One highlight of any expedition cruise to Patagonia is wildlife-watching. South America’s best-known beast is probably the camel-like llama, but that’s a domestic animal most common in the central Andean countries of Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. In Patagonia, though, the rangy wild guanaco – a close relative to the llama – is a common sight […]

  Long before the city of Puerto Natales became a gateway for Patagonia vacations and a ferry terminal for Chile’s northern fjords, tiny Puerto Bories was one of the region’s economic powerhouses. A century ago, when the granite needles of Torres del Paine symbolized little more than the presence of pasture to graze sheep, Bories […]

When you’re planning a Patagonia vacation, architecture is probably not one of the first ideas that comes to mind. Without the grandeur of its mountains, forests, fjords and waterways, the region wouldn’t have the worldwide reputation it does, but its cities, towns and countryside display a wealth of memorable vernacular constructions. To see the richness […]

Almost everybody who takes a Patagonia expedition hopes to see penguins, and there are many places to do so. Passengers sailing Cape Horn from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia, though, sometimes miss one of the top penguin-watching destinations, on Isla Magdalena in the Strait of Magellan. Still, that doesn’t preclude a trip to the island – […]

Some travelers who are visiting Patagonia confine themselves to either Argentina or Chile, but many if not most see both countries, which offer similar but often complementary attractions. In 1979, when I first saw the startling granite needles of Torres del Paine, it was hard to imagine anything more exhilarating than the time I spent […]

Food is an important part of any Patagonia excursion, as I recently wrote in describing the one such dining option in Buenos Aires. It’s worth noting that, before or after heading to Patagonia, Chile’s capital of Santiago has similar options, as I found in one recent lunch in the city’s increasingly fashionable Barrio Lastarria neighborhood. […]

  On the Patagonia cruise tours between Punta Arenas and Ushuaia, there’s plenty of wildlife, including elephant seals, sea lions and penguins, but whales are relatively uncommon. Chile has enacted legislation declaring the country a whale sanctuary, and populations are increasing, but in the eastern Strait of Magellan and the Beagle Channel they’re usually vagrants […]

Recently, in Punta Arenas, I paid my first visit to the Instituto de la Patagonia in several years. It’s actually an academic research institute, founded by local historian Mateo Martinic in the 1970s and affiliated with the Universidad by Magallanes, but it also features the Museo del Recuerdo, a mostly open-air museum that makes an […]

  As I wrote recently, my own semi-spontaneous Patagonia excursions differ from those of visitors who cannot devote so much time to the Patagonia region that I enjoy every year. In contrast to that earlier itinerary, today I’ll suggest a rather different but overlapping trip to Patagonia; it starts in Buenos Aires and ends in […]

  Visitors on a Patagonia adventure cruise are usually well-traveled people, and may notice that South America’s Pacific coast is a mirror image of North America’s. Southwest of Puerto Montt, the island of Chiloé has a geography similar to Canada’s Vancouver Island – a verdant, densely forested Pacific coastline that alternates rocky headlands and seemingly […]