Traveling to Patagonia Argentina; Everything You Need to Know

Welcome to Patagonia! Hey guys, welcome back to the channel. If you're new here, my name is Brittany from She Around the World Travel Vlog, and I'm back in Buenos Aires after spending an entire week on the Argentinian side of Patagonia, and it was absolutely incredible. I'm here to give you all the tips, little advices, things that I wish I knew before I went to Patagonia, so let's go ahead and dive in. First things first, let's talk about money. So there's two different parts of this. One is called the blue dollar rate, which applies to everywhere you go in Argentina, and then there's money-specific things for Patagonia. So the blue dollar rate basically means that the standard rate for a U.S. dollar or any other currency that you would see online is much different than what you can get if you utilize cash in this country. So for example, today, December 2nd, the exchange rate is right around one U.S. dollar equals about 160 pesos, if you look that up online. However, if you have cash, you'll actually get 300 pesos for the dollar or 305 to the dollar. If you do a Western Union transfer, you'll get 322 to the dollar. So it just means that the U.S. dollar is highly sought after here. So if you use your credit card anywhere in Argentina, you're going to be paying double what you could be paying if you had USD. So if you're coming directly from, you know, the States or Europe or wherever it may be, bring as much cash as you possibly can and exchange it. But also, utilizing Western Union transfers is going to be essential for your trip because you'll get the best bang for your buck. So with all of that in mind, now you're going down to Patagonia, obviously very small towns, not like Buenos Aires at all. So everybody's trying to do a Western Union transfer. The main Western Union, if you go to El Calafate, which is the main city that you'd be staying in to visit all the different places in Patagonia, it's closed. So they have a small Western Union in the post office in El Calafate, but it is such a shitshow. Honestly, I had friends who woke up at 6.30 a.m. They got their money around noon and then it sold out by like 12.30 or 1 o'clock. They just run out of pesos and they only let you exchange about 60,000 pesos, which isn't even enough to do like one to two excursions if that's what you want to pay for. So you'd be having to do that every single day for the Western Union transfers, which is just such a waste of time. So what I highly, highly recommend you do is, one, like I said, still have some cash with you because that's what we didn't know any of this before we got there. We're like, oh, we'll just do a Western Union transfer once we get there. It was just impossible. We only had a limited number of days. We didn't have a half of a day to spend just waiting in line. So luckily, we did have a bunch of USD that we just exchanged as we went and it was completely fine. Again, still got that blue dollar rate. And a lot of the restaurants and shops and whatever, they'll actually accept USD as a form of payment in both El Calafate and El Chaten, which are the two main places to go in Patagonia on the Argentinian side. So that would be my first piece of advice. Always just have cash on you because you never know when you're going to need it. My second piece of advice is most likely you're going to be coming from Buenos Aires unless you were doing the Chilean side of Patagonia and then you're coming over. But for the majority of people, they're going to be flying from Buenos Aires directly to El Calafate. You should do a big Western Union transfer when you're in Buenos Aires because it's super easy. You don't have to wait in a long line. They won't run out of money. There's no limit. So do a couple hundred dollars worth enough that's going to actually last you your entire time because you're going to get an even better rate with Western Union. Like I said, right now, Western Union is $3.22 to the dollar versus cash exchanges $3.05. So you're getting a little bit more for every dollar. And that way, again, you just have the pesos readily available and then you have your USD or your euros as your backup option to exchange. Next, moving on to number two, which is planning your arrival. When you're looking at hotels, hostels, accommodations in general, try to pick something as close to the Avenue de Libertador, written right here, as possible. That is the main strip that has all of the restaurants, all of the shops, and whatnot. In general, El Calafate is a very small town. So even if you have something a little bit off that street, on the side street, not too big of a deal. You can just walk very easily. But we did book a place that looked very close on the map, but it was actually up a pretty steep hill. So that was kind of a bummer walking up that every single day after a long day of exploring and hiking. So just look into that, try to, you know, book as close as possible to that main strip. Try to see if you can, you know, see if it's up on a hill or too far away. There are some places that are kind of up in the mountains and have great lake views, but that means it's really a really far walk. So unless you have a car, that probably wouldn't be ideal. And then once you arrive in the airport, again, the airport is super tiny. There are three ways to get from the airport, you know, to your desired location, which is probably the city center. First off is a taxi. We didn't utilize this option, but when we asked how much it was, they said it was about 4,000 pesos for the car. So if you have, you know, two, three, four people, that's probably the way to go. The second option is a shuttle bus, which we did utilize. They will take you directly from the airport and drop you off directly at your hotel or your hostel, and that was 1,200 pesos per person. And the third option, if you're not looking to go directly to the city center, if you want to go straight from the airport to El Chaltén, or do a tour straight from the airport to the glacier, or anything else, most shuttle buses and buses that are just going to El Chaltén will stop at the airport first. Get your bags, hop on the bus, and you know, go wherever your next destination is. The third thing I'm going to talk about is public transportation. So long story short, public transportation does not exist. I was kind of banking on this to go to the glacier, go to El Chaltén, do all of these things. I was just going to hop on a bus to make it as cheap as possible, but they kind of monopolized the whole situation and make sure that everything you possibly have to do, whether, like I said, it's the airport transfer, going to the glacier, going to El Chaltén, something that everybody does when they come to El Calafate, they've made sure that you have to do it as a tour. All of the tour companies do the exact same thing, exact same price, which is obviously more expensive than if you were just to hop on a public transportation bus somewhere, so just keep that in mind. So to take the tour bus from downtown El Calafate to Purita Moreno Glacier, it's roughly between $7,800 and $8,500. We kind of walked around the whole downtown, popped into every single shop, and got like a price comparison, so obviously we ended up booking with the company that was $7,800, but that just gives you a price range for all the different companies. Basically, they'll pick you up from your hotel and they'll just drive you there. They have a tour guide on the bus with you that's like giving facts while you're driving there, but once you actually get there, you're just walking around the boardwalk by yourself, they give you a time to meet back at the bus, and they just drive you back. So again, it's just an expensive way for them to make a little bit more money off of you because it's the only way to get to the glacier unless you rent your own car. Do keep in mind though that these prices do not include the entrance fee to the park, which is an extra 4,000 pesos. So you know, $7,800 plus the 4,000, that's how much it's going to cost to go for one day from El Calafate to the glacier. So that's the cheapest way you're going to be able to do it, especially if you're in like a group of one, maybe two people. If you have more than that, I would recommend renting your own car because I think all of like four of you paying all of that is going to be way more expensive than just renting your own car and doing it yourself. And then the second thing that everybody does, like I said, you take the bus from El Calafate to El Chaltén. Again, no public option. So there's three companies that do have daily departures, 8am, 11am, 1.30pm, and 6pm. All of them are 4,000 pesos, they're all exactly the same price, exactly the same departure time, so it doesn't really matter which one you go with. They're all double-decker buses, they're super nice, very comfortable, and the entire journey takes about three hours. So again, if you have a car rental and you booked super far in advance and there's a big group of you guys, it might make more sense just to have a car rental for the entire trip. If not, now you know how much it costs. 4,000 each way to get from El Calafate to El Chaltén. The last thing I'm going to talk about is things to do in this area, the Argentinian side of Patagonia. Starting with El Calafate itself, obviously the main thing to do here is to go see the Parito Moreno Glacier, which I just talked about, you know how much it costs if you just want to do the tour guide bus that will just take you there, you can walk around and then come back. Another popular option is also doing like a mini trek or a glacier hike. So with this, it's a nine-hour day, they'll pick you up from your hotel, take you over to the glacier. I'm not sure exactly what else you do, I know that you only have an hour and a half of actually walking on top of the glacier, but total that is going to be 42,000 pesos for the nine-hour day. So obviously it looks like a super cool experience. We opted not to do that because that was pretty expensive for us and didn't really fit in our budget, so if you want to do that, awesome. I've heard great things about it, but also for those of you who are maybe more in my lane of like you gotta stick to a budget, it doesn't really fit in that. Us just going there and walking around the boardwalk, there's like so many different trails walking along the boardwalk that you can see from the north side, the south side, you can go down. There's so many different viewpoints and you see how massive this glacier is, like we were just in awe just being able to see the glacier. I didn't really feel like I missed out or wished I had done the glacier trek or anything like that, so you know whichever way you decide to go, you can't go wrong. Within the town of El Calafate itself, there's not too much to do. I mean there's a few breweries, obviously a decent amount of restaurants. Keep in mind that it is more expensive than Buenos Aires by a long shot, obviously it's a small town, so that's going to hike up all the prices from beer and food, so that's probably the main thing to do is just to eat, walk around. There is an El Calafate sign that's within walking distance. I think it took about like 20 minutes to walk to and it overlooks like the marshlands where you can see the flamingos and all these different birds, so that is pretty cool. I would highly recommend doing that if you have like a morning or afternoon just to kill. It's super nice to just go out there, bird watch, take some cool photos at the El Calafate sign, and then just head back into town. Next spot that we're talking about is El Chaltén because like I said, most people who go to El Calafate, they're also going to go here since it's only a three-hour bus journey away. I'm going to throw up the trail map that I'm looking at right here so we can kind of chat about the different things that you can do within the town. So the town of El Chaltén itself is even tinier than El Calafate, only a few restaurants, only a few little shops. The main thing to do there is hike, so it's funny if you don't go on a hike that day, you'll literally feel like you're in a ghost town because everybody's up in the mountains hiking. So that's why I want to go over this trail map with you and kind of show you, if you only have a certain amount of days, what trails you should be doing to make sure that you get the most out of it. So the two main peaks that everybody wants to see when they come here is Fitzroy and Torre. So depending on what the weather is like will kind of dictate which hikes you do on which day. The information office at the National Park is super helpful for knowing like when there's possibly going to be visibility of certain peaks because Torre peak for example is cloudy a lot of the time because this peak sits a little bit lower so the clouds just rush into that little you know groove and it's really hard to see it. So whatever day is the clearest I would highly recommend doing Torre which is the orange hiking line on this map that you see. Hiking to Laguna Torre gives you that awesome view of the lake and then you see the reflection of Torre and then the Torre peaks. The most popular hike by far is the purple one that you see on here which goes to Fitzroy Peak. Again you want to make sure that you know it's not cloudy it's very visible although these peaks are a little bit higher than the Torre so sometimes even if it's cloudy it will peak through you know throughout the day. So I highly recommend going to you know right before Pointsnot that you see this camping spot on the map. Right around there is like the best views if you don't decide that you want to go all the way to Laguna de los Tres because that will add about two hours to your hike. We did this we just went to Pointsnot and came back and it took us about five and a half six hours. I will say it's pretty brutal in the beginning. There are 10 markers that you know lead you along this hike and about the first two to three were extremely steep. I was so tired but after the third one it really does even out. It's pretty fine the rest of the way so just know that it's brutal in the beginning and then it'll be fine but if you do want to go to Laguna de los Tres it will probably add on you know maybe seven to eight hours round trip. So if you have two days in the park those are the two that I recommend they're the main trails the orange trail to Laguna Torre and the purple trail you know to Laguna de los Tres or you know stop a little bit before that along the same trail. If you have more time the man in the information center did recommend down here on the teal trail the Los Gondoras viewpoint and the Las Aguilas viewpoint. He said those are both like very nice views to see the entire you know skyline both Torre and Fitzroy you know from a distance so those would be some quick little short hikes that you can do along with going to see the waterfall Churrillo del Salto which is the yellow trail that you see here. So those are all quick little trails versus the orange and purple are like long six hour kind of day hikes that are a little bit more intense so keep that in mind if you want to break up your time if you have two three four days you can kind of plan it out that way. And the last thing I'm going to talk about in this section of things to do are everything else that you can do from El Calafate. So from El Chaltén that's pretty much it you do the national park and then you go back to El Calafate but the beauty of El Calafate is that it really is like a hub for everything else you want to do within Patagonia. So you can do a day trip to the Chilean side which is Torres del Paine National Park it's a 14 hour day because just it takes about five to six hours just to get there um plus you have to cross the border and whatnot but it is possible you can also take a day trip to Ushuaia you can do horseback riding whitewater rafting there are just so many things that you can do from El Calafate. Honestly the options are really endless it just depends of course how much time you actually have but just know from El Calafate yes it's going to be expensive because they're all tours and everything is super overpriced in my opinion but you're in Patagonia your most beautiful places in the world so kind of makes sense why it's overpriced but just know depending on how many days you have you can really fill them with all the different excursions day trips tours hikes that El Calafate has to offer. I really do think it's the greatest hub to be in Patagonia because you have all of these options um in my next video I'm actually going to go through a day-by-day itinerary of how I would recommend that you plan if you have like a week to 10 days and then I'll also do like a condensed version if you only have a few days to be in Patagonia if you guys have any questions about you know preparing for your trip to Patagonia anything you want to ask me you know money things to do how to get places planned places book things you know drop them in the comments below I'd love to help you out since I was just there and if you want a day-by-day itinerary stay tuned for my next video because I'm here to help you out don't forget to hit that like and subscribe button below thank you guys so much for watching and I'll see you in the next video