Uruguay Vacation Travel Guide

hey there fellow travelers mark here with wolters world and today we're here in colonia uruguay you got the rio de la plata behind me and today we're going to do is we're going to talk about some things that you should know before you come here to uruguay because i know i've come here before i mean the first time i was here was 20 years ago and i'm back here with my family because it's a really nice place to visit but one of the things i saw is there's not a lot of information online or guidebooks that actually help you get ready for uruguay and so that's what this video is about okay now if you want to talk about the main sites people see when they come here well colonia is probably the most easiest visited most visited place for a lot of tourists it's a unesco world heritage site the historic center you can see the lighthouse and the old fort walls and the gates of the city and there's some museums here and this was actually a portuguese town okay so you can see there's an azulejos museum the blue tiles the portuguese tiles they have that and so you have a historic city like this where people go to montevideo the capitol to see that or they go to punta de este which is like the party beach capital of kind of like the east coast there's no sex but there's more than that when you're here there's other great beaches you can check out you go to estancias go out to ranches and stay out there there's a lot of really nice things to do when you are here the thing is when you're coming people also like to know it's like hey mark what are we going to eat you know is it just like argentina where you eat a lot of beef well in that respect yes there's a lot of beef when you are here asalo the having having a barbecue you know grilled beef grilled pork grilled chicken grilled fish you're going to have a lot of that when you are here and it is really good i will tell you though if you like to have your steak a little juicy they tend not to do that you got to make sure you ask it for it juicy okay or rare and not not like up until like a punto which is like well done because that's kind of how they like it here so just a heads up for that some of the other things you want to have when you're here aside from going out to the grill parties is have a chavito which is a steak sandwich now i know you're like mark you just said so sadie just said steak why aren't you talking about it again well the thing is it's cevito it's it's bread steak and then they put like cheese inside of ham and then cook it yeah it sounds crazy but it's so good and then lettuce tomato mayonnaise egg on it you have that oh it's so good and you can have it without the bread and have it on top of potatoes but that's another way to have it and it's really really good also dusa de leche like that caramel kind of thing it's in all kinds of really good dishes when you are here a lot of tasty treats a lot of candies and stuff you will have a good time with that okay you will eat nicely i do want you know when it comes to eating they do tend to eat later in the evening here so like don't be surprised if you're eating dinner at 10 o'clock 11 o'clock at night and the people next to you have their kids out and stuff like that so be prepared for that because things kind of start a little bit later all right and the thing is you're going to eat a lot of good food when you are here you might ask do i tip the waiter when i am here yes you do tip your weight about 10 on the bill when you are here if you pay with your credit card sometimes you can let them know so you can tip that way or you can just leave cash as well so that's nice i guess that would lead me into talking about the money now the money in uruguay is the peso okay uruguayan peso you'll see a dollar sign or you with a dollar sign uh there for the prices but the thing is is in different parts of uruguay you can actually play with dollars or argentine pesos or reals and stuff like that though i would say the the preferred foreign currency is actually the us dollar so a lot of times what we've done is we might have paid with a credit card and then tipped in u.s dollars so there is that now when you want to get cash out and you do want to have some cash for tips and stuff like that you have to realize is going to the atm and there's atms all over the place like in the big cities and stuff it's not a big deal but a lot of times they're actually in the bank and so when they're in the bank when the bank closes well then the atm closes too so if you're out during the day i grab some cash during the day so you have it so you don't have to worry about it but if you're coming with us dollars and stuff you'll be fine what they usually do is tell you the price in pesos and then they'll divide by 30 or whatever they go at 29 or 32 or whatever the going exchange rate is at that time and it's usually kind of a fair rate so there is that and that's one thing i think you should also know as we look at safety and fairness and stuff it's actually uruguay is pretty safe i mean it's ranked in one of the safest place in south america you know and stuff like that but what's cool is you don't feel like you're gonna get ripped off here like people are pretty genuine with you so that is cool so that's nice about the people another thing with the people you're gonna need to have some patience when you're here things take a little bit longer to get things done and you might be like what's taking so long oh nothing it's just it's just taking long just just make sure you pack your patients when you do come here okay now one thing a lot of people ask me about when they travel like mark what about like wi-fi and stuff like that do they have those things here of course they have wi-fi the internet's everywhere and uruguay is no different than everywhere else in the world so hotels will have wi-fi for you cafes and restaurants will have wi-fi for you just ask for the password they can get that for you if you have your mobile phone you're bringing from abroad they have 3g 4g networks lte networks so you can get your you know your facebook or your instagram and stuff like that on your phone no big deal but i will say is make sure you talk to your provider your phone provider before you come to uruguay to make sure they're covered in your international plan um you can buy little chips and get like a little pay-as-you-go phone and stuff like that when you come here so that is another option for you now if you want to go out and buy that chip card if you want to go buy anything you probably know when the times are usually stores are open from nine to about seven sometimes they go later in the big cities and stuff like that but what you need to know in the middle of the day especially in smaller towns there might be a little siesta so the stores will close from like one to three or two to four or something like that so if you need if you have to do some shopping get it done in the morning or just know you're going to be doing in the evening because there is that nice long lunch break when you are there and and also when you go out to eat i know i didn't mention before with the food is make sure you plan a lot of time to eat because it does take remember that patience part it takes a while to get all that good food ready for you okay so heads up for that one now another thing a lot of people ask me about like mark i'm scared to go to a place if i don't speak the language like do i have to speak spanish when i go to uruguay or can i get by in english well what's cool is like i said the people here in uruguay are pretty chill i mean they're really nice and really laid back so either you don't speak spanish you're gonna be okay they're gonna help you but what you need to realize is you do need to know a few words in spanish before you come here or when you're here even if just hola which is hello or gracias which is thank you or por favor which is please cerveza which is beer you want to know these things because it makes it a little bit easier a little bit nicer when you are a tourist just like anywhere you go but especially if you're not going to be in like colonia and montevideo and puerto de este you'll find english menus you'll find english stuff because there's a lot of international tours going there but if you're going to an estancia what are the ranch is out are you going to go into the backwoods kind of stuff you're not going to find the english menus you're not going to find as many people speaking english as you would in the more metropolitan area so do have a heads up with that and the thing is there are some really nice things you might not know about when you come here and you want the locals to tell you so you find out about the chevito sandwich or that steak sandwich or the tanat wine and todd is the local wine that's brewed here argentina's got malbec here it's tanat and the thing is i've never had this before like i've never seen it in a grocery store i've never seen a liquor store or a wine store but it's this wonderful red wine they have here it's i mean it's on it's smooth oh my god it is good drinking let's put it that way but it's also good to join with the meats and stuff and the thing is you don't have that in the us or if you do it's very very seldom because it's not a huge production of this kind of wine so definitely grab some when you're here and i would have known about that unless my uruguayan friends i talked to before i came here said mark you gotta drink our wine where they're like oh of course i'll get uruguay no no it's got to be tanata you got to have this one like all right all right i'll do that and that's what's cool because if you know anybody from uruguay or you know somebody that knows somebody that knows somebody that's from uruguay or likes uruguay they'll be more than glad to give you a full list of things you want to have and do and eat and drink and visit when you do come here which is really cool now the next thing i want to talk about is actually when you go and you're going to stay here you might be looking at different accommodations when you come here look there are a lot of hotels throughout uruguay you'll be okay there's also posadas it's more like pensions and pensions and residencias so there's different levels of like cost just a hotel is probably gonna be more expensive residency would be a lot cheaper there's those things one thing you might look at is what's called a hospital or which is actually a home stay so you can live with the family and i've actually done that a couple times where i actually did that and actually helped me practice my language so i stayed for a week you know met the family got to practice my spanish and that really helped out so there are those options out there but of course anywhere you're going to go make sure you read reviews because there's still enough tourists that have come here that have done enough reviews on different places here you'll be okay with that i have found the accommodation here is fine kind of typical south american accommodation no problem if you want the you know the the higher end experience they have that if you want the cheap backpacker hostile kind of stuff they have that as well so there's no problem another thing i'd look at is you're probably going to know is how do i charge my device when i'm here what plug am i going to be using well uruguay actually when you're here you'll actually see two different kinds of plugs you'll see like the one you have in argentina which has the you know the two weird kind of bent straight lines in the bottom line there or you'll see the three prong brazilian kind of there's brazilian plugs what's cool is if you have the ones that are brazilian type of plugs you can use a typical european plug just fine so you don't have to go and search for like an argentina plug or a brazil plug a european plug will be okay like mainland europe kind of stuff so that'll be fine other things i want to say is i know we talked about safety but in general like i said it's a very safe country to go to if you do want to call emergency it's 9-1-1 so that's nice and easy to do um and they will help you out so next thing you probably know is how am i going to get around uruguay one of the things you need to realize is this is a bus country you're going to be taking the bus the thing is there are nice buses here and that's really cool and so you're going to be taking it from the the main bus station different places today's in montevideo is going to be your friend okay because you might be basing out of there and switching there a lot um the thing is you can buy your tickets online for a lot of the lines so it's really easy to do i mean i just registered like my account and i bought my tickets for the whole family no problem whatsoever so it's really cool nice and safe you're going to be putting your bags underneath the bus when you do go make sure you tip the person that puts the bag underneath like a buck or something like that it's no big deal you don't worry about it but it's just one of the nice things you do when you're in town you're going to take taxis around it's no big deal they're not very expensive so you do have that i will say though if it's like kind of like a really important connection you have like to the airport or something like that i would arrange for a taxi with your hotel beforehand so you're not worried it's one going to show up and stuff like that so you do have a heads up for that also when you're getting around there's a lot of cobblestones and stuff like that so make sure you bring some good sturdy shoes when you're going to be walking around and the thing is if you're going to come here when it's rainy season or you know we're here when it's just happy raining sometimes those cobblestones can be a little slick so just just have a little heads up for that one okay um you can rent cars there's a lot of places to rent cars and sometimes even rent little like moped buggies and kind of stuff or little little golf carts and stuff you do need to have your driver's license to rent those as well so i have that kind of taken care of before you come down here another thing i would say if you're going to be running a car anywhere in south america if you're coming from the us there's international driver's license then there's a special one just for south america i would get that one at your local aaa just to be safe in case they ask for it not everyone does but just in case i would definitely have it to give people less reason to like give you give you trouble so there is that the last thing i'll talk about is when you should come here well you can enjoy uruguay all year round we're actually here in july okay so it's this is the heart of winter like you know cold weather stuff and we're having a nice time but if you want to have a really good time you want to come here in the summer let's be honest okay whether you're going to be going up to the plate diablo or you're going to be going up to puerto de esta you're going to be going to any of the beaches on the coast or the really la plata you want to be here when it's warm and summertime here is december january february and into march and what you need to know is prices spike at that time hotels book out of that time so make sure you do book ahead if you're gonna be coming to that peak season also easter week or tourism week yeah this place packs up during easter week so if you're going to come for somana santa the holy week and stuff make sure you're booking really far ahead just so you make sure you get your accommodation you get your fairies and stuff like that because the fairies from buenos aires they'll book out okay so make sure if you're going bouquet booths or whatever you want to make sure you're booking those beforehand all right and i guess i should tell you about that when you're coming into here you don't have a ton of international flights coming into montevideo a lot of them will fly to buenos aires then maybe hop over to montevideo or you're flying to buenos aires and then coming over to montevideo or colonia there's a ferry that goes it's like well they'll say it's 50 minutes online and stuff but basically from when you actually leave to when you actually get off the fair and out of the the stations takes you about an hour and a half from buenos aires to here in montevideo it's really easy to do and it's simple to do you can do that it's a nice day trip to come over here but that's what a lot of people do to come in and check out uruguay's they go through buenos aires and so you can do that there's also you coming from brazil and things like that so it's no big deal i found the border crossings here to be a lot more relaxed than other places i've been to so that is kind of cool and you do have that feel when you are here in uruguay this is much more of a relax man kind of feel here so you will enjoy that so i hope that helped you know a little bit more about what or what to know before you come to uruguay i know for me looking up and trying to find research on it was a little bit more difficult than usual because you don't have a ton of guide books you don't have a ton of stuff that's focused on this small country and the thing is it's a night it's not a small country it's the size of oklahoma it'll be like a nice-sized country in europe but here in south america these huge countries a lot of people kind of look past it and i hope you won't look past it because it is a nice place to visit nice people some good food and some fantastic wine man drink that tana wine it is awesome anyway i'll say bye from here in colonia uruguay and have a great time bye

Channel: Wolters World

Views: 87,269

Keywords: travel, europe, wolters world, travel advice, tourist attractions, travel vlogger, honest travel, Walters World

Id: DqY3JOSW4gk

Length: 13min 34sec (814 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021