I'm planning an overland trek down through Central and South America, starting in Mexico City area. But, I'm stuck. I'd like to keep my RTW going once I'm done in S. America. I'm not sure what to do once I hit Rio/Sao Paulo, Buenos Aires, Santiago (or further south), as there doesn't seem to be any cheap (less than $1400USD) way to get off the south end of South America.

I've looked at flights to New Zealand and Australia, also flights back to LA or Mexico City, and Johannesburg (South Africa). Nothing for less than $1400.

Preferably, I'd like to head towards New Zealand and Australia. Does anyone have any suggestions for continuing my trip from South America at a reasonable price? I'm thinking by boat, or some cheap flight that I just haven't found. Frankly, any suggestions would be much appreciated.

Cheers,
Adam

Perhaps http://www.freightercruises.com/ could be of some assistance. I'm not sure that they list ships from South America, but it could be a start. I had a friend years ago that would travel via freighters exclusively for her long haul legs.

Honestly I have to thank you for getting me to think about this travel method, it seems like something I might like doing when I go on my RTW. Does anyone here have experience with this method?

Check RTW tickets, I have a 4 continent RTW on One World $3055 CAD taxes in.

South African Airways (via Kayak) is showing flights for $1568 from Sao Paolo one way to Johannesburg. I gotta believe that if you stalk that flight, it'll go down by a couple hundred bucks to put it in your price range. My best friend and I bought that flight a few months back, but I can't remember what our fare was.

Where are you looking to go beyond Oz/NZ? Might be worth looking into combining your next couple of stops into an RTW/multi-stop ticket. Punching in BA-Sydney-Bangkok into the trip planner, tickets started at $1973. Some other combos may work out cheaper depending on the time of year that you'll be doing this.

My trip isn't deeply planned, but my general plan was to overland through south america, before heading over to New Zealand/Australia for an extended period of time. I'm expecting that I'll be in Oz for 6 months to life.

Since it may be years before I move on, I was hoping to avoid the RTW tickets (which have 1-yr limits), and piece together one-ways.

My other criteria is cost (note my arbitrary $1400 budget). I have time, but little money, so I'm happy to work my way whenever possible. I've got a list of yacht and cruise crew job sites, though I'm expecting those jobs will be easier to find in the Caribbean, Mexico or even Panama; compared to Brazil, Argentina or Chile.
Has anyone tried this? Trading work for travel from central/south america and getting off on another continent?

It's looking like I'm just going to have work/splurge for the flight, but I'm still holding hope there's another alternative.

I'm also in the middle of planning a RTW (hopefully) departing June 2010. I've run into the same sort of issues as you. My girlfriend and I are planning on flying BOS - SJO (Boston - San Jose, Costa Rica) on a very cheap flight and traveling down through Central America into South America. I still haven't decided on which countries are a "must" for SA, but I know that I'll want to move on from somewhere in SA to AUS/NZ/BKK eventually. I looked into flights, although it's tough to get accurate prices because it's still 9 months away, but the prices I found were about the same as the ones you found. ($1400+). Tough on the budget!

I thought about flying back up to LAX and then over to AUS/NZ/BKK but you're still looking at high prices. Hmm...

@Hydro - Good idea, I'll have to look into that. I know tons of people have gone this route, what did you do? Any other ideas?

Unknown, let me know if you find any information. I'd be really interested to find out if your plans have changed in any way.