Category: Planning & Tips

If you fancy a break from the comfortable but pretty basic hostels and refugios of Torres del Paine, the boutique Hotel Indigo in Puerto Natales has 29 rooms and lies some 10 feet away from Last Hope Fjord, a great place to do some kayaking. Although Indigo is located on the fjord, it’s also pretty […]

Nestled in the rolling hills on the dazzling blue Lago Nordenskjold is Hosteria Los Cuernos. It’s completely hidden from view as you trek towards it from the east of the park and you only see it properly once you cross the river and it’s on top of you. What’s special about this refugio is that […]

  We often receive enquiries from travellers who don’t feel that it’s necessary or cost effective to book their adventure holiday in advance. It’s easy to understand their logic, if you’re a confident person who is happy just to rock up and see what’s available and you’re not too bothered about having organised everything down […]

On my first visit to El Chalten in 1999 I was wowed by Mount FitzRoy and the other peaks and glaciers that lie within a few miles of the small town. In January 2011 I returned to the town that, in the Los Glaciares National Park of Argentina is the base for some of Patagonia’s […]

A few of the people who contact Swoop have visited Patagonia before and are looking to go back and explore it further. After all, a region that spans 1,000 miles North to South and 1 million square kilometres, with landscapes ranging from glacial to volcanic, to rainforest and desert, probably deserves more than a fortnight […]

First Name: Matty Age: 37 Occupation: Academic researcher Which operator did you go with or did you organise it yourself?  I organized my trip from Santiago to San Pedro de Atacama myself. If you had a local guide, what was he like?  I took three tours from San Pedro de Atacama with the same company […]

When Darwin visited Chiloé in 1835, he described the island as “the border of Christianity”, both in the geographical and spiritual sense. The brilliant researcher was marveled by the co-habitation achieved between Mapuche Indians and the Spanish conquerors over three centuries. This relationship has helped bring about a culture which can be appreciated today in […]

Grylls parachutes into Patagonia, the southernmost tip of South America, where he first encounters a vast ice field, then forages in a beech forest, wades through a frozen bog and swims through icy water. Next Grylls skins a hare, scales a cliff, tracks a puma, drinks dirty water, and crosses the Perito Moreno glacier, a vast frozen labyrinth of ice caves and […]