If you are a tourist or a visitor to Argentina, a very good starting off place is the City of Buenos Aires. You can find yourself a really comfortable apartment there, and in between explorations out into the vast spaces of Argentina, you can see the city, and take short tours in the vicinity. One of the trips you cannot miss, takes you to see Patagonia. You will find a large variety of long and shorter tours to various parts of this huge area. Patagonia has to be one of the world’s most beautiful places. It is the area that overlaps both Chile and Argentina, to the south of the Continent of South America and includes the southern Andes Mountains. You will often hear of a place called ‘Austral Patagonia’. This is Southern Patagonia; ‘australis’ being the Latin word for ‘southern’. Austral Patagonia in Argentina is that fascinating part of the country where, in winter, you find wonderful winter sports, and in summer you can hike or tour and see lakes, forests, glaciers as well as absolutely spectacular alpine and mountain scenery. As El Calafate is more than 2,700 kilometers from Buenos Aires, your best bet is to fly there. It is in the Santa Cruz Province of Argentina. It is a lovely little town from where you can visit Los Glaciares National Park and the Mountains of the Southern Patagonian Ice Field.

The National Park is where people go to see glaciers. One of the most visited glaciers in the world is the Perito Moreno Glacier. There you will find boat tours around the front of the glacier, where you get the best view of the sheer ice cliffs. You can even find a guided tour that takes you clambering over the rugged wastes of the glacier itself, wearing climbing gear, such as crampons. Some of the famous Mountains you can see are Monte Fitz Roy, also known as Cerro Chalten, Torre Egger, Punta Herron, Cerro Stanhardt, and the tallest, Cerro Torre. These spectacular mountains are remarkable for their sheer granite cliffs and peaks. They are considered by many mountaineers to be among the most challenging climbs in the world. Way down below in South America is the province called Tierra del Fuego, known as the uttermost end of the world. This is mostly off the mainland and includes the archipelago of islands down to Cape Horn, as well as some of the Arctic Islands. In this area, Ushuaia is the center that most tourists make for, as it is a proper city. In fact, it is the southernmost city in the world. From here you can find wonderful tours to explore the channels and islands that make up the tip of South America.

The Tierra del Fuego National Park is on the Argentine side of the Island of Tierra del Fuego. Not far from Ushuaia, it has boundaries on the Chilean border, and on the Beagle Channel. In summer, it is a wonderful place to walk and hike, with forests, waterfalls, and always the mountains and glaciers in the background.