Iguazu falls was one of the first highlights added to my list when I decided to come to South America. Larger than Niagra falls, the only national monument I haven’t visited in the United States, it is a destination everyone asks you about when you tell then you will travel to Brazil or Argentina.

That I would consider not visiting it hadn’t crossed my mind until today when I began to research how I would get there. My original plan had been to bus all of south America, but after a couple trips in excess of 10 hours, I’d begun to reconsider, especially after I found flights aren’t a whole lot more expensive than buses when flying domestically.

Any flight that crosses an international border increases in price by 3 times. The trick to crossing borders is to fly as close as possible, take a bus across, and then fly to your next destination. Ideally, the border towns are also on your itinerary, which is surprisingly common, as both countries typically want to claim the highlight you’re visiting.

I hadn’t thought of that the first time I considered Iguazu falls. The plan was to take the bus from Buenos Aires to Iguazu and then from Iguazu to Sao Paulo. This was before I had an idea of what it would be like to take an 18 hour bus trip. I looked up the flight using Kayak.com so I could to a search for 3 days on either side of my intended flight date. It turned out the cheapest flight was on the day I ideally wanted to travel.

As I mentioned before, thr countries like to share the highlights and, on the other side of the the border in Brazil, there was a second airport offering cheap flights to Sao Paulo on exactly the day I wanted to depart. I was excited by my good fortune, but before I purchased the tickets, I reconsidered. Was it really worth it to pay that much to see a waterfall that was not so different from Niagara falls, one I was sure I would visit in the future.

A quick check of flight costs directly from Buenos Aires to Sao Paulo revealed that the cost was actually more than booking the two flights through Iguazu. Remember, this savings was done by taking two domestic flights instead of one international one. Now, instead of 36 hours of bus time, I would fly in 3 hours and have a day to check out both the Argentine and Brazilian side of Iguazu falls.