Am I Being too Ambitious???

Two of my friends and I are planning a 5 month backpacking trip through South and North America.

We would start our trip in Brazil, heading down to Argentina and then back up through Chile followed by 3 months in the states. We have it all planned on the money and travel side and a good idea of a route and time it would take to travel to each place.

We've all had some experience hinking, DofE and a few nights hiking etc. But this would be the largest thing any of us have done by an absolute mile!

What im asking is do you think this would be too much for a few novice travellers??? and if so what would be a good starting point?

We've all had some experience hinking, DofE and...

I am not able to decipher this.

As for the rest of your question, are you planning on doing a lot of wilderness trekking (trail hiking), with some power-assisted travel (bus, train, hitchhiking) to get you from one trek to another? Or are you basically looking to stay in villages? Towns? Cities? Hosteling? Roadside camping? Hilton hotels?

I would mention that they speak Portuguese in Brazil, but Spanish in Argentina and Chile. Do you speak either of these languages? This would be an invaluable resource on such a trip.

As a rule of thumb, the more planning you do, the fewer panics you experience. Other than that I have no further advice.

Before you spend too much time planning the long trip, I'd suggest the three of you plan a 100 mile trip in ten days. Split the trip into three segments with a resupply after the first and second segment. Have each person plan and lead one segment. Make the trip similar to your 5 month hike. You will learn more in this 10 days than you will learn in months of surfing the internet and asking questions.

The odds of all three of you completing the hike are small. About one in ten complete the Appalachian Trail. If the odds are the same, the chances of all three of you completing the hike are about one in a thousand. The odds of two of you completing the hike are one in thirty-three if I'm doing the statistics right.

Try not to waste your five months of freedom on a failed adventure, but don't fail to have the adventure because others say it is impossible.

It sounds as though you're thinking of "backpacking" in terms of budget travel rather than as wilderness trekking, which is what this site is about. However, your post is not at all clear as to which style of "backpacking" you mean.

For budget travel, you'll find much better information on a budget travel site such as Lonely Planet or Rough Guide.

OM is right. You are talking about budget travel, which may include some backpacking and camping, but sounds mostly like traveling on the cheap to me. I've done a bit of it in SA (hitchhiking down the Pan American Highway from Antofagasta to Santiago, Chile, for one)., but that was a long time ago. Politics and the drug trade have made the whole place far more dangerous than it used to be. Some of the most dangerous places on the planet are in Central America, so keep that in mind.

If you are an American, that may just add to your problems.