Argentina is 3,700 kilometres long. Book it in the right order.
Which glacier boat gets you close to the ice. What a tango dinner is really worth. Whether Iguazú needs two days or one. Reviews of every tour you can book in Argentina, priced and timed.
A glacier, a tango stage, the falls, and the train to the bottom of the map.
The four bookings a first Argentine itinerary is built around. What each one costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The one you came forPerito Moreno Glacier & Optional Boat CruiseThe ice front from the boardwalks, with the boat option that puts you level with the wall. Go on the first bus, before the light flattens.
02The first nightPiazzolla Tango Show with Optional DinnerA proper stage show rather than a restaurant floor act, with dinner if you want the whole evening handled.
03Both sides in a dayBrazil/Argentina Sides Iguazu Falls Day TourThe panorama from Brazil in the morning, the walkways over the Argentine drops after lunch. One passport, two countries, one waterfall.
04The end of the roadNational Park & Train of the End of the World TourThe narrow-gauge train into Tierra del Fuego, then the park itself. The last stop before the Southern Ocean.
In Buenos Aires the evening is the main event. Pick the kind.
A stage with a bandoneón on it, nine courses of beef, or a closed-door kitchen in Palermo. Three ways to spend the night in the capital, and what it takes to board each one.
Six Argentine bases, and the best day out from each.
The capital and its grills, the ice front at El Calafate, the channel out of Ushuaia, Malbec country under Aconcagua, the falls on the Brazilian border and the red rock of the northwest. Pick the ones your flights can actually reach.
Patagonia runs on a short season, and the good days go early.
Ice calving into Lago Argentino, penguins ashore on the Atlantic coast, sea lions on the rocks of the Beagle Channel. Distances down here are measured in flights, so the south is the part of a trip that has to be booked before anything else.
The Argentine days out more travellers take than any other.
Every Argentine tour we have reviewed →A glacier, a hop-on bus, a tango stage and a waterfall, in the order the bookings actually fall.
1
Perito Moreno Glacier & Optional Boat Cruise
Travel from El Calafate to Perito Moreno Glacier with a bilingual guide such as Tobias, Noela, or Micaela. You’ll have about three hours for the boardwalks, with an optional one-hour boat ride to the glacier wall. Hotel pickup, transport, and park guidance are included, but food and admission cost extra.
From · $80
Read our review →
2
Piazzolla Tango Show with Optional Dinner
from $48
3
City Highlights Guided Tour with Transfer
from $38
4
La Boca Guided Walking Tour in English
from $13
5
Brazil/Argentina Sides Iguazu Falls Day Tour
from $49
6
La Recoleta Cemetery Guided Tour in English
from $13
7
Tango Show at Tango Porteño & Optional Dinner
from $40
8
Full-Day Tour to El Chaltén
from $130
What a day out in Argentina actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Buenos Aires is the cheap end and Patagonia is not, and the gap between them decides most itineraries.
City walks, the Recoleta and La Boca guides, a tango stage seat and the shorter runs out of the capital.
The full days: the glacier boardwalks, the Beagle catamarans, Mendoza wine country and both sides of Iguazú.
Ice trekking on Perito Moreno, private Andean drivers, El Chaltén in a day and the flights that shorten Patagonia.
- 1Gaucho and Ranch Day Tourfrom $168
- 2Perito Moreno Glacier Trekking Tour and Cruisefrom $396
- 3Penguin Watching Tour by Catamaranfrom $180
Three things that happen in Argentina and nowhere else.
Mountains and vineyards turn up all over the Americas. A glacier you can watch collapse, a ridge with fourteen colours in it, and a dance the city invented do not.
The Perito Moreno Rupture
Perito Moreno is one of the few glaciers on earth that is not retreating. It advances across the Brazo Rico until it dams the arm off, the trapped water rises for months, and the ice tunnel underneath finally collapses in front of the boardwalks. That full rupture comes every few years, but blocks calve off the sixty-metre face all day, and you hear them before you see them.
- 1Perito Moreno Glacier & Optional Boat Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 2,586 reviews
- 2Perito Moreno Glacier Trekking Tour and Cruise★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 805 reviews
- 3Calafate: Perito Moreno Glacier Guided Full-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 155 reviews
The Quebrada de Humahuaca
The gorge north of Jujuy cuts through rock laid down over hundreds of millions of years, and each layer weathered a different colour. Purmamarca gets the famous seven; the Hornocal ridge above Humahuaca runs to fourteen and only shows them properly in the afternoon light. The road runs to 4,300 metres, so the drivers go slowly and stop for coca tea on the way up.
- 1Full-Day Trip to Salinas Grandes and Purmamarca★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 914 reviews
- 2Salinas Grandes, Purmamarca & Los Colorados Hike★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 356 reviews
- 3Serranías del Hornocal & Hill of 14 Colors Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 339 reviews
Tango, on its own stage
Tango came out of the port districts in the 1880s and spent decades being respectable nowhere. The show rooms that survived are the ones with a live orchestra rather than a backing track, a bandoneón you can see being played, and dancers who work the floor instead of the front row. Dinner is nearly always optional, and the seats near the stage sell first.
- 1Piazzolla Tango Show with Optional Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.4 · 2,122 reviews
- 2Tango Show at Tango Porteño & Optional Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 981 reviews
- 3Madero Tango Show with Optional Dinner★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 748 reviews
Four Argentine bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be sorted out over breakfast the day before. These four run on seasons, timetables and driving distances that have no interest in when your flight lands.
- 01Perito Moreno Glacier & Optional Boat CruiseThe boats that run along the ice face sail to a fixed timetable and take a set number of passengers. Summer departures go long before you land.
- 02National Park & Train of the End of the World TourThe narrow-gauge train into the park runs a handful of services a day, and in high season the carriages are spoken for well in advance.
- 03Penguin Watching Tour by CatamaranPenguins are a season, not a sight. The Magellanic colonies are ashore roughly September to March and empty for the rest of the year.
- 04Full-Day Tour to El ChalténEl Chaltén is four hours each way from El Calafate. It is a whole day arranged in advance, or it is not a day you get.
Patagonia closes for the winter. Buenos Aires and the north do not.
Glacier boats, the Ushuaia catamarans and most of the Andean lake country run roughly October to April. From May the trip moves north instead: a stage with an orchestra on it, beef over coals, Malbec at the foot of the Andes and red rock that looks better in low winter sun.
Mendoza pours Malbec with Aconcagua in the window.
Three bodegas and an olive press before lunch, a long table in Luján de Cuyo after it, and the road to the Chilean border climbing past the highest mountain outside Asia. Two hours from Buenos Aires by air, and a completely different country when you land.
By place — capital, Andes, Patagonia
By kind of day — ice, grill, vineyard or stage
Buenos Aires, Iguazú, Salta, Mendoza, then straight down to the ice.
The most recent Argentine days out to get a review.
More recent Argentine reviews →
Big Ice: Explore the heart of the Perito Moreno Glacier
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Bariloche “Small Circuit” with Chairlift Campanario Hill
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San Martin de los Andes along the Route of the 7 Lakes
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Puerto Blest and Cascada de los Cántaros (Waterfall of the Cantaros)
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