Budget Tips and How Much We Spent

Budget Tips for Patagonia

Patagonia is not a cheap destination, but if you want to save some money, here are some of our best tips to keep costs less!

• Travel with a partner or friends! Sharing a rental car, accommodation, etc, is always a bit cheaper if you are with someone else

• Do the trip on your own instead of joining a group trip. Group trips have a high cost attached as you have everything planned for you and you usually have a guide the whole time. With our travel guide you can easily travel to Patagonia on your own without an organized company. If you like group trips, join day tours or free hiking groups you can find on Facebook while you are there! However, if you like group trips nothing wrong with that, they will just have a higher price tag.

• Camp or stay in budget hotels instead of luxury lodges

• Bring snacks from home. We always load our bags with protein bars, dried fruit, trail mix, etc. as healthier snacks are usually hard to find and expensive in this area of the world.

• Cook some of your own meals. For instance, we usually have oatmeal on hand to make in the morning so we do not have to spend money on breakfast. All you need is a bowl and hot water! Bring instant coffee instead of going for coffee everyday. Buy groceries and make easy to prepare lunches like peanut butter sandwiches, fruit, wraps, tuna salad, etc.

• Bring your hiking gear from home as renting can be expensive

South America Flight Hacks

• Flight prices change depending on where you book from

• When we were choosing our within chile flights - Santiago - Punta Arenas it was about 25% cheaper if we booked with a chilean VPN turned on and used the Spanish side of LATAM's website. This is common in South America and if you are willing to waive your North American flight protections you can save on flights. Be warned if you press the english button even with a VPN on the prices go back to normal.

Our Cost for Chilean Patagonia

Costs for 5 Days/4 Nights

🌲 Torres del Paine National Park Fee: $50 each for more than 3 days in the park

🏨 3 nights at Rio Serrano Hotel: $2400

($1200 each) - - accommodation and all food, alcoholic drinks, and they provide free breakfast/lunch boxes for hikes

⛺️ 1 night at Patagonia Ecocamp: $700

($350 each) accommodation and all food, alcoholic drinks, and they provide free breakfast/lunch boxes for hikes

🚘 5 day car rental: $250

($125 each) for a sedan style car

🚙 Gas $50

($25 each) small area to drive in but public transit is almost non existent

🥾 Activities: free

(we only hiked, we didn’t do excursions)

🍲 Food: $15 each as almost all was covered with our stays

Total for 1 person: for 5 days $1765

Total per day: $350

💰 These prices are comparable to the 5 day W trek which costs this much with a trekking a tour at about $2000-$3000 on average. Also, many group tours in this area go for $5000 for 1 week.

⛺️ Torres del Paine has a small number of remote campsites in the most distant corners of the national park. These have no facilities and a limited choice of pitching areas, and may only be used when booked in advance with CONAF and hiking with a guide. They are about $40-$100 a night.

Our Cost for Argentinian Patagonia

Cost to Travel 6 Days in Argentinean Patagonia

🍜 Food $150 ($75 each)

🏨 3 nights Accommodation El Chalten (with free breakfast): $320 ($160 each)

🏡 2 nights in El Calafate (hostel private): $80 ($40 each)

❄️ Entrance to Perito Moreno Glacier $27 each

🚤 Glacier Cruise $40 each

🚗 6 day car rental $300 ($150 split between 2)

⛽️ gas: $50 ($25 split between 2)

Total cost for 6 Days $520 each

Average cost per day $85 each

Everything is in usd and international flights are not included. This is based on travellning with a partner.

We stayed in midrange accommodations in El Chalten and El Calafate

NOTE: we added on Aguas Arriba Trekking Lodge which did make this a lot more pricier. We did 4 nights here at $1000 a night. Everything was included- 5 star meals, private trekking guide, yoga etc. We worked for them and sold our content so it was free for us. If you can afford this or want to splurge, highly recommend!