. Because the answer genuinely varies by country, by nationality and by year, confirm your specific case with a carnet-issuing motoring organisation and with each country's customs authority before you ship a bike. Carry the registration document, your licence, an International Driving Permit and insurance valid for each country.
Fuel and supplies. The gaps are real. On the Carretera Austral, in Patagonian Santa Cruz and across the Atacama you will find stretches where the next station is a long way off and may be closed or out of stock. The universal habit is to fill at every opportunity in remote regions rather than at every planned interval, and to carry water. Cash matters more than cards away from cities.
Altitude. Riding at 4,000–5,000 m has physiological effects on you before it has mechanical effects on the bike. Acclimatise before crossing the highest passes, and expect noticeably reduced engine power on anything naturally aspirated.
Safety. Conditions vary widely by country and by region within countries, and they change. Consult your own government's current travel advice for each country on your route rather than a general impression, and check local advice about specific roads and border areas on arrival.
Gear notes for a continental trip
Two systems earn their keep across all of this. The first is navigation that survives without signal: coverage on the Carretera Austral, across the Atacama and on much of Ruta 40 is absent for hours at a time, so download the whole corridor for offline motorcycle navigation and use proper route planning tools rather than improvising from a phone. The second is tyre monitoring. Long days on rough surfaces at altitude, with temperature swings from a 35 °C desert afternoon to a sub-zero pass overnight, move pressures constantly — our tyre pressure guide and the piece on cold-weather pressure loss explain both directions, and a TPMS sensor catches a slow puncture 200 km from anywhere. Power is the third: on routes where the next reliable socket is a day away, a bi-directional fast charger keeps navigation, intercom and camera alive, and a daily pre-ride check matters more where recovery is measured in days.
FAQ
What is the best motorcycle route in South America?
The Carretera Austral for scenery and remoteness, Ruta 40 for scale, and the Patagonia loop combining the two for a single trip that shows you both sides of the Andes. The altiplano is the better choice if you want desert and altitude rather than forest and fjords.
How long do you need?
Two weeks covers one region properly — Patagonia, the altiplano or the northern Andes. Riding the continent end to end is a multi-month trip, not a holiday.
Do I need a carnet for South America?
Usually not in practice, but the published lists and the reality diverge. Brazil is commonly listed as requiring one; several other countries appear as required or recommended depending on the source and your nationality. Confirm with a carnet-issuing organisation and each country's customs authority before shipping.
When is the best time to ride Patagonia?
The southern summer, roughly November to March. Wind is the defining condition rather than temperature, and it is strong enough on the steppe to change how you ride.
Should I ship a bike or rent locally?
Rent locally for a two or three week trip in one region — rental is well established in Chile, Argentina, Peru and Colombia. Ship your own bike only for a long multi-country trip, where the paperwork burden is spread over months rather than weeks.
