Americas

The first Americans crossed from Siberia over the Bering land bridge, or along its coast, during the last Ice Age, and within a few thousand years reached southern Chile — Monte Verde there is at least 14,500 years old. Farming began independently in several places: maize in southern Mexico, potatoes and quinoa in the Andes, manioc in the Amazon.

Mesoamerica — central and southern Mexico and northern Central America — produced the Olmec, then the city of Teotihuacan, the Maya city-states of the Classic period (roughly AD 250–900) and finally the Aztec (Mexica) empire, whose capital Tenochtitlan lay where Mexico City stands. The Maya built Tikal, Palenque, Copán and Calakmul, wrote in glyphs and tracked time with calendars that still run in highland villages.

In the Andes, cultures such as Chavín, Moche, Nazca, Tiwanaku and Chimú came before the Inca, who in the 15th century built the largest state in the pre-Columbian Americas. Tawantinsuyu stretched from southern Colombia to central Chile, connected by 30,000 km of roads and run without writing, using knotted-cord records (khipu). Machu Picchu was a royal estate of this last century before the Spanish.

Further north, the peoples of the Mississippi valley built Cahokia's earth mounds, and the Ancestral Puebloans the cliff dwellings of Mesa Verde. Around 50 million people may have lived in the Americas in 1492; Indigenous languages are still spoken by millions, above all in Guatemala, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, Mexico, Paraguay (Guaraní) and Greenland (Kalaallisut).

Columbus reached the Bahamas in 1492. Within 50 years Spain had conquered the Aztec (1521) and Inca (1532) empires, helped more by epidemics — smallpox, measles, influenza — than by soldiers. Populations collapsed by as much as 90% in many places. Portugal claimed Brazil after 1500 under a papal treaty that split the unknown world in two.

Silver from Potosí (Bolivia) and Zacatecas (Mexico) financed Spain's empire; Spanish cities were laid out on a grid around a central plaza with a church and a town hall — the plan you still walk in Antigua, Cusco, Oaxaca or Quito. Britain, France and the Netherlands took North America's east coast, Canada and most of the smaller Caribbean islands.

Sugar made the Caribbean and north-east Brazil the richest colonies of the 18th century, and sugar ran on enslaved labour. About 12.5 million Africans were shipped across the Atlantic; Brazil received the most. African cultures shaped the food, music and religion of the Caribbean, Brazil, Colombia's coasts and the US South — from samba and reggae to Candomblé, Santería and Vodou.

The United States declared independence in 1776. Haiti followed in 1804 after the only successful slave revolt to found a state. Between 1810 and 1825 Simón Bolívar, José de San Martín and others broke Spanish rule across South America; Mexico became independent in 1821 and Brazil in 1822, first as an empire under a Portuguese prince.

The 19th century drew today's borders through wars: Mexico lost half its territory to the US in 1848; Paraguay lost most of its men in the War of the Triple Alliance (1864–70); Bolivia lost its coast to Chile in 1884 and still claims it. Canada became a self-governing dominion in 1867. Slavery ended late — 1865 in the US, 1886 in Cuba and 1888 in Brazil.

Many Caribbean islands became independent only between 1962 and 1983; others chose to stay linked to a European state or the US. That is why Martinique and Guadeloupe are part of France and the EU, Aruba and Curaçao are countries within the Kingdom of the Netherlands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands are US territories, and Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Turks and Caicos and the Falklands are British Overseas Territories.

A single mountain chain runs almost the length of the hemisphere: the Rockies and Sierra Madre in the north, the volcanoes of Central America, and the Andes — 7,000 km long and up to 6,961 m at Aconcagua. The Pacific edge is an earthquake and volcano belt from Alaska to Chile; the Atlantic side is older and flatter.

The Amazon basin covers about 40% of South America and holds the largest rainforest on earth, shared by nine countries and territories. South of it the Pantanal wetland, the pampas grasslands and the Atacama — one of the driest places on the planet — show how fast climate changes with latitude and altitude.

North America adds the Great Plains, the Great Lakes, the deserts of the US Southwest and the boreal forest and tundra of Canada; Greenland is mostly ice sheet. The US and Canada protect this in national-park systems that began with Yellowstone in 1872, the world's first.

For a trip, three things follow: seasons flip at the equator (July is winter in Patagonia), altitude beats latitude in the tropics (Quito on the equator is spring-cool all year), and distances are continental — Chile alone is as long as Europe is wide.

About 1 billion people live in the Americas. Spanish has the most speakers (over 400 million), then English, Portuguese (Brazil's 215 million) and French. Most Latin Americans are of mixed Indigenous, European and African descent; the mix changes by country — largely Indigenous highlands in Guatemala and Bolivia, strongly African-descended coasts in Brazil, Colombia and the Caribbean, heavily European Argentina and Uruguay.

Later migrations added more layers: Italians and Spaniards in Buenos Aires and São Paulo, Japanese in São Paulo and Lima, South Asians in Trinidad, Guyana and Suriname, Chinese across the hemisphere, and Lebanese traders from Mexico to Colombia. That is why you can eat roti in Port of Spain, chifa (Chinese-Peruvian) in Lima and pizza by the slice in Buenos Aires.

The US and Canada are nations of immigrants with large Indigenous populations who hold treaty rights and their own lands. Respect signage on reservations and First Nations land: some sites need permits, and photography rules differ.

The Caribbean arc runs 4,000 km from Cuba to Trinidad. The Greater Antilles — Cuba, Hispaniola (Haiti and the Dominican Republic), Jamaica, Puerto Rico — are big and mountainous; the Lesser Antilles are small volcanic or coral islands, the Windward and Leeward chains; the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos lie on shallow banks in the Atlantic; Aruba and Curaçao sit off Venezuela, dry and outside the hurricane belt.

Each island's history decides its rules: the currency (US dollar, euro, Eastern Caribbean dollar, Caribbean guilder), the language, the driving side and the entry form. Neighbours two ferry hours apart can be in different customs zones. Plan island pairs by the ferry and flight actually running that month, not by distance on the map.

Hurricanes shape the calendar. The season runs from June to November, with most major storms between August and October. Irma and Maria (2017), Dorian (2019), Beryl (2024) and Melissa (2025, Jamaica) changed islands for years. Travel insurance and a flexible last day are part of any booking in those months.

The United States runs the strictest entry system most visitors meet. Citizens of Visa Waiver countries need an ESTA before boarding (US$40 since late 2025 — check), valid two years; everyone else needs a visa with an in-person interview, and waits at some consulates exceed a year. There is no airside transit: changing planes in the US means entering it. Canada's eTA is simpler and cheaper, but also required before boarding.

Latin America is easier: most Western passports enter visa-free, and regional blocs make overland travel smoother — the CA-4 agreement joins Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua into one 90-day allowance; Mercosur citizens cross South American borders with an ID card. Brazil brought back e-visas for US, Canadian and Australian citizens in 2025, and some countries charge reciprocity-style fees or park levies (the Galápagos US$200).

A growing list of countries wants a free online form before arrival. Always use the official government site: lookalike sites that 'help' with ESTA, eTA or island forms charge several times the fee and are the most common booking scam in the region.

Price bands are extreme. New York, Bermuda and the Cayman Islands are among the most expensive places on earth for a bed; Bolivia, Guatemala and Nicaragua among the cheapest in the hemisphere. A traveller can spend US$35 a day in La Paz and US$350 in Manhattan (2026 estimates) — plan the budget country by country.

Safety is local, not national. Big cities have calm, busy districts and no-go ones a few blocks apart. Mexico is rated state by state by the US government, and Haiti and Venezuela sit under advice against travel. Use ride-hailing at night, keep phones out of reach on the street, and read the country's safety table before choosing where to sleep.

Payments split too. Cards and phone payments work almost everywhere in the US, Canada, Chile, Uruguay and the Caribbean resort islands. Cash still rules in rural Central and South America, Cuba and markets everywhere, and instant-payment systems such as Brazil's Pix and Mexico's CoDi are spreading, though mostly for residents.

The climate is changing the calendar: record dengue years, longer wildfire seasons in Canada and the western US, drought on the Panama Canal and stronger hurricanes. Watch the forecasts and smoke maps in the weeks before you go, and keep plans flexible.