Argentina: Ten Attractions and Natural Wonders

A country the length of a continent

Argentina runs 3,700 kilometres from the subtropics to the edge of Antarctica, and its attractions are spread the whole way down: jungle waterfalls in the far north, painted desert canyons in the Andean northwest, wine country and big mountains in the centre, lakes and glaciers in Patagonia, and penguins and end-of-the-world scenery in the south. In the middle is Buenos Aires, one of the great cities of the Americas.

The ten below are the headline sights. Distances are enormous — most travellers fly between regions — so most trips pick two or three: usually Buenos Aires plus Iguazú, and Patagonia, or the northwest. Seasons are reversed: December to February is Patagonian summer; the north is best in winter.

1. Iguazú Falls

Iguazú, the largest waterfall system in the world, is split into some 275 separate falls strung along a 2.7-kilometre edge of the Iguazú River, on the Argentina–Brazil border a short way upstream of the point where Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay meet. The Argentine side has about 80 percent of the falls and brings visitors right on top of them: a network of catwalks leads to a platform at the lip of the Devil's Throat, where the noise and spray are physical.

Iguazú National Park, inscribed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1984, is full of coatis, toucans, and butterflies. Most people also cross to the Brazilian side for the wide panoramic view. Puerto Iguazú, the Argentine town, has the airport and the hotels.

2. The Perito Moreno Glacier

Perito Moreno is a river of ice five kilometres wide that flows down from the Southern Patagonian Ice Field and ends in a cliff averaging about 74 metres high in Lake Argentino. For decades, unlike most glaciers, it held roughly steady, though since 2020 its northern front has been retreating. It is unusually accessible: a walking circuit from the visitor centre faces the ice front, close enough to hear it crack and watch blocks the size of buildings fall into the lake.

At irregular intervals — from once a year to less than once a decade — the glacier advances across a channel and dams the Brazo Rico arm of the lake, until the water bursts through in a spectacular rupture. It is an easy day trip from El Calafate, 78 kilometres away, which also has boat trips to the Upsala and Spegazzini glaciers. Los Glaciares, Argentina's largest national park, was the country's first UNESCO World Heritage Site, in 1981.

3. Mount Fitz Roy and El Chaltén

At the northern end of Los Glaciares, the small village of El Chaltén sits at the foot of the Fitz Roy massif — a group of near-vertical granite towers famous among mountaineers, but that ordinary walkers can get close to on day trails straight from the village.

The classic hike is to Laguna de los Tres, a glacial lake right beneath the main peak. El Chaltén has grown fast to serve the trekkers, and has been named Argentina's National Trekking Capital; its trails start at the edge of the village.

4. Buenos Aires

Argentina's capital is a huge, dense, European-looking city that runs on café culture, football, and tango. The set-piece sights are spread across a few neighbourhoods: the Plaza de Mayo and the pink Casa Rosada downtown; the grand Teatro Colón; the bookshop-in-a-theatre El Ateneo; and the wide Avenida 9 de Julio with its Obelisco.

But the city is really about its barrios — the antique markets of San Telmo, the cafés and parks of Palermo, the smart avenues of Recoleta — and about staying out late. Give it three or four days at the start or end of a trip.

5. La Recoleta Cemetery

In the wealthy Recoleta district, this walled cemetery is a grid of narrow avenues lined with 4,691 above-ground vaults — marble temples, art nouveau chapels, bronze doors — belonging to the presidents, generals, and landowning families of Argentina's golden age. The most-visited grave is Eva Perón's, comparatively modest, in the Duarte family vault.

An hour of wandering the lanes is one of the most atmospheric things to do in the city; 94 of the vaults are protected as National Historical Monuments.

6. La Boca and the Caminito

La Boca, by the old port, became home to waves of European immigrants, many of them from the Italian region of Liguria, and its brightly painted, tin-clad houses became the barrio's signature look. One short street, the Caminito, has been turned into an open-air street museum of this look, with tango dancers and cafés; it inspired the famous 1926 tango of the same name.

It is touristy and best seen by day — the surrounding area can be rough — but La Boca is also home to Boca Juniors and their famously loud stadium, La Bombonera, one of the temples of world football.

7. The Quebrada de Humahuaca

In the far northwest, near the Bolivian border, the Rio Grande has carved a long desert valley — the Quebrada de Humahuaca — that has been inhabited for at least 10,000 years, was an Inca caravan road, and was made a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 2003. Its walls are spectacularly coloured: mineral-streaked hillsides in red, ochre, green, and violet, best seen at Purmamarca and at the Serranía de Hornocal near Humahuaca.

The valley's villages — Tilcara with its pre-Inca hill fort, Humahuaca itself — keep a strong Andean, indigenous character. It pairs with a trip to the vast white salt flats of the Salinas Grandes over the pass.

8. Bariloche and the Lake District

On the eastern slope of the northern Patagonian Andes, San Carlos de Bariloche sits on a huge glacial lake, Nahuel Huapi, surrounded by forested mountains and more lakes in every direction. It is Argentina's outdoor-sports hub: skiing in winter at Cerro Catedral, the largest ski resort in South America, hiking and water sports in summer, and chocolate shops and Alpine-style architecture year-round.

A classic outing is the short drive out past lakeside viewpoints to the Llao Llao Hotel, designed by Alejandro Bustillo. To the north, the Road of the Seven Lakes runs from Villa La Angostura to San Martín de los Andes.

9. Península Valdés

This blunt peninsula on the Atlantic coast of central Patagonia is one of the best places in the world for marine wildlife, and a UNESCO World Heritage Site since

1. Its waters are the most important breeding ground in the world for southern

right whales, which come into the sheltered gulfs between May and December; the shoreline has colonies of elephant seals, sea lions, and Magellanic penguins; and orcas famously beach themselves to grab sea lions and elephant seals.

The base is Puerto Madryn or the village of Puerto Pirámides, from where the whale-watching boats leave. Further south, Punta Tombo has the largest Magellanic penguin colony in Argentina.

10. Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego

Ushuaia, wedged between the Beagle Channel and a wall of mountains at the bottom of the Americas, bills itself as the "End of the World" and mostly lives up to it. It is one of the world's five recognised Antarctic gateway cities, but it also has plenty of its own: boat trips down the Beagle Channel past sea lion and cormorant colonies to the Les Éclaireurs lighthouse; the small, wild Tierra del Fuego National Park; the End of the World Train, a railway first built by the town's prisoners; and skiing in winter at Cerro Castor.

The town itself is a fast-growing frontier place, and the long summer days at this latitude are extraordinary.

Argentina is a country to travel across in chapters. Pick a region or two, give each of them time, and accept that the rest will need another trip.