It’s with the background of decades of traveling the world that I tell you that South America has got hold of me in a way that nowhere else has managed to match.
Despite my numerous visits to this extraordinary continent I’ve traveled very little to the vast southern Chilean/Argentinian expanse known as Patagonia. The Chilean town of Puerto Montt was as far south as I’d traveled, until now.
On previous visits to the continent, lack of time, and a feeling that it was too cold to head down to Patagonia had me heading elsewhere. Around April 2023 my brother flew over to South America for his second visit to the continent, during which time he headed immediately to Patagonia and found the conditions to be perfect.
Thankfully, we had managed to pick up a couple of business class reward flights to Chile and on my brother’s experience we decided to head to Patagonia, via a short stop in Argentina’s lively capital, Buenos Aires. Before you head to Argentina, don’t miss my guide to making your dollar go further via the “Blue dollar”.
We flew from Buenos Aires to the Patagonian town of El Calafate with national airline, Aerolineas Argentinas, who were disorganized, and bloody terrible. A better option if you’re flying from Australia is to take a flight with one of the budget carriers making the trip from the Chilean capital, Santiago, to El Calafate. Sky airlines were fine.
In the coming weeks I’ll add a few more posts about our experiences in Patagonia which I will title the “Patagonia series”. As a brief outline, Upon arrival in El Calafate airport we immediately purchased a bus ticket to the hiking mecca, El Chalten. After a few days of hiking we headed to El Calafate, chiefly to visit the stunning Perito Moreno glacier before catching the bus out of Argentina and into the southern Chilean town of Puerto Natales, which served only as a cheap platform to exit Patagonia.
We loved our time in Patagonia and already have plans to go back, most likely to the extreme southern region known as Tierra del Fuego. Hopefully you enjoy this series enough that it inspires you to take your own Independent Adventures.