We stayed at El Patagonico in Puerto Natales. It was a great hostel. Big open concept kitchen + common area that was really cozy. The outdoor garden was great for phone calls. The rooms were quiet and we got good nights sleep here. Wifi worked great. Highly recommend staying here!
Puerto Natales is full of cute restaurants and cafes! We celebrated Sonja’s birthday here as well so we tried out some nice spots:
There’s not much to DO in Puerto Natales, unless you are using this as your base to/from the park. Given we had the luxury of traveling slower, we enjoyed 2 days before and after the park here just preparing and catching up on admin stuff. It’s a lovely, lovely spot for a chilled out break. It was Sonja’s birthday so we had a spa treatment at Vibenso Spa (at the Darwin Hotel) We did enjoy walking along the waterfront, as well as just around the small town. We also met some new friends to play monopoly deal and explore the park with!
I really liked the town itself, but if you aren’t using it as a base then you don’t need to spend all that long here. If you are using it as a base, then prepare yourself for some long days. Our friend Gabbi met us in the park and she had to leave at 6:45am and returned at 10:30pm using the bus. We’d recommend renting a car, no matter whether you stay close to the park or in PN.
We splurged a little and stayed at a hotel near the park entrance to save some back & forth driving. Estancia Dos Elianas ended up being the perfect little spot! The room was so cozy and the heat cranked, which was much needed after chilly days in the park. Breakfast was included as well. There were cute cats & a dog on the grounds as well.
Don’t count on access to gas or an ATM once in the park, so be prepared. We found a hotel 5 min from that ended up selling us some gas from a gas canister – when in Patagonia!!!
Honestly either bring your own food or bring your wallet lol. Because we had splurged on a hotel and a rental car, we decided not to buy food while at the park. Knowing we wouldn’t have access to a kitchen, we brought ingredients to make sandwiches for lunch & packs of ramen since all we would need is some hot water to cook that. We got very creative haha.
We found that the refugios or other cafes that are supposedly open in the park were sometimes closed or were very expensive. The only thing we bought was a hot chocolate at Hosteria Pehoe. It was $5 but the views were worth it.
Again, obviously the most popular thing to do here is the W Trek, O trek or hiking to Grey Glacier. We did none of those things. As I mentioned earlier, because we weren’t sure of our dates as we planned our South American adventure, Sonja & I didn’t want to lock ourselves into anything ahead of time. Instead, we spent 3 days exploring the park with our rental car. Some of our new friends from Puerto Natales met us in the park and joined us for 2 of the days as well. The park felt very empty since everyone who was here was doing one of the more popular hiking adventures. Here’s what we did do to fill our three days:
This park is stunning! Take your time, and enjoy the park beyond the W Trek. We loved having the park to ourselves. Our introduction to Patagonia lived up to the hype!
We stayed at Rancho Grande hostel. The customer service was pretty bad and the downstairs was a restaurant so it was sometimes hard to distinguish who was staying versus just eating. Luckily the upstairs was just backpackers. The beds were not great but got the job done. We were worried it would be hard to meet people but we ended up finding our tribe. The kitchen was horrible and disgusting, but when prices are sky high, you make it work. Overall I would try to find a different hostel or airbnb before staying here, but it’s not the worst place in the world.
Since it was so expensive here, we did lots of cheap backpacker dinners at the hostel, but here were out highlight finds in town:
Hiking, hiking, and more hiking! Honestly if you don’t like hiking, then there wouldn’t be a reason to come here haha. This town is known as the “hiking capital” of Argentina. It’s like a ski town but for hiking. Most trailheads are walking distance from town, which is so cool! The two big hikes we took on:
You could spend many days here and still have hikes to explores for the first time. Other than the prices, I don’t have any complaints. It’s a very cute mountain town that is small enough to start to feel like you’ve lived there for years by day 3. You quickly start to recognize people in town & I never tired of the views. Anywhere between 4-7 days is great here (as long as you like hiking). Have I made that clear?!
We stayed at Red House Hostel and had a mixed experience. The hotel itself was cute, clean, and in a pretty good location, but the staff were rude. Breakfast was from 7-10 but the pancakes would run out at 7:30am… which is odd, like just make enough if you know people are staying there. Also the common area shuts at 11pm sharp so there is no place to hang and play cards or make a phone call home if time zones don’t align with Argentina. I had to spend 2 hrs in the freezing cold to speak to a friend. I still think it’s not a bad spot, but just consider the above. It’s a small hotel so very easy to meet people!
We did lots of cooking at the hostel but here are the two places we went that I would recommend:
The main, almost only, thing to do here is visit the Perito Moreno Glacier. And boy is it a stunner! If you have enough people, renting a car can be cheaper & more efficient than taking the bus or a tour, but plan ahead because rental cars can get pricy last minute (if you can even find one). We were quoted $250 per day so we decided to just do the tour. We opted to upgrade and include the boat ride for an extra ~$85. It was pretty cool to see the glacier up close, but if you are on the fence, I would say the boardwalks also do a comprehensive way to see the glacier (just $55).
I loved the glacier. It was a total highlight for me. I had been saying “what’s the big deal about glaciers” since every other one we had seen was just firmly fine. This one knocked my socks off. Do not miss seeing this thing. You probably only need 2 nights here (to allow for one day visiting Perito Moreno), but we are happily traveling a bit slower these days to allow for some lazy ready & monopoly deal days. This was a perfect spot for a few extra days.
Patagonia is not a cheap travel destination in South America. Most people here are on vacation, rather than long term backpackers. It also tends to be more remote locations so it’s more expensive to get goods there.
Total: $1870 (Daily average: $119)
Transportation to next destination: $177 (Flight to Ushuaia)
We stayed at Lagares Hostel and honestly did not like it. We had a private room but the beds were very saggy in the middle. The hostel just felt very dark, like no natural light. Breakfast was pretty subpar. There was zero atmosphere and it was very hard to meet people. Overall don’t recommend 4/10.
Overall we weren’t really all that impressed with the restaurants we tried in Mendoza. We also found the service at restaurants to be weirdly bad. The two spots we’d recommend:
The highlight here is wine tasting!! It was slightly novel as the main way people wine taste here is to rent a bike and cycle your way through a few wineries throughout the day. While I am not a huge alcohol drinker, I actually had a blast biking around in the sun while staring through the vineyards to the Andes in the background. We visited Mevi, Tempus Alba and Entre Olivos for some wine, snacks, and an olive oil tasting!
If you are a wine lover, then don’t miss a visit here. Sonja was absolutely in love with it and would’ve done a few more days of wine tasting. I was sorta ready to leave after the one day of wine tasting haha. The city itself didn’t wow me and just felt like a big city. It definitely didn’t feel touristy, but also didn’t feel super nice.
Mendoza felt overall pretty reasonable compared some of the places we had been to lately.
Total: $163 (Daily average: $54)
Transportation to next destination: $70 (RT bus to/from Santiago)