Argentina Travel Guide

Perito Moreno Glacier is the crown jewel of Los Glaciares National Park and one of the world's most famous living glaciers: a 5-km-wide tongue rising 60-74 metres above Lago Argentino, about 170 metres thick in total, advancing roughly 2 metres a day while keeping a rare mass balance (its northern front has shown retreat since 2020). Some 4-5.5 km of multi-level metal walkways stand just 300 metres from the ice, putting visitors eye to eye with the blue crevasse light — and daily calving crashes into the lake with a thunder-like roar that carries down the Iceberg Channel. Every four or five years the glacier dams the lake and collapses in a spectacular rupture. Just 78 km from El Calafate with no trek required, it is Patagonia's undisputed number-one sight.

Plaza de Mayo is the political and historical heart of Buenos Aires: it was the city's Plaza Mayor at Garay's second founding in 1580, and only took its open form after the Recova arcade was demolished in 1884. The pink Casa Rosada on the east side is the presidential palace, its balcony famous from the Perons' addresses; the May Pyramid at the centre, raised in 1811, is the city's oldest public monument, ringed by the Metropolitan Cathedral, the colonial Cabildo and the Banco de la Nacion. Since 1977 the Mothers of Plaza de Mayo have marched around the pyramid every Thursday afternoon for their disappeared children, their white headscarves painted on the pavement below. Free and open around the clock, it is an unavoidable stop for understanding modern Argentine history.

The Obelisco is Buenos Aires' most photogenic landmark: a 67.5 m square-column monument designed by Alberto Prebisch, unveiled on 23 May 1936 for the city's 400th anniversary (1536-1936) and built in just 31 days. It stands on the traffic island where Avenida 9 de Julio — at its widest about 140 metres, among the widest avenues on Earth — crosses theatre-lined Avenida Corrientes. The monument cannot be climbed, but the spot is Argentina's kilometro 0, where all national road distances begin; when Argentina wins the World Cup or on national holidays, hundreds of thousands gather here, and on ordinary nights it is the fixed vantage point for photographers. Steps away stands the Teatro Colon, one of the world's great opera houses — an easy walking pairing.

Tierra del Fuego National Park lies about 11 kilometres west of Ushuaia. Covering 630 square kilometres since its creation in 1960, it is Argentina's southernmost national park and the end of the Pan-American Highway. Mountains, subantarctic beech forest, lakes, peat bogs and Beagle Channel coast all fit inside one boundary: tranquil Lapataia Bay, where Route 3 finally stops; Lake Roca (Acigami) mirroring the southern Andes; and forests home to guanacos, red foxes, Andean condors and the introduced beavers. Trails run from easy coastline walks to long forest treks, and the End of the World Train runs its terminus deep into the park — the essential wild 'end of the world' outing from Ushuaia.

Iguazu National Park in Argentina's Misiones province, together with the Brazilian side, protects the Iguazu Falls — a natural World Heritage Site since 1984, where some 275 drops plunge through subtropical rainforest and the Devil's Throat roars into an 80-metre chasm in a U-shaped curtain. Argentina is the 'inside the falls' side: the Upper Circuit walks along the cataract tops, the Lower Circuit drops into the spray below, a 1.1 km catwalk crosses the river to the Throat viewpoint, and the ecological train links the stations. Coatis, capuchin monkeys and toucans move through more than 2,000 plant species. Note: the Devil's Throat catwalk has been closed since August 2026 due to flood damage; the Upper and Lower circuits remain open — check official notices for reopening.

Ushuaia, capital of Argentina's Tierra del Fuego province, sits between the snowcapped Martial mountains and the Beagle Channel — the southernmost city on Earth and the jumping-off port for most Antarctic cruises. Built on the slope, the town of about 80,000 climbs from the harbour along Avenida San Martin, lined with timber houses, outdoor outfitters, wool shops and king-crab restaurants; it became the territory's capital in 1884 and has been the southernmost patch of Patagonian life ever since. The local centolla crab is a must, ideally with a mug of hot wine. Beyond town, the End of the World Train carries you into Tierra del Fuego National Park, while Beagle Channel boats run to the sea-lion and bird islands and the 'lighthouse at the end of the world'. Antarctic season runs November to March; in winter (June-September) skiing and snowmobiling take over — the end of the world is never quiet.