MinnBeef

Hi everyone. I’m usually found in the Europe forums and occasionally Japan. This is my first time posting in the South America forum. I am planning a 19 night trip to Argentina for next March 2023, into very early April. Having done research now through both the Rough Guide and Lonely Planet, I’m blown away by how much there is to see and do in Argentina. I will have to regretfully leave out highlights including Salta and Mendoza in order to keep my trip under 3 weeks, but I’m still very excited with what I’m planning to see. My interests are seeing wildlife, natural wonders, Argentine culture and of course, eating fantastic beef and drinking great Argentine wine. Here is the draft itinerary I’ve assembled.

Night 0: Overnight flight from Minneapolis to Buenos Aires, likely via Houston.
Night 1: Catch the afternoon flight from Buenos Aires to Posadas in order to visit the Jesuit missions the next morning
Night 2: Tour San Ignacio Mini and hopefully Santa Ana in the morning-early afternoon. Take a private transfer to Puerto Iguazu
Nights 3 and 4: Puerto Iguazu with a full day each for the Argentine and Brazilian side of the falls
Nights 5-8: Catch the morning flight to Bueno Aires and have 3 1/2 days for my first swing through BA
Nights 9-11: Fly from BA to Puerto Madryn. 3 nights in Puerto Madryn to tour Peninsula Valdes wildfire and Puerto Tomba penguins
Nights 12-14: Fly Puerto Madryn to El Calafate and arrive mid afternoon. Visit the Glacarium late afternoon. Boat cruise the next day to Perito Moreno (and possibly other) glaciers. Next day 3 hour drive to El Chalten to hike around Fitz Roy and return to El Calafate that night. Long day, I know.
Nights 15-18: Fly El Calafate to Ushuaia. Tour the town. Take a cruise on the Beagle Channel, visiting Estancia Haberton and Isla Morillo. Hike Tierra del Fuego National Park.
Night 19: Fly Ushuaia to BA, arriving around noon. Afternoon and evening to see last few things in BA I did not see on the first swing through.
Day 20: Long flight home from BA to Minneapolis, likely through Houston.

Thoughts on this? My main question is whether I should take one night from Ushuaia and give it to El Calafate.

Thank you!

mjs

Just a few comments. I think 2 full days to see Iguazu falls is fine. Three full days for BA is plenty. The glacier museum in El Calafate is about a 20 min bus ride from town and worth about a half hour of your time. The town itself is small. I’m not sure it’s worth a day trip to Fitz Roy as you won’t be able to do much hiking. I would do at least a night or better two. Ushuaia is also rather small but worth 2 days. Highly recommend the El Viejo Marino seafood restaurant if you like crab or fish. Inexpensive and fresh.
Lastly I would recommend the use of a Argentina travel advisor to help plan your trip. Isabel is fantastic and helped plan two of our trips. She charges a flat fee which is well worth it and she has extensive experience traveling around the region and contacts with hotels. She keeps track of you and once when one of our airlines went on a impromptu strike, she contacted us and changed our reservations to another airline so our trip went smoothly. Our last trip was to Patagonia and I sent her a National Geographic tour outline and she arranged a tour with 4 nights at a very pricey Torres del Paine hotel instead of one night with NG with custom drivers and tour guides for much less than NG. Hope she is still working post COVID [email protected]

MinnBeef

Thank you for your thoughtful reply, mjs. Since I posted this original plan, I have done exactly what you’ve suggested and have put two full nights to El Chalten. This will allow me one full day for hiking around Fitz Roy. I’ve also regretfully scrapped touring the Missions as the intra-Argentina flights seem to change frequently and current schedules do not allow a Posadas flight and a Trelew to El Calafate flight to both work into my itinerary without major revisions.

Thank you for Isabel’s contact information. I am generally a “plan my own itinerary” kind of guy but it’s great to have a strong contact name should I have trouble arranging any parts of my trip as I get closer to March.

Many thanks!

mjs

I plan my own trips to Europe and Asia but found Isabel through this forum years ago and have always been grateful for her insight and experience traveling in Argentina and Chile.
she is incredibly reliable with private transportation when necessary, hotels I would have never found and thoughts on how best to construct a itinerary. Things do not necessarily work reliability in South America as they do in day Europe or Japan or Singapore.

thursdaysd

I had a great time in Patagonia, but did not visit some of the places you are interested in, specifically Puerto Madryn and Ushuaia. I did not feel that I needed help with the planning.

Unfortunately, I found that these days the best beef is in Uruguay. I thought three nights worked well for Iguazu, and three were overkill for El Chalten. I enjoyed the Lake District (after time in Chile).

For my report start here: Rio to Santiago via Patagonia - or here with pix: https://mytimetotravel.wordpress.com...y-spectacular/

MinnBeef

Agreed. I have made note of her contact information and can foresee reaching out to her on tricky planning issues over the coming months. And PS- thank you for the restaurant reco in Ushuaia. I love crab!

MinnBeef

Hi thursdaysd and thanks for your input! I have 3 nights planned right now for Iguazu-one night simply for travel from my flight arrival in BA, one full day for Argentina side and then one full day for Brazil side. (Although I’ve heard there is more to see from the Argentina side.)

I would love to do a side trip to Uruguay but unfortunately, I’m already at 19 nights with the current itinerary. Hopefully on a next trip.

Thank you for the link to your trip report. I will enjoy reading that and no doubt learn some things!

MichGuy

I decided to post on this thread just so I can see comments as they're made in the future. This itinerary is similar to one I'm working on for a future trip, maybe in 2024. So far it's: BA - Bariloche - el Calafate - el Chalten? - Puerto Natales - Ushuaia - BA. These distances are long and I already like the idea of using a planner like Isabel!

thursdaysd

Strongly recommend including Iguaza, it really is spectacular.

MichGuy

Makes sense. What about dropping Bariloche? Especially if we do both el Calafate and el Chaltan? We're hikers, albeit old ones, and a lot of our time would be spent walking.