Argentina Patagonia 6-Day Itinerary: Ushuaia and El Calafate

Ushuaia's main avenue is lined with trekking gear shops, artisan chocolate stores and restaurants, always backed by the snow-capped peaks of the Darwin Range. It is the natural starting point to get your bearings in the southernmost city in the world before heading out on tours.

Operating until 1947, the Ushuaia prison held the inmates who helped build the city and the railway that is now a tourist attraction. The museum occupies the original pavilions, with reconstructed cells and a section on maritime history and Antarctic exploration.

The narrow-gauge train runs 7 km inside Tierra del Fuego National Park, retracing the route prisoners once walked to the forest to cut firewood. The ride takes about an hour and ends inside the park, from where you can continue on foot to Lapataia Bay.

Entry is not included in the national park ticket; book ahead in summer.

Lapataia Bay marks the end of National Route 3, the highway that starts in Buenos Aires and runs over 3,000 kilometers to this point. A wooden sign officially marks "the end of the world, the beginning of everything," surrounded by peat bogs and the lenga forest typical of the region.

Built in 1920 on a small rocky island in the Beagle Channel, Les Éclaireurs is the most photographed lighthouse in Patagonia, though it is not, as many believe, the lighthouse described by Jules Verne in "The Lighthouse at the End of the World." The roughly 2-hour boat tour departs from the port of Ushuaia.

Before reaching the lighthouse, the boat passes a small island covered in sea lions, a permanent colony that usually gathers dozens of animals lying on the rocks, with pups visible between October and March.

Half an hour from downtown, Glaciar Martial can be reached by a roughly 90-minute uphill trail or by a chairlift that cuts the climb short. From the viewpoint, the view spans the whole of Ushuaia Bay and the Beagle Channel beyond, with Cerro Castor visible on clear winter days.

Founded in 1886 by English missionary Thomas Bridges, Estancia Harberton was the first working property in all of Tierra del Fuego and still belongs to the same family. The wooden house, ordered ready-made from England and assembled piece by piece, can be visited with a guide.

About 20 minutes by boat from Estancia Harberton, Isla Martillo holds a colony of Magellanic penguins that breeds on the island between October and April, when it is possible to land and walk among the nests with a naturalist guide.

Less than 80 km from El Calafate, the walkways of Los Glaciares National Park lead within meters of Perito Moreno's 60-meter-high, 5-kilometer-wide ice wall, one of the rare glaciers on the planet still advancing over the lake instead of retreating.

From time to time, blocks of ice break off with a crack audible hundreds of meters away; set aside at least 3 hours on the walkways to raise your odds of catching one.

Those who want to set foot on the ice can book the minitrekking, a roughly 90-minute guided walk on the glacier surface with crampons strapped to your boots, preceded by a boat crossing to the base of the glacier. The tour is sold separately from the park entry ticket.

A few minutes' walk from downtown El Calafate, Laguna Nimez Reserve protects a shallow lagoon where Chilean flamingos feed alongside ducks and other steppe birds, with short trails and no guide required.

The Glaciarium explains with models and videos how an ice field forms and why Perito Moreno keeps advancing while most of the world's glaciers retreat. The combined ticket includes access to the Glacio Bar, an entire bar carved out of ice blocks, with a drink served in an ice glass.