2 Week Patagonia Itinerary

Ultimate two week Patagonia Itinerary – What to do and see

Day 1

Fly into Punta Arenas pick up your rental car and drive to the town of Puerto Natales. Puerto Natales is the biggest town close to Torres Del Paine national park and a great place to base yourself. If you don’t drive or are not going to rent a car you can easily bus here from Punta Arenas. Most of the day trip tours to the park and the shuttle all leave from here.

If You Don’t Rent A Car – The Bus Sur booking website here gives you a list of the daily departures. You can use this bus schedule for daily tours to the park, as well as getting between all the towns. You can easily bus between Puerto Natales – EL Calafate – and El Chalten. There are also some great full day tours from Puerto Natales like this one.

Your average park road conditions and Gunacos off the side of the road

Whichever you choose spend the night in town go out for dinner and stock up on snacks and groceries for your hiking days.

Day 2 – 4

Hiking Torres Del Paine Park

We recommend staying closer to the park to minimize your drive time. We stayed at the Rio Serrano hotel in the area of the same name. This is one of the closest places you can stay by the south gate to the park, meaning you can get in and out for sunrise and sunset. This allows you to miss the crowds and see as much as possible. Full disclosure Rio Serrano was pretty swanky and definitely on the pricey side we liked it so much we wrote a whole blog about it. If that’s not your style there are plenty of other places to stay that are far more affordable. Surprisingly if you are not doing the W trek and electing for day hikes like us the costs can be less but your hotels are faaaaaar nicer in the Serrano area. I think the park eco fees are quite expensive for the resorts within the park.

This is a good budget option in the Serrano area. There is also a glamping stay if you are looking to stretch those dollars. You can also choose to stay in Puerto Natales and drive into and out of the park everyday as a budget option.

We are going to list the highlight hikes for us to fill your days and we suggest picking your favorites and prioritizing them for the good weather days. Patagonia is wild by nature and when you get a good weather window make sure you take advantage of it!

Favourite Hikes (more detail in guide)

• Laguna Toro

• Mirador Cuernos

• Mirador Condor

• Base Towers

• Mirador Lago Grey

Day 5

Staying in Torres Del Paine Park + Base Towers Hike

Today you are going to change accommodation and stay in the park for a night. We found the Eco Camp to be a great location for hiking and your best value for a stay. They include all meals wine and trekking snacks. This makes it a perfect spot to get up early and do your sunrise hike. We ended up having to change our itinerary and did this in the middle of Rio Serrano days solely for a weather window. So be prepared to change your itinerary around.

The Eco Camp was pretty swanky for a backpacking stopover

There is another way you can do this that works quite well also. You can pack the car leave Rio Serrano super early do the hike and then check into the Eco Camp after your done and just relax all day. We we left for our hike at 7 am and were back around 1 leaving plenty of time to enjoy the Eco Camp.

Wake up early and do the Base Towers hike. The base towers are the hike everyone thinks of when they book a trip to Patagonia. This is not overhyped, it is 100% as beautiful as it looks, do not skip. We met many people who did this hike 2+ times to get a view because it was so important to them and they were glad they re did it. Do not let any people you meet try and talk you out of it.

Day 6 – 8

Drive to El Calafate to see the most impressive glacier in the world.

After your big drive day we elected to stay somewhere simple and found the América del Sur Hostel Calafate to be more than adequate. I have linked several options for all budgets in the guide.

Wake up early the next day and drive the hour to Perito Moreno Glacier in Los Glaciares National Park. There is a ticket booth to enter the park that was charging $29USD pp. At the time they accepted debit but as a rule for the majority of Patagonia always have cash just in case. This park is incredible and the included walking trails around the glacier are amazing you can not go wrong here. There is also a phenomenal boat ride here that is totally worth the $40 it was at the time.

If you have some extra cash these people kayaking looked like they were having the time of their lives. There are also some incredibly cool glacier trekking tours .There are not many spots on the planet where you can glacier trek and this would be AMAZING.

If you don’t have a rental car and would like to day trip from El Calafate there are a ton of options. Here are some of the highest rated tours. As you can see the boat trip was worth evvvery penny. We just did the short government run one but there was an option for a full on cruise with lunch and many hours on the water.

We found that you only really needed one full day in El Calafate.

Day 8 – 12

El Chalten + Los Glaciares National Park + Lago Desierto

El Chalten is the undisputed hiking capital of Argentinean Patagonia. I think this may have been my favourite place on the whole trip. It doesn’t matter so much where you stay here as the town is small and most everything is walking distance. This is the only spot on our itinerary where a car doesn’t help at all. We stayed at the El Chalten Suites as it was in a great location and good value. There are tons of place to stay so feel free to shop around here and I have included some unique and highly rates ones in the guide.

Hikes in El Chalten (full tips on this in the travel tips section)

There are several can’t miss hikes in the El Chalten area, once again for weather I will list them and you can prioritize based on weather.

Laguna De Los Tres

This is the equivalent of the Base Towers in Torres Del Paine but possibly more impressive. This hike was absolutely incredible and should not be skipped for any reason. It is worth the 20+km grind!

This is legitimately one of the best views I have ever seen. Absolutely mind blowing in person!

Torres Lagoon

This lake is famous for Icebergs but unfortunately we arrived after a hot spell. The warm weather caused a lot of run off and the brownie blue water. This lake is sometimes spectacularly blue with lots of icebergs.

Fitzroy Viewpoint Patagonia Logo viewpoint

This is the famous Patagonia logo viewpoint!

The Secret Waterfall

The secret waterfall and the trail views heading up to the Laguna de los Tres hike

Mirador De Los Piedras Blancas Glacier

A stunning glacier lookout and a pretty easy hike up.

If You Have Extra Time

If you have an extra day or several to spare the Lago Del Desierto area north of EL Chalten is spectacular. We particularly enjoyed the Huemul Glacier hike as well as the Vespignani glacier lookout. If you have a healthier budget there is a private trekking lodge there we absolutely loved called Aguas Arriba that includes all these hikes on private land. If you don’t have the time for another stay but still want to see the lake and the glacier there are some tours here.

Lago Desierto had some of the most impressive Sunsets I have ever seen in my life. We wrote more about Lago Desierto here.

Day 12 – 14 Punta Arenas + Penguin Tour + Fly out

Today you are going to start the long drive back to Punta Arenas. We stayed in the Central Hostal Boutique Puerta Roja. Nothing to fancy but a comfortable stay in town good walking distance from everything. There is not a ton you have to see here but there are some cute cafes a couple museums and some great restaurants. What makes Punta Arenas special is the Penguin Tours.

Magellanic Penguins

King Penguins

Penguin Tours Punta Arenas

There are two tour options you can choose from. We picked the one day Magdalena island boat tour from Punta Arenas. They pick you up early in the am at their downtown Punta Arenas locations and shuttle you 30 minutes to the boat launch. From here you take an enclosed boat to Magdalena island and get to walk around with the Magellanic penguins. Magellanic Penguins are the little cute black and white ones. Officially you have to stay within the walking path but it doesn’t matter at all because the penguins are EVERYWHERE. They are running around yelling crossing the path. Certified good time. After this you go to another island for whale watching and spotting Lion seals.

Your other option is to see the bigger more colorful King penguins. This option looked amazing but it was a very long day. I believe the tour was 14 hours and we were just not feeling that long in a car after our big drive from El Chalten the previous day. But if King Penguins is on your bucket list this is a great ethical way to go see them .