There is no preparing for the scale of Patagonia. You can study the photographs, read the accounts, watch the documentaries — and still, standing at the base of the Torres del Paine granite towers with wind that wants to remove your jacket from your body, you understand that the world is larger and wilder than you had remembered.
Patagonia straddles southern Argentina and Chile, covering a territory larger than most European countries. The highlights that draw most visitors — Torres del Paine in Chile, Los Glaciares National Park in Argentina — are separated by the Andes and require careful planning to visit together. But the journey between them, through landscapes that look designed rather than geological, is as good as the destinations themselves.
Torres del Paine
The W Trek — a four to five-day circuit of the park's most dramatic features — is the standard itinerary, and for good reason. The trek takes in the granite towers themselves, the Grey Glacier, the Valle del Francés, and the Hotel Las Torres base. Book accommodation on the trail six months in advance for the November to February season. The O Circuit adds three to four days and the less-visited back side of the massif.
Recommended Stay · Puerto Natales · Chile
Tierra Patagonia
A low-slung, wood-and-stone lodge on the shore of Lake Sarmiento, with uninterrupted views of the Torres del Paine massif. The ideal base for the national park — outstanding guiding, exceptional food, and the kind of architecture that earns its landscape.
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El Calafate & the Perito Moreno Glacier
On the Argentine side, El Calafate is the gateway to the Perito Moreno Glacier — one of the few advancing glaciers in the world. The boardwalks above and beside the glacier face allow you to watch and hear the calving in real time. It is one of the most viscerally dramatic natural spectacles in South America. Allow a full day.
Getting There
Both Punta Arenas (Chile) and El Calafate (Argentina) have regular flights from Santiago and Buenos Aires respectively. A Punta Arenas arrival and El Calafate departure, or vice versa, allows a natural loop through both countries. The border crossing between Chile and Argentina through the Torres del Paine area is straightforward and scenically unmissable.
