Roaming South America

Four small cities, all average cities

September 6, 2026

Posadas, AR and Concordia, AR -

Posadas sits alongside the Paraná River, which forms the border between Argentina and Paraguay. Like Encarnación across the river, Posadas has a beautiful riverfront that stretches the width of the city. Posadas has a population of around 325,000, so it's a medium-sized city, unlike Encarnación, which is a large town. I like Encarnación more. I stayed two nights this time and spent much of the full day with my friend from Encarnación. I visited Posadas in May 2023 and wrote a blog about it, you can read it here.

Concordia, AR, is a city of about 155,000. It sits very close to the Uruguay River, which forms the border between AR and Uruguay. Across the river is Salto, Uruguay. I wrote a blog about Concordia in June 2023; you can read it here.

Salto, UY and Paysandú, UY -

Salto, UY, has a population of about 130,000 and sits right at the edge of the Uruguay River. This is a pleasant small city, quiet and walkable. You can read my blog about Salto here.

Paysandú, UY, has a population of around 82,000. It sits alongside the Uruguay River. It's bigger than I expected. If you look at the Google map, you'll see the pale yellow area representing the downtown core as only a few blocks. In reality, it's much, MUCH bigger than that. Google really needs to update their maps for all of South America.

Paysandú has a nice waterfront area that extends quite a way out of the city. There's also a lot of late 1800s buildings here, all still being used. There are no pedestrian-only streets, which surprised me, but the downtown has wide sidewalks with space for many restaurants to have outdoor dining. The town is pleasant enough but really isn't a tourist magnet. I spent only one night here, deciding that what I saw in most of one day I had was enough. I saw all of downtown and the riverfront, and a bit of the suburbs. There are pics in the photo album.