While we spent six summer days in Patagonia (in March), eight days at a bare minimum are needed to hit the most popular day hikes without rushing. Six days was definitely a rush to travel between the towns and the borders but it’s the most we could manage to do after our time in Buenos Aires. These eight days would still only cover Torres del Paine (Chile) and El Calafate/El Chalten (Argentina), but not Puerto Arenas/Tierra del Fuego (Chile) or Ushuaia (Argentina). However, if you are an avid hiker, I strongly recommend at the very least 2 weeks, and planning WELL in advance. The Patagonia Reddit community is an incredible source of information for those planning on camping.
Quips
- Car – don’t believe the other blogs – if you’re traveling between Torres del Paine and El Chalten, a sedan will no doubt get you from point A to B. But we genuinely regretted not renting an SUV; the quality of the roads in early 2024 let our backs and bodies feel every rock and bump. Several hours of this at a time does get very annoying and it’s worth the convenience of a smoother ride.
- Check the times of when hikes close in the month you’re going. In March, you have to be on a hiking trail by 4pm in Torres del Paine or else they won’t let you begin (even though sunset was almost at 9pm, which makes no sense for short hikes) and we couldn’t start the Mirador Hike after 10a (lesson learned).
- Weather & Packing: so, so many layers. On any one hike you can and will experience a myriad of temperatures from wanting to strip down to nothing, to throwing on all your clothes and hat and dying to come down to return to the heat. Smartwool socks, sports bras, merino wool shirts, gloves, hats, rain jackets, and hiking shoes were crucial.
- Rent Hiking Poles! Get them at the entrance of the park or see if you can borrow them from your hotel. They are absolutely worth it on the big hikes.
- Staying in Puerto Natales or Cerro Castillo in Torres del Paine? We debated what to make our home base and decided to do one day in each. Puerto Natales is an amazing town with lots of restaurants and a great vibe and if you plan on doing day trips and getting gas, it’s a great base, but it is an extra 45 minutes to get to the park. Cerro Castillo hotels will charge you 3x more than the cost for gas, but for me, being closer to the park for a day trip was much easier from here. However if you’re staying for more than 2 days, and you should, Puerto Natales is a more fun base.
- Do make time to enjoy the drive from El Calafate to El Chalten. And on your drives in general, pay attention to the animals, not only for the sake of their survival, but because they’re magnificent! We have a new favorite animal: the guanoco and chulengo (baby guanoco). Make note of all the stickers at the rest area/viewpoints – they’re really fun. In general, the drives throughout all of Patagonia were more desolate than we expected with few cars along our routes. Do pull over for a minute when driving at night to look up at the upside-down lit up constellations!
- Gas – Driving from El Calafate to Cerro Castillo or Puerto Natales navigation wise is extremely easy. But gas stations are in short supply. Evan’s contribution: A few great gas stations in Calafate; one open 24/7 in Esperanza (1:50 hours and 163 Kilometers away) a tiny way station on the way to anywhere else from Calafate- 2 gas stations in Rio Turbio(1:50 and 159 KM from Esperanza) – opposite the Dorotea Border crossing between Argentina and Chile nearest to Puerto Napales. 2 gas stations in Puerto Natales, Hotel Estancia El Ovejero Patagonico will sell you gas out of their shed using half a Coke bottle as a funnel for 2,500-3,000 pesos a liter – 3+ times more than the cost in Argentina. Gas in Puerto Napales, Chile was roughly twice the cost as gas in Argentina – for Super 95 octane.
Type 1 Diabetic Quips
- Mirador Hike: 12 kms / roughly 6 miles mostly at an incline. The first 2 kms up and the last 2 kms up will likely require juice, sugar tablets, or snacks – had 2-3 lows (but this was expected, even with activity mode on my pump).
Our Itinerary for Six Summer Days in Patagonia
Our order in Patagonia involved grabbing the car in El Calafate and driving straight to Torres del Paine, coming back to El Calafate for the glacier, driving to Fitz Roy, and then flying back out of El Calafate. The Fitz Roy hike appeared easier than the Mirador hike, so looking back, I wish we reversed the order, but if you’re an avid hiker, I don’t think there is a “right” way – only having enough time with breaks in between.
- Day 1: Land in El Calafate, get car, drive to Puerto Natales – get groceries in Puerto Natales for hikes for the next two days, grab dinner in Puerto Natales
- Day 2: Day Hikes in Torres del Paine – stay in Cerro Castillo; Dinner at Glacier Gray Restaurant
- Day 3: Mirador Hike all day – drop by Cerro Castillo again to refill gas tank, drive/stay in El Calafate
- Day 4: El Calafate Glacier Day – drive to El Chalten, dinner/stay in El Chalten
- Day 5: did the scenic drive up to El Chalten and took our time stopping at a million viewpoints because the drive really is fantastic – this was our “rest day”
- Day 6: Fitz Roy Hike attempt – and instead did a few short day hikes
Detailed Itinerary
Days 1-2: Torres del Paine (incl. travel to/from El Calafate)
At minimum to cover the highlights of TdP, you need at least 2-3 days. If you’re doing the W trek, you need 5, and the O trek takes 10 days. On one of your two day highlights, we recommend a full day of short hikes. Drive from the town of Puerto Natales north to do Glaciar Gray and maybe even rent a kayak and get out on the water. Then head out to Salto Grande/Mirador Cuernos for a quick 1.5-hour loop. If you started really early and are staying in Cerro Castillo, you can also head to the east side and finish a hike at Laguna Azul/Laguna Cebolla. This could probably also be divided into two days. We actually did these reversed and by the time we got to Glaciar Gray it was too late to start this hike so we missed out on it. I would recommend Glaciar Gray and the suspension bridges/boat tours from my research over the east side. Here are one, two, three – blogs with detailed day hikes to “help” you decide that I thought were supremely useful. Honestly, figuring out day hikes before getting there is quite overwhelming, but once at the main gate, we found the people to be super helpful and figured out what to do quite quickly. It’s not as bad as it looks.
On our second day, we started the famous Mirador las Torres hike around 9:30am and were back in the car around 6pm with a one-hour lunch break at the top (though I actually highly recommend eating before you get to the very top if you sense there might be any wind up there). My only recommendation – TRAIN a lot beforehand if you’re not an avid hiker. Our knees are still suffering, and we’re wildly embarrassed about it. The walk from the parking lot to what I would consider the start of the hike was probably about 1.5 kms, then 2 kms at an incline, 1-2 kms mostly straight, and then 2 kms straight up. I actually zoomed going up, but the second we turned around and started going down – let’s say I need to get back to bootcamp.
Restaurant & Hotel Mentions:
- Cafe Kaiken – delicious dinner in Puerto Natales, Chile featuring mushroom ceviche, ravioli, and thier local special fish.
- Hotel Lago Gray restaurant – restaurant in TdP including amazing wine, steak, shrimp ceviche, and veggie curry with potatoes/lentils that Evan enjoyed.
- Domos by Toore Patagonia Hotel in Puerto Natales – our favorite hotel on this entire trip – nothing over the top luxurious, but a super cute hotel for a great price and breakfast included.
- Hotel Ovejero Patagonico in Cerro Castillo, Chile – closer to the entrance of TdP including breakfast with options for dinner and you can fill up your gas here.
Days 3 & 4: El Calafate
Most tourists go to El Calafate to see the Perito Moreno Glacier. You can see it on the walkways (still need to pay an entrance fee into the park but the walkways are covered in this), but in our opinion the ice trek was SO worth the money. We did the mini-trek 2, which was a new trek added in 2024 by Hielo y Aventura (the original mini trek takes you on the boat, then you hike defined trails on the glacier for an hour and then you get a shot of whisky on the ice). The new mini-trek 2 didn’t have defined trails – we made our own – and gave us an extra time walking the glaciers. We didn’t have shots on the ice, but rather on the boat ride back, and thought it was a much better option. For the even more adventurous, you could do the Big Trek, which was more money and 5-6 hours on the ice, but quite frankly, the 3 hours we spent felt more than sufficient for the experience.
I’ll say we read a lot of negative reviews about the town of El Calafate, and again must be the outliers because for a one night stay, we thought it was full of cute restaurants, bars, and souvenir stores. Yes, it’s made for tourists .. but let’s not kid ourselves, that’s why we like it. And honestly, this town is built for tourists, so let’s maybe accept that and enjoy it instead? 😉
Days 5 & 6: El Chalten
Sadly, because my knee got so messed up at Torres del Paine, I couldn’t make the Laguna de los Tres hike; the peak of the outline of mountains of which the Patagonia logo is modeled after. About two hours into the hike, my knee was on fire even though we had opted to drive and start from the northern Electric River Bridge entrance to avoid the steep incline from town. I beat myself up about it for days even though I knew the right thing had been to turn around. It was somewhat of a wakeup call and gave me all the motivation I needed to know I must come back. It sounds incredible to do the hike at night to make it up in time for sunrise, because even from our hotel we could see how pink the sky got for 10 minutes over the Fitz Roy. We WILL be ready to do that next time. While we did manage to check out the Chorillo del Salto and pulled into another random trail to have lunch (it wasn’t labeled), the one random trail had such blue waters that it made me look forward even more to coming back.
We wouldn’t personally know, but there are a ton of day hikes you can do here – from Cerro Torre, Laguna Torre, and all the glacier hikes. When you get back to town, similar to Puerto Natales, the culture could not be more vibrant with like-minded people probably as yourself. People who just hiked, are hungry, and a ready for good food and good music as a reward. There are lot of live bands that come around and play. We loved it here and genuinely hope to come back for at least 5 days alone to El Chalten and conquer all the day hikes.
Restaurant/Bar Mentions – there are a ton to try out, but we loved these:
- La Cervecería Chaltén – Evan loved all the beers, the mushroom empanada, and the vegetariano sandwich. The Patagonica salads is one of the best salads I’ve ever had (and converted Evan to enjoying blue cheese in salads) as well as the the Locro stew (with veggies, beef, sausage, bacon); also one of the most flavorful soups I’ve ever had.
- Fresco Bar – two containers put together to make a happy hour/casual bar spot
- SIMPLE had great sandwiches you can get at breakfast time to take along for your hike
- The Supermercado Pachamama grocery store had everything we needed, but keep in mind everyone in here after 5pm came from a hike, so this may be the mustiest grocery store you’ll ever walk into 😉
- The Black Sheep – Parrilla La Oveja Negra – I tried the trout stuffed pasta with roquefort cheese sauce (the area is known for its trout) and Evan had the fritters with curry oil and the vegetarian milanesa – both of which were fantastic and great vegetarian/meat options – our perfect mix. As was the live music that night.
There are few groups in my life that I have wanted to fit into. Brooklyn’s melting pot has exposed me to hipsters, to my fellow American Russian speaking group, to burners, to financiers, to gym rats/marathon runners – but never have I been as enthralled with hikers as I was after this trip. The friendliness we experienced from hikers from all walks (literally) and all areas of the world – was infectious. And I thoroughly cannot wait to come back. We may, or may not have both shed a tear driving up to the El Calafate airport when leaving because we enjoyed it so much. I’m grateful to Patagonia for letting me be a part of it’s long, lovely life and if you’ve been, please don’t hesitate to tell me what I should do next time!
This entry was posted in Argentina, Chile, South America
