Last spring I spent two months backpacking South America, solo female travel style, with one day pack strapped to my front and another to my back. Here are 19 tips I learned from my eight weeks abroad.

You haven’t seen waterfalls until you’ve been to the Iguazu Falls (or Iguaçu Falls if you’re Argentian or Foz do Iguaçu if you’re Brazillian). I will be completely honest, I thought these would be mildly impressive but likely nothing to knock my socks off. Let me tell you… my socks were obliterated. If I had to rank this UNESCO Heritage site in my list of the most magical places my traveling eyeballs have beheld… it definitely lands within the top 3.

After spending two days exploring the Iguazu Falls National Park, here are my tips for you ahead of your visit.

When I tell you that Buenos Aires was the most hyped destination of my trip… I do not lie. I had multiple people in multiple destinations in South America (and before), leading up to my arrival in this curiously European-vibed but South American-infused capital city, raving about Buenos Aires. The amount of “I could live there” and “ugh I wish I could have spent longer” were enough to get me psyched for this change of scenery.

I tell you what, I am a sucker for positive reinforcement. Give me a motivational quote on a coaster, the back of a t-shirt, scratched into a wall or spelled out with food, and I will feel automatically empowered. So you besta believe, when I see any and every type of could-be motivation while I’m traveling, I capture it. These are 15 of my more recent finds.

I’ve done cooking classes all over the globe, from Argentina to Italy, Indonesia to Scotland, anywhere from afternoon activities to six-week certificate courses. If there is one thing I love to do when traveling, it’s a cooking class. Since I want everyone to experience the joy of cooking while traveling I’ve put together this list of things to look out for, questions to ask, or things to be conscious of, in advance of choosing a course.

This isn’t the comprehensive list we all love and adore BUT I believe it’s just as important of one - it’s the random stuff that you don’t always think to pack but praise yourself when you do. During my two months backpacking South America, these are some items that came in handy during my trip.