Paraguay Packing List

Paraguay asks less of a suitcase than a mountain country does, and the things it does ask for are easy to get wrong. Pack for the heat you have read about, then add the two things the heat makes people forget.

Clothing

• Light, loose, natural fiber clothing that covers arms and legs. Covering up is cooler than exposing skin in this climate and it solves the sun and the mosquitoes at the same time.
• A brimmed hat. Not a cap. The mission sites, the Chaco and the riverbanks have no shade at all, and a cap leaves your neck and ears out in it.
• ⚠ One warm layer, even in summer. Winter cold fronts push up from the south and can take a mild evening to genuinely cold in a few hours, and an air conditioned bus in January is colder than the weather outside.
• A light waterproof. Rain falls all year here, and in the warm months it falls hard.
• Shoes you can walk uneven brick and grass in. The mission sites are not paved paths.

Sun and insects

• High factor sunscreen, more than you expect to use. The sun is stronger than the temperature suggests and there is nowhere to get out of it at the places you have come to see.
• Insect repellent, and the habit of using it in daylight. Dengue and chikungunya are carried by a mosquito that bites during the day, so evening only is the wrong rule here.
• A rechargeable fan or a cooling cloth is not a luxury in January. Paraguayans use them.

Documents and money

• Your passport, and the awareness that it must carry an entry stamp. See the entry requirements guide, which is the most important page in this cluster.
• Photo identification you can carry separately from your passport. The cited advice notes you may be asked for it when paying by credit card, and that many people keep it in a money belt.
• Small denomination notes, because breaking a large one is harder than it should be.
• Your travel insurance details, in a form you can reach without a signal.

Health

• Any prescription medicine in its original labeled packaging, with enough for the whole trip and a copy of the prescription.
• Oral rehydration salts. In this heat they earn their space several times over.
• A basic first aid kit. Outside the cities, and especially in the Chaco, a pharmacy can be a long way off.

If you are going to the Chaco

The Chaco changes the list. Distances between settlements are long, services are few and surface water is saline. Carry far more drinking water than seems necessary, carry a means of charging things independently of a vehicle, and do not treat a phone signal as something you will have. A hammock is genuinely useful, because shelters here are built for one and campsites often provide the frame and nothing else.

What to leave behind

Expensive jewelry and anything that announces itself. The cited safety advice is explicit that carrying large amounts of cash or wearing expensive jewelry makes you a target, and the pleasure of Paraguay is not a place where you need either.

Sources

• Centers for Disease Control and Prevention: Paraguay traveler health: a yellow fever vaccine recommended for all travelers aged nine months and over except where travel is limited to the city of Asuncion, and separately a country entry requirement under which the vaccine is not required for direct travel from the United States but is required for travelers aged one year and over arriving from Bolivia, Brazil, Peru or Venezuela, counting airport transits and layovers of more than 24 hours in those countries; malaria recorded as a risk in some parts of Paraguay with no area named. Accessed 17 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Paraguay safety and security: the record that groups may set up blockades along the main roads and in downtown Asuncion near government buildings, that bag snatching and pickpocketing are a problem on public transport, the advice to use cash machines inside buildings and to call a licensed taxi from a landline or a hotel rather than hailing one in the street, the note that photo identification may be asked for when paying by credit card, and the assessment that although there is no recent history of terrorism in Paraguay attacks cannot be ruled out. Accessed 17 September 2026.
• UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office: Paraguay entry requirements: a passport valid for the duration of the stay, 90 days of permission granted on arrival with a further 90 available from the Paraguayan Immigration Department, the instruction to make sure an immigration official stamps, dates and signs the passport on arrival, the fine levied on departure where there is no entry stamp, the note that long-distance bus drivers sometimes tell foreign nationals they can complete immigration formalities in Asuncion and that this is not true, the Permiso del Menor required of under 18s resident in Paraguay, the declaration required for cash or traveler's checks worth 10,000 US dollars or more, and the warning that false banknotes are common when changing money with people on the street or on arrival at the airport. Accessed 17 September 2026.