Guide to visiting Patagonia

Patagonia is name of the region straddling both Chile and Argentina where the great cone of South America tapers down towards Cape Horn to point to Antarctica. Its spine is the Andes Mountain range, and it is bounded east and west by the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Its northern border is more fuzzily defined, which feels appropriate since Patagonia is often defined less by geographical or political border than as a place conjured up by the imagination.

This is a land of epic landscapes. Endless steppes dotted with estancias (ranches) where gauchos still maintain their traditional lifestyle before erupting into craggy mountain ranges carved through by one of the largest ice fields on earth. Temperate rainforests with trees a thousand years old tell stories of the land's first inhabitants, before tailing into glacial fjords where you can watch blue whales on their migration. There are active volcanoes capped with snow, gigantic lakes and beaches packed with penguins – all of which can be experienced in weather that can famously offer you four seasons in a single day. Patagonia, we should also point out, is home to some of the finest hiking and trekking locations in the world.

This is truly a place to get away from the crowds. There are just two million people here occupying one million km². But from the indigenous Mapuche and Yaghan people through modern explorers like Charles Darwin and Francisco Moreno to the adventurers of today, Patagonia is a place where humankind has always pushed itself beyond its comfort zone, looking for new horizons. There are few better places to immerse yourself in all that mother nature has to offer.

Patagonia’s landscapes are as varied as they are vast. The sculptural peaks of Torres del Paine and Los Glaciares are on everyone’s bucket list but there is so much more to see here.

The Patagonian Ice Field is one of the largest masses of ice outside the polar regions, and is easily accessible for adventure travellers, while the crystal clear glacial lakes formed millennia ago in its wake are some of the prettiest on the continent. From the lush rainforests and snow-capped volcanoes of the Lake District to the wind whipped peaks of Tierra del Fuego, there is nowhere quite like Patagonia.

The earliest visitors to Patagonia often struggled with the elemental nature of the land, but for travellers today, Patagonia also now balances remoteness with the  best creature comforts. Here is somewhere you can trek for days without seeing a soul before returning to a cosy room in a luxury lodge to enjoy a refined meal accompanied by the best wines that Chile and Argentina can offer. 

For many visitors, Patagonia’s great wilderness means hitting the hiking trail. It’s no coincidence that some of the world’s leading outdoor clothes brands took their inspiration from the region.

Torres Del Paine and Los Glaciares are both home to some one of the world’s great walks, but Patagonia’s many national parks offer a host of outdoor activities. You can hike to thousand year old trees, mirrored mountain lakes or across ice fields with crampons and rope, and spend as little as half a day on the trail or opt for a week long adventure sleeping in mountain huts.

Beyond this, the mountains, volcanoes, lakes and fjords make up a vast playground for adventure activities. You can jump in the saddle to go off-road, by mountain bike or horse. Fjords wait to be explored by kayak, with untrodden beaches and intimate wildlife encounters. Rivers bubble with whitewater to raft on, or slowly meander through the landscape for world-class fly-fishing.

Few places do outdoor adventure as well as Patagonia.

Patagonia’s rich and diverse wildlife never disappoints, and there is no symbol that better sums up the wild freedom of the region than the mighty condor soaring effortlessly above the Andes mountains.

High on many people’s wildlife wishlists is Patagonia’s apex predator, the puma. The normally elusive pumas are found almost everywhere in Patagonia, but are most reliably seen in Torres del Paine on a walking safari guided by expert trackers. Guanacos, their llama-like prey are also common here, as are condors soaring on the thermals.

The coasts offer some of the best wildlife watching experiences. Top among them is Peninsula Valdes, where Southern Right Whales swim close to the beach, Magellanic penguins breed among the sealions and elephant seals, and orcas patrol the shore looking for lunch.

The Chilean Fjords also have tremendous whale, seal and penguin watching, and at their northern limit offer access to temperate rainforests that are a birdwatchers dream. With luck you might even see a huemul, the tiny deer that’s also found on the nation’s coat of arms.

Nowhere does remote quite like Patagonia. It is one of the few places on Earth where you can be completely isolated, whether that’s cradled in the luxury of a lakeside lodge or trekking for days without seeing a soul.

While big-ticket places like Torres del Paine attract the crowds, with the right advice it's easy to get off the beaten track and have the wild landscapes to yourself even in places like Los Glaciares National Park.

In Tierra del Fuego, you can easily find yourself alone on a forest trail or paddling on an empty mountain lake when you're less than half a day away from high end accommodation.

For the truest Patagonian wilderness, follow the Carretera Austral highway from Aysen through the Route of the Parks along the spine of Chile. Many of the national parks here are wilderness in its truest sense, waiting to be discovered by the most intrepid travellers looking to get away from everything.

From indigenous people who have made their life at the end of the world for centuries, to settlers who came in search of a better life, the people of Patagonia are proud of their homeland.

One of the most iconic symbols of Patagonia is the gaucho, or South American cowboy, although in this part of the world they mostly herd sheep rather than cattle. Nevertheless riding and camping with gauchos remains a classic experience.

Despite the region’s colonial history, many of Patagonia’s original inhabitants still stick proudly to their traditions. In the north, the Mapuche continue to guard their rights as guardians of the forests and volcanoes of the region, while in Tierra del Fuego the Yaghan people have defied the odds to hold onto their language and culture.

Other Patagonia residents can be more unexpected such as the communities of Welsh Patagonia who maintain strong cultural ties to their motherland in the British Isles. But wherever you travel to. a warm welcome awaits all visitors.

Patagonia’s food is as diverse as its landscapes. Tierra del Fuego and the Chilean Fjords offer fantastic seafood with salmon and king crab, while the forests of Aysen are heaven for mushroom lovers.

Argentina in particular is known for its love barbequed meat. A lamb asado makes for an unforgettable meal, though vegetarians should note that delicious non-meat options are widely available.

Whatever you eat, lunch and dinner are served up with delicious local wines, while the time spend between meals is punctuated by drinking mate, that bitter herbal infusion so beloved across Patagonia.

On the island of Chiloé, culinary traditions are particularly long-held. The regional speciality is here curanto, a seafood, meat and vegetable dish baked in baked in a pit oven. The oldest curanto pits are thought to date back over 10,000 years: proof if it was ever needed that Patagonia has been serving up good food for a very long time indeed.