FOUNDER & DIRECTOR
Harry Hastings
In 2005, Harry Hastings moved from the UK to Argentina in search of adventure. Following stints as a journalist with the Buenos Aires Herald and Time Out Magazine, he launched a city concierge company, PlanBA. A passion for Argentina developed into a continent-wide fascination and, in 2009, Plan South America was born.
Recognised internationally for his Latin America expertise, Harry appears regularly as a Condé Nast Traveler Top Travel Specialist and on Travel + Leisure’s A-List. He currently lives in London and continues to explore Latin America as often and as widely as good sense permits.
GET IN TOUCH
Tell us about some of your recent adventures in Latin America.
I have just returned from driving the Carretera Austral, in southern Chile, which carves through some of Patagonia’s most pristine landscapes, with hanging glaciers, waterfalls, marble caves, condors, puma, guanaco, kilometre-deep lakes and rivers of viridian brimming with wild trout. Before that, I was exploring Venezuela, which I’m backing as the next big travel story in Latin America.
I also spent an unforgettable week in the Ecuadorian Amazon with the Sapara community. The experience included jungle treks, long swims down the Rio Conambo, fishing with poisonous roots, hunting with blowpipes, meditation, dream interpretation, lessons in botany and traditional ceremonies. The journey forms part of our transformational travel experiences.
Most extraordinary trip you’ve taken?
I had always dreamt of driving the Pan American highway. In 2008, a friend and I bought a car and drove 11,000km from Buenos Aires to the northernmost tip of Colombia. The journey was not without incident. When faced with a burned out bridge in southern Colombia, we forded the rapids of a swollen river, to emerge with three punctured tyres and smoke billowing from the engine; we navigated into a minefield on Chile’s border with Bolivia; picked up an extraordinary assortment of hitchhikers and mounted an exhilarating escape from a besieged Peruvian village.
On a less indulgent timescale, the Andean route from Mendoza to Jujuy in Argentina’s northwest ranges through desert, subtropical jungle, high altitude vineyards, salt lakes, dusty market towns and huge fields of pungent red peppers drying in the sun. You may see the odd western tourist at the beginning and final third, but there’s a good 900kms in the middle where you’re very much off-piste.
Where’s your next adventure?
Los Llanos. Colombia’s cowboy and anaconda country, up on the Venezuelan border. Then on to El Chocó on the Pacific coast and to the southern Amazon. I find it the most captivating country and am always finding excuses to return.
Which openings and destinations are you most excited about for 2026?
This is going to be a big year for us in Peru. There are so many interesting new projects, particularly in the less visited north. Tinajani Camp, Suasi, Cabo Blanco – all outstanding examples of design and hospitality.
We’re also launching El Salvador, for those drawn to volcanoes, coffee hills, colonial villages and Pacific surf.
Explora’s long-awaited opening in December is a gamechanger for Argentine Patagonia. It has been almost twenty years since the last big hotel opening in El Calafate.
In Bolivia, the soon-to-open Gastón Ugalde gallery and hotel in Uyuni is going to be a showstopper.
And, perhaps closest to my heart, is our partnership with Hacienda Montezuma in northern Costa Rica. The Montezuma Sanctuary will open to just 15 guests for its first retreat in July.
How do you encourage clients to be better travellers?
Simple. Be more adventurous. We have always favoured the back roads — the little-known Pacific coast of Colombia, or a backstreet restaurant in Belém where the menu depends on what the fisherman brings in that morning. By being a little bolder with your travel decisions, you’re ensuring a richer experience for yourselves and broader support for local economies. We don’t avoid the big sights, but we make sure they’re part of a wider story rather than the whole point of the trip. That means slowing down, talking to people, leaving the phone behind and being open to what happens.
We also take responsibility for our footprint. We balance carbon through our partnership with the World Land Trust, whose patrons include David Attenborough. Every traveller contributes USD 250, rising for those flying by private charter. This isn’t an opt-in; it’s the standard we feel needs to be set.
At the start of each year, we also vote as a team on a community foundation to support. This year it is Healing Venezuela. A further USD 250 is charged per traveller.
Everyone who travels with us is given the opportunity to volunteer, be that a morning teaching in an Amazonian school, delivering medical supplies to remote communities or helping in an orphanage in Peru’s Sacred Valley.
What are the biggest Latin America travel trends for 2026?
Advanced booking – often 12+ months – is back, which means we can match clients with our top guides and snap up the best rooms at our favourite properties.
And the rise of the blockbuster family, multi-gen trip continues. We’re launching a new collection of beach houses, haciendas and retreats, stretching from Baja California to Tierra del Fuego.
Why PSA?
Because we pool all of our knowledge, resources and contacts into one glorious continent. I’m a great believer in being a specialist in something – the butcher, the baker, the candlestick maker. Our combined experience in the region and local network are unmatched.
Harry’s Latin America Highlights
Favourite restaurant – and tipple?
Good food and drink is a key component of our journeys. Don Julio in Buenos Aires was my second home when living there. I saw it transform from a word-of-mouth neighbourhood dive to one of the most highly regarded restaurants in Latin America. La Cocina de Pepina, in Cartagena’s Getsemani, is a family-run bolthole of 8 tables and stunning Caribbean food. Iacitata, in Belém, northern Brazil, run by the effervescent Tainá Marajoara, is a gem. Long lunches at Rio’s buzzing Braseiro da Gávea. Lima and Bogota deserve their own chapters.
As for tipple – el vino! When living in Buenos Aires, I would always meet with a friend in the same bar every week to play chess, eat cheese and enjoy a bottle of Chilean Koyle Costa Pinot Noir or Argentine Tempus Alma Pleno. Cachaça and Mezcal also do good things for me.
Favourite souvenir?
Taxidermy. A friend traveling in Bolivia returned with a plump armadillo dressed in a natty sequin jacket. Otherwise, leather goods, art, ponchos, textiles, riding boots, panama hats, cowhides, hammocks, emeralds, a Brazilian sunga.
Favourite books?
Few Latin American writers match Gabriel Garcia Márquez’s powers of description and lyricism. I also like W H Hudson’s Far Away and Long Ago – a lyrical portrait of life in the Argentine pampas at the turn of the century. I’ve just finished Magdalena by Wade Davis, which I would recommend to anyone heading to Colombia. For guffaws and adventure, Peter Fleming’s Brazilian Adventure always delivers. Many of these picks feature on the personalised reading lists we create for all of our clients ahead of their trips.
READ MOREConsidering a journey to Latin America or Antarctica? Speak to Harry and the Plan South America team.
Looking for more inspiration?
Harry Hastings on Colombia
YOLO Journal: An Interview With Our Founder, Harry Hastings
