There’s a moment in every long journey when you stop thinking about destinations and start thinking about logistics.
How do we get there?
Where are we sleeping tonight?
How are we paying for this?
For us, traveling from Bogotá to Cusco meant crossing borders, changing currencies, and constantly adapting to new systems. Different countries, different rules, different ways of doing things.
But one thing stayed the same the entire time:
we paid for almost everything with a crypto wallet.
The Reality of Moving by Land
Traveling by land across South America is beautiful.
It’s also unpredictable.
Bus schedules change.
Routes get canceled.
Plans fall apart.
Sometimes you arrive late at night to a city you didn’t plan to visit. You need a place to sleep, food, water, and a ticket for the next morning.
And that’s when you realize how fragile traditional systems are.
Your card doesn’t work.
There’s no ATM nearby.
The currency is different.
You don’t even know how much cash you need.
We lived that situation more times than we can count.
The First Time We Paid with a Crypto Card
At some point, almost by instinct, we stopped looking for ATMs.
We opened the app.
Used the virtual card.
Paid.
A hostel.
A bus ticket.
A meal.
It felt strange at first — like cheating the system.
We were in a small city, using a card linked to a wallet that wasn’t a bank, paying in local currency without even touching cash.
And it worked.
Throughout this journey, the wallet we used to manage our money was Panther Wallet. It became our way to get paid, pay, and stay financially independent while traveling across South America.
When Traditional Cards Failed
There were moments when our traditional cards simply stopped working.
Sometimes they were blocked.
Sometimes the payment was rejected.
Sometimes the system was down.
Once, we were at a gas station in the middle of the road. No cash. No working cards. Long distance still ahead.
We used the crypto card.
Paid for water and food.
And kept going.
That day, we didn’t think about technology.
We just thought: “If this didn’t work, we’d be stuck.”
Paying for Life on the Road
During the journey, we used our wallet for things that had nothing to do with crypto:
- transportation tickets,
- last-minute accommodations,
- food and groceries,
- emergency expenses,
- even vaccines for our cats.
It wasn’t about investing.
It wasn’t about trading.
It was about living.
Switching Between Worlds
Sometimes we needed cash.
Sometimes we needed to pay online.
Sometimes we used P2P.
Sometimes we used exchanges.
But the logic was always the same:
The wallet was the center.
Everything else was optional.
We could move from crypto to local currency when we wanted — not when a bank allowed us to.
That difference changes everything.
The Psychological Shift
At some point, we noticed something subtle.
We stopped worrying about money.
Not because we had more of it.
But because we had more control.
We knew:
- where our money was,
- how to access it,
- how to use it in any country.
There was no waiting.
No asking.
No explaining.
Just decisions.
A New Way of Traveling
Travel guides talk about:
best places,
best routes,
best seasons.
But they almost never talk about the most important thing:
How do you sustain yourself while moving?
For us, the answer was simple:
we carried our financial system in our pocket.
No matter the country.
No matter the currency.
No matter the situation.
More Than Convenience
Using a crypto card wasn’t just convenient.
It was empowering.
It meant we didn’t depend on:
- ATMs,
- bank hours,
- international approvals,
- or physical cash.
We could arrive anywhere and know that, at least financially, we were okay.
Final Thought
Traveling from Bogotá to Cusco taught us many things.
About landscapes.
About people.
About ourselves.
But one of the most important lessons was this:
Freedom is not about where you go.
It’s about how easily you can keep going.
And for us, being able to pay for life on the road with a simple wallet was a big part of that freedom.
This article is part of the series “Diary of a Journey Without Banks,” where we share real stories about traveling across South America using crypto as our everyday financial system.
