Where to go next?

Married with no kids heading south I'd look at Argentina.

You're in a place where you can enjoy 3 hour wine tasting and steak dinners that would be my jam.

Buenos Aires/Montevideo (city); Mendoza (wine), San Carlos de Bariloche (mountains)

Great recommendation on Argentina. I cant wait to go back.

On the other side of the Andes, check out Valparaiso, Chile. Then head south to hit up some of the national parks and Alpine views.

Most of the interesting stuff (city wise) is on the East side, but that's spending 17h from LAX to fly to a country basically the size of the USA.

Olympics in Milan in February?

We rarely use an agency, but when planning Peru, Equador and Galapagos we used Vaya Travel to help with local booking and flights - LINK

Our experience was that they helped you develop a profile of interests, tastes and budget. Then they gave us a flexible list of choices. We had no complaints other than a long layover in Quinto before flying to Houston. To fill some of those hours they had a guide pick us up at the airport and take us to dinner at a nearby resort...their expense.

Quinto and the rest of Ecuador are very welcoming. It's promoting itself as a retirement home for Americans... they use the US dollar. Quinto itself is far more laidback than Lima. Peru's capital is a big bustling city with very bad traffic. Once you head into the mountains life relaxes.

Two cautionary notes. First, don't go if you have any high-altitude issues; you will get to 10,000ft. While at Machu Pichu we witnessed a Japanese tourist being medevac'd out due to dangerous altitude sickness. Second, getting a food-born illness somewhere on the trip is a high likelihood.