Patagonia highlights vacation
Includes: • Tour leader • Internal flights • Transfers in Latin America on tour dates • Transport and accommodation • Meals and excursions as per tour profile
Description of Patagonia highlights vacation
Patagonia’s stark beauty attracts many travelers to what truly feels like the end of the world. Its haunting landscape sare at the mercy of wild weather, and its wildlife roams free across the steppe, in the southern reaches of the Andes and in the narrow fjords of the fragmented shoreline. This escorted, small group Patagonia highlights vacation takes in this vast region’s key natural sites, as well as giving quite a different glimpse of Chile and Argentina with days at either end of the tour spent exploring the cosmopolitan cities of Santiago and Buenos Aires.
Your adventure begins in Santiago, hemmed in by the Andes. Explore Pablo Neruda’s house-turned-museum, whose evocative poetry sets the scene for things to come on this tour. There’s time for a daytrip to tumbledown Valparaiso or to a vineyard, before flying to Punta Arenas, on mainland South America’s southern tip. This is the gateway to Torres del Paine National Park, with its distinctive granite massif, iceberg-dotted lakes and the odd condor soaring on the thermals above. Explore on foot and by boat, on Lago Grey, to take you up close to the glacier.
From here, you’ll cross into Argentina past a landscape that is home to guanacos and rheas, as you head to El Calafate. Visit Perito Moreno glacier, with an optional ice walk, take a daytrip to a working ranch, or head to the hiking mecca of El Chaltén. Heading further south still, you’ll fly to Ushuaia on Tierra del Fuego where you can embark on a boat ride along the Beagle Channel and walk through the island’s national park. Finally, fly north to the warmth – in all senses – of Buenos Aires, a seductive city. Explore the colourful neighbourhood of La Boca, admire the belle époque French and Italianate architecture, and sit down with a well earned glass or two of Malbec as a tango show unfolds in the plaza.
Price information
Includes: • Tour leader • Internal flights • Transfers in Latin America on tour dates • Transport and accommodation • Meals and excursions as per tour profile
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Reviews
1 Reviews of Patagonia highlights vacation
Reviewed on 08 Jan 2018 by Martin Mackenzie
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your vacation?
The whole trip was great. Seeing the glaciers at Lago Grey and Moreno were a highlight as well as beach riding in Uruguay.
2. What tips would you give other travelers booking this vacation?
Argentina is a strange place for money changing an the fees at the ATMs are high with limited withdrawal. No cash exchange at the airport so budget wisely.
3. Did you feel that your vacation benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
There was certainly a trip where conservation was at the foremost of the locations we visited in Patagonia.
4. Finally, how would you rate your vacation overall?
Trip of a lifetime that matched all our expectations
Responsible Travel
Planet and people
We work with local guides throughout Patagonia, not only supporting local employment, but our guides are best positioned to teach you about the local flora and fauna, as well as the more disturbing aspects of the local environment, notably the receding glaciers and areas of former deforestation. On our Patagonia small group tours our guides, and tour leaders, advise how best to minimise our impact whilst traveling in this region and the receding glaciers act as stark reminder of what we can also do back home to minimise the impact of our humankind on the environment.Much of this tour is spent in the national parks of Patagonia. When inside the parks we ask clients to keep all waste with them until back in the nearest town, to walk only on designated paths, and not to pick flowers or disturb the natural resources. Given the purity of the water in Patagonia, we also encourage clients to drink tap water rather than buy bottled water, to avoid excess waste of plastic.
Throughout this tour we work with small privately owned ground agents who live in the area, have established RT policies in place, and employ local guides and staff. The hotels on this tour are individual properties, not part of international chains and we eat in local restaurants serving locally grown produce – our style of travel ensures that as many local people as possible benefit by our being there. This tour runs with a maximum of 20 people which helps to minimise the impact on delicate environments.
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