Great Argentina Itineraries

The Big City, Waterfalls, and Wine

Day 1: Arrival

Arrive in Buenos Aires and pick up a city map from the tourist office right before you enter the main airport terminal. Ignore the drivers asking if you need a cab; head straight for the taxi booth, pay up front for your ticket (about 250 pesos), and let staffers assign you a driver. Spend your first afternoon in La Recoleta, whose famous cemetery contains Eva Perón's tomb. Make your first meal a memorable one at a grill with a bife de chorizo.

Day 2: Plaza de Mayo, San Telmo, and La Boca

Have your morning coffee and croissants at ultratraditional Gran Café Tortoni. Stroll down Avenida de Mayo to take in Plaza de Mayo, including a quick look round the Museo del Bicentenario. Hop a taxi to La Boca, the port neighborhood where tango was born. The main strip is Caminito, which though colorful and iconic, is too touristy to merit more than an hour. Lunch at El Obrero is a classic.

Another characteristic old neighborhood, San Telmo, is a short taxi ride away. Set aside an hour to get up close to its history with a visit to El Zanjón de Granados, a fascinating house loaded with history. After coffee (or a beer) at one of San Telmo's many traditional cafés, spend the rest of the afternoon wandering through the antiques and clothes shops.

Day 3: Palermo

After a leisurely breakfast, head for a stroll, skate, or cycle through the Parque 3 de Febrero, and linger at the Jardín Japonés or the Rosedal. Walk or take a short taxi ride to MALBA, which opens at noon, and work up an appetite viewing Latin American art.

Hop a cab to the cutting-edge Palermo Viejo neighborhood, where you can lunch on sushi, Vietnamese, or far-out fusion. Afterward, browse the city's coolest clothing, shoe, and homeware stores. When night falls, have coffee or a cocktail near Plaza Serrano, and finish with dinner at a modern restaurant. If you're up for a nightcap, you're already where all the action is.

Day 4: Buenos Aires to Puerto Iguazú

Catch an early morning flight up to Puerto Iguazú. After a quick stop at your hotel, head straight for the Argentine side of Parque Nacional Iguazú. Spend the rest of the day wandering the trails and catwalks and getting soaked on a Zodiac ride through some of the spectacular waterfalls.

Day 5: Iguazú Falls: the Brazilian Side

Spend your second morning at the falls at the Parque Nacional Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil's national park, for amazing views of the Garganta del Diablo (Devil’s Throat). (Note that to enter Brazil, U.S. citizens need to have obtained a tourist visa in advance, which costs US$160. In Buenos Aires the Brazilian consulate has a three-day visa service and is open weekdays 9–3.)

Days 6-8: Mendoza

Catch an early flight to Mendoza via Buenos Aires. Spend your afternoon on the first day wandering through the stately city streets of Mendoza and people-watching in its main square, Plaza Independencia.

Divide your next two days between Mendoza's main wine-producing valleys: Uco and Luján de Cuyo. The wisest way to go is with a wine tour, which will help you make the most of your time, not to mention avoid drinking and driving. Let the wining and dining spill over into the evening with dinner at some of Mendoza City’s excellent restaurants. And if raising your glass isn’t your idea of exercise, spend the day rafting, hiking, horseback-riding, biking, or kayaking in fabulous natural settings only an hour or two from the city.

Days 9 and 10: To Buenos Aires and Home

Catch a morning flight to Buenos Aires and head to your favorite neighborhood for a late lunch.

You could spend the rest of your last day catching up on culture at the Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, history at the Museo Evita, or street art on a tour with Graffittimundo. Later, try out your footwork with a tango class and a visit to a milonga, or see the pros in action at an evening show.

If you need to do some last-minute shopping, divide your time between the chain stores on Avenida Santa Fe, high-end mall Paseo Alcorta, and the boutiques in Palermo. On your last day, allow at least an hour to get to Ezeiza for your flight home. If you kept your rental car so that you can drive yourself to the airport, make sure your hotel has a garage, and allow an extra half hour before your flight to return the car.

ALTERNATIVES

You could combine this 10-day itinerary with a day or two in gaucho country. The town of San Antonio de Areco, in the heart of the pampas, is home to several estancias, country houses turned hotels where gauchos tend to the horses. Most estancias include four meals per day in the room price, along with horseback riding or buggy rides. You can also visit just for the day, including a huge midday meat fest, often accompanied by a musical performance with whooping gauchos—cheesy, but fun. Set aside a couple of hours to browse the silversmiths' and artisans' stores that San Antonio is famous for, check out the gaucho museum, and wander the sleepy streets.

Another add-on or replacement side trip is to Uruguay. The port town of Colonia del Sacramento is easily accessible by Colonia Express, a fast ferry, which also has connecting buses to Montevideo. In summer the exclusive beach resort of Punta del Este is another option. Spending two or three days in Uruguay isn't just a fun way to get an extra passport stamp—it's a window into a country whose cultural differences from Argentina (their heightened obsession with maté, for instance) are readily apparent.

Bariloche to Patagonia

Day 1: Arrival and on to Bariloche

It’s a long trip to Patagonia. After you arrive at Buenos Aires’s Ezeiza International you need to transfer to the downtown Aeroparque for your flight to Bariloche. Rent a car at the airport, and drive to your hotel (consider a place on the Circuito Chico outside town). If you could use a beer after all that, choose a laid-back downtown pub to enjoy a local craft brew.

Day 2: Bariloche and Circuito Chico

Spend the day exploring the Circuito Chico and Peninsula Llao Llao. Start early so you have time for a boat excursion from the dock at Puerto Pañuelo on the peninsula's edge as well as for some late-afternoon shopping back in Bariloche. Spend the evening devouring Patagonian lamb a la cruz (spit-roasted over an open fire).

Day 3: Circuito Grande to Villa La Angostura

Villa La Angostura is a tranquil lakeside retreat that marks the beginning of the legendary Circuito Grande. Driving there is a gorgeous experience, as you hug the shores of Lago Nahuel Huapi on Ruta 237 and Ruta 231. Relax to the full by checking into a hotel in quiet Puerto Manzano, about 10 minutes outside Villa La Angostura.

Day 4: Villa La Angostura

Spend your second day in Villa La Angostura skiing at Cerro Bayo if it's winter and that's your thing. In warmer weather, explore the Parque Nacional Los Arrayanes, the only forest of these myrtle trees in the world, or simply relax by the lake—if you're staying at Puerto Sur, this might be the most appealing option.

Day 5: Ruta de los Siete Lagos to San Martín de los Andes

Head out of Villa La Angostura onto the unbelievable Seven Lakes Route (Ruta 234), which branches right and along the way passes seven beautiful lakes: Correntoso, Espejo, Pichi Traful, Villarino, Falkner, Hermoso, and Machónico. If you leave early, add the hour-long detour to Lago Traful, where you can stop for lunch. The route brings you to smart San Martín, where you can spend the late afternoon shopping, trying rainbow trout and other delicacies at the smoke shops, then enjoying them all over again for dinner. Note that the Seven Lakes Route is closed during particularly heavy winter snowfall, when you have to go through Junín de los Andes to get to San Martín.

Day 6: San Martín de los Andes

In winter, skiers should plan on at least one full day at Cerro Chapelco, near San Martín. Otherwise, spend the day relaxing on the beach, fishing, horseback riding, rafting, or just strolling the town.

Day 7: Flight to El Calafate

Get an early start from San Martín de los Andes for the four-hour drive back to Bariloche and then the two-hour flight to El Calafate, the base for exploring Parque Nacional Los Glaciares. From San Martín, be sure to take the longer but faster route through Junín to Bariloche (Ruta 234 and Ruta 237). If you follow the Ruta de los Siete Lagos, you'll have little chance of making an early afternoon flight.

In El Calafate, grab a taxi to your hotel, have dinner, and get some sleep in preparation for glacier-viewing tomorrow. If money is no object, stay at Hostería Los Notros, the only hotel within the park and in view of the glacier. The sky-high rates include all meals and excursions. Otherwise, stay at a hotel in El Calafate and book your Day 8 glacier visits through El Calafate tour operators (preferably before 7 pm).

Day 8: El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier

Spend two days taking in Perito Moreno from different angles. Devote today either to the Upsala Glacier tour, which traverses the lakes in view of an impressive series of glaciers, or the hour-long Safari Nautico on a boat that sails as close as possible to the front of the glacier. Enjoy a well-deserved dinner back in El Calafate. Make arrangements for a Day 9 ice trek by 7 pm.

Day 9: El Calafate and Perito Moreno Glacier

Don crampons and trek across Perito Moreno's icy surface. The trip is expensive, but worth every penny. You crawl through ice tunnels and hike across ice ridges that seem to glow bright blue. After all this, dinner—and everything else—will seem insignificant.

Day 10: Departure

Board a bus or taxi for El Calafate's renovated airport, and take a flight back through Buenos Aires and home. Note that if you are not connecting to another Aerolíneas flight home, you may have to spend an additional night in Buenos Aires on the way back.

ALTERNATIVES

Sports and outdoors enthusiasts can really customize this itinerary. Skiers, for example, can skip southern Patagonia, spending a day or two in Cerro Catedral, near Bariloche, and a day at Cerro Chapelco. Rafters can work with Bariloche operators to create trips that range from floats down the Río Manso—an 8-hour outing with easy rapids through a unique ecosystem—to 13-hour excursions to the Chilean border. And serious hikers can boat across Lago Mascardi to Pampa Linda, then hike to the black glaciers of Tronador, continuing up above the timberline to Refugio Otto Meiling, spending the night, walking along the crest of the Andes with glacier views, then returning to Pampa Linda. Day hikes to the foot of Tronador leave more time for a mountain-bike or horseback ride in the same area.

The most adventurous travelers drive from Bariloche to El Calafate instead of flying. It adds about a week to the itinerary, but it involves an unforgettable trip down the largely unpaved Ruta Nacional 40. Don't attempt this route without a four-wheel-drive vehicle equipped with two spare tires. And pack plenty of extra food and water as well as camping gear. Getting stuck in a place where cars and trucks pass only once every day or two is dangerous.