If you've always dreamed of getting away and truly exploring a place - but thought it was too expensive to do so - I've got the book for you. Cheap Places in South America & Budget Travel Tips, by Molly McHugh, is an extraordinary resource. This book covers six countries - and places I'd not thought to visit. Molly speaks from experience, having lived there for four+ years, and publishing an ENTIRE site on South America Living. And she is the expert on budget travel, again speaking from experience, and traveling and living with a budget of $800-1200/month for expenses. In one town, she notes that you can live off $650/month and have money left over to take trips!

For each place, the book covers important topics for each place they lived and loved, such as Things to do, Housing, Things you will love, Things you may not like, Best places to grocery shop, and how to get money. The book then covers great places to visit (as opposed to great places to live), such as Iguazu Falls, Copacabana, Colca Canyon, and more. She also talks about living with and learning from locals, ways to learn about the local culture, and always has an anecdote about a local. THIS is the kind of travel I love.

The budget travel tips are excellent! They include how to save costs on transportation, train routes that save you time and money, how to save costs on food, how to save costs on housing, money and currency, crossing borders and visa fees, how to find a flights, travel insurance, and more.

If you've not thought of visiting (or taking a sabbatical to) South America, this book will surely persuade you to do so. The beautiful photos (with locals, a rarity in travel books), thoughtful suggestions of things to do, and thorough research about the details of living in South America are quite eloquent (and effective) - soon you'll be putting Molly's tips into use, booking your flight and exploring South America!

Playa de la Estacion on Santa Cruz Island, Galagagos

We had a chance to catch up with Molly and ask her about her South America Travel Guides (including the one we review, above). YES! She has more travel guide goodness! Here's what she had to say...

WE: Please tell us about South America Travel Guides..

Molly: When I first created these one page guides with links to restaurants, hostals, and photographs of the area (taken by myself and son) there was nothing like it on the Web. I wanted to create something new and different in an online guide, that would be of value to a traveler as well as easy to access using a computer, IPhone, or handheld device.

Revolutionary... no, but was a fresh take on how to present a compact, useful guide to a city or town, highlighting main atractions and visually showing what the area is like to someone who is ready to take a trip or just interested in learning more. Some competitor sites now have similar online guides.

We photograph the beauty, but also the mundane in a visually stimulating way, so as to give a 'real life' outlook.  Many of the travel guides to larger areas have additional pages of information and photographs of main tourist attractions, such as Dinosaur Park outside of Sucre, Bolivia and Isla del Sol, a short boat ride from Copacabana, Bolivia.  Most of this information you will not find in a regular guidebook, other than a sentence or two.

WE:  What led you to create South America Living website?

Molly: My son and I had been living abroad for around three years, and I'd written (and sold) a relocation guide to Baja, Mexico, had a blog about Baja and written for various online publications.  I started networking with professional travel writers and at the time (2009), going Indie with a 'niche website' was the new rage and some were doing very well financially.  So I put my skills to work and started South America Living, a bit grandiose of an idea but was motivated to create an extensive 'best of the Web' type of resource for living and traveling on the continent.

WE:  What areas of South America do you cover?

Molly: We cover the countries Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Peru, Ecuador and Uruguay.  There are 39 individual travel guides on the
site right now, can view the selection here: South America Travel Guides.

My son Blake kayaking during a trip to Isla Salango outside of Puerto Lopez, Ecuador

WE:  How do you incorporate the living abroad information?

Molly:  There is a lot of cross-over (inter-linking throughout the website to easily find information) between the two but each country section has a "Travel Guides & Destinations" page and a "Living in...' the country page with links to pages on living there.

Thanks for reviewing our free eBook to help folks plan a trip or long-term move,  Cheap Places in South America & Budget Travel Tips.  It's a fun, informative read with many of our favorite photographs.

WE:  How can readers get a copy of the eBook?

Molly:  You can simply email me at editor (@) southamericaliving.com to get your free copy.

WE: Thanks so much, Molly! Your free guide (and website!) is an incredible resource and we highly recommend it to our readers!