Organize your trip to Paraguay.
I’ve been getting lots of emails of people wanting to travel to Paraguay and I’m more than happy to help.
Very important tip: AIR FARE: Don’t get them online, they are too expensive. Ask your local Travel agency (you will find a list online or on local newspapers), just a regular old fashion Agency to get a quote of the prices, ask for specials
Expedia, Travelocity, Orbitz and alike are good for domestic fairs but not for international ones.
Consider getting a free Advantage card (American Airlines) on www.aa.com there you can buy miles and travel using your miles (in low season a trip to Paraguay would cost about 40.000 miles) and most of the time its cheaper than a regular ticket with no miles and the advantage of traveling with miles is that you can change your returning date without penalties.
There are some things to keep in mind before you go: 1- Don’t forget to get a Visa and if you plan to go to Iguassu Fall you need a Visa for Brazil too.
2- Choose destination cities. A good combo is: Asuncion, San Bernardino, Ciudad del Este and Iguassu Falls (Brazilian side), Encarnacion to see the Jesuit Missions, among other interesting cities. Rental car is available and it costs about 50$ a day. (not very cheap)
3. Get around: By bus, by car, by plane? Driving there require special skills and everything you learned for driving test, ditch it, I wont work here!
4- Where to stay? hotel? hostel? Apart Hotel? (watch for my recommendations soon), I prefer to stay in a place with personality rather than an expensive chain hotel.
5- List of things to do in each city
6- It would be very nice to learn some words in Spanish and get a dictionary, (people are very patient and will try to help)
I will have a downloadable Spanish Language map soon, I’m working on it.
October 25th, 2006 at 5:05 pm
Good advice. Be very careful with online travel agencies especially EXPEDIA. They ruined one of my trips to Argentina. Later I found that EXPEDIA is listed in the top ripoff link at the bad business bureau ( http://www.ripoffreport.com ) and has two “dedicated” websites due to poor customer support and lies: http://www.victimsofexpedia.com (I created this site) and http://www.shameonexpedia.com
Other online travel agencies seem to be the same
Kind regards
October 30th, 2006 at 5:14 pm
Hi John
I totally agree with you! I’m going to take a look at your website. I’m so sorry they ruined your trip.
Thanks for sharing this very useful information.
Regards
Muna
October 31st, 2006 at 3:23 pm
Muna: I have written a book in Spanish (self-published) of about one-hundred pages (with an English summary at the end) about the infamous PARAGUAYAN INVESTIGATION of 1870 in the U. S. Congress. It is a very interesting story - dealing with conflicts between the U. S. State Department and the U. S. Navy’s South Atlantic Squadron in Rio de Janeiro during the Paraguayan War of 1865-70. The title of the book is ALMAS ATORMENTADAS and is available through inter-library loan, or can be purchased from me for $20.00 (media mail paid) at 28 Fredette Street, Chicopee, Massachusetts 01022 USA.
March 9th, 2008 at 12:06 pm
HELLO
Do you know how can i kontakt with som people in paraguay.
October 13th, 2008 at 7:09 pm
Muna, I would like to go to Paraguay for Xmas, could you tell the very BEST place to my tickets, PLEASE I know you know lots of great people, and maybe you can tell of a great place to shop for my tickets, I need for 4 people. thank you Muna!! my e-mail is magie147@hotmail.com, I hope to hear from you soon!!