Argentina Essentials

After you land in Buenos Aires, you are met at the airport and driven straight to your hotel. The drive into the city is a proper introduction to its scale, huge avenues like 9 de Julio with buses cutting across lanes, and older buildings getting denser and more worn-in as you move toward the centre. As you arrive at your hotel, the rest of the day is free. Jetlag usually hits hard, so most people end up staying in. If you do go out, a nearby café is an easy option for a cortado and a slow first look at the neighbourhood.

After breakfast, you head out in the city, starting with the sweep of 9 de Julio as it pulls you past the Colón Theatre and into the civic core of Buenos Aires. Plaza de Mayo opens with the Casa Rosada on one side and the Cathedral and Cabildo anchoring the square, a space that still feels tied to the country’s political memory. Inside the cathedral, you come across the mausoleum of General San Martín , a quiet, maintained space that carries its historical weight without needing its emphasis.

La Boca feels like a different city altogether. Caminito is all colour and noise, layered with street art and the strong imprint of Italian immigrant communities that shaped its identity. A short café stop breaks the pace before the atmosphere softens again in Recoleta. The cemetery there is striking in its density and detail, almost like a compact city of its own, with Eva Perón among those laid to rest. The day closes at Viejo Almacén with dinner and a tango show, where the performance brings together the city’s history and intensity in a single room.

This day is free for you to explore Buenos Aires at your own pace, without a fixed schedule or set route. If you want to go a bit further out, there are optional day trips available at an additional cost. One option is Tigre and the Paraná Delta, just outside the city, where the streets gradually give way to waterways, with small islands and riverside homes scattered across the water. The other is San Antonio de Areco, a quieter gaucho town with colonial streets, local workshops and a slower, more traditional rural atmosphere that feels far removed from the pace of Buenos Aires.

You fly south to Ushuaia on Tierra del Fuego at the very bottom of Argentina. On arrival, there is a quick stop at a viewpoint over the city, the mountains, and the Beagle Channel. It feels very different straight away, with Ushuaia sitting between the Andes and the water, and people often call it the “End of the World” because it is so far south.

After that, the rest of the day is free. You can choose to retire to your hotel to rest, or go down to the harbour for a first walk around town. You will see fishing boats and working vessels coming and going, which is a nice, simple first look at the town.

This day takes you into Tierra del Fuego National Park, where dense sub-Antarctic forest runs right down to the edge of the sea. Once you are inside, the pace is slow and easygoing, just a mix of short trail walks and viewpoints, stopping wherever the scenery makes you want to get out. The air feels sharp down here, and even the drive between valleys becomes part of the experience rather than something in between stops.

In the afternoon, there is the option to head out on a Beagle Channel cruise. It is a striking stretch of water that brings you close to rocky islands filled with sea lions and nesting birds, before reaching the red-and-white Les Eclaireurs Lighthouse sitting out in the channel with mountains in the background.

After breakfast, you fly down to El Calafate, a small town sitting on the edge of Lake Argentino in Patagonia. It is a quiet place and really just works as the base for visiting the glaciers in Los Glaciers National Park.

Once you arrive and check into your hotel, the rest of the day is free. If you feel like going out, the Glaciarium Museum is an easy option to get a first look at the ice world you will be seeing properly the next day.

This is the day when you visit Perito Moreno Glacier, one of the most remarkable glaciers in the world because it is still changing shape over time. Inside Los Glaciares National Park, the scenery slowly opens up until the huge wall of ice comes into view. The glacier stretches across the landscape in deep blue tones, with constant cracks and shifts as it moves. From the viewing platforms, you can watch pieces of ice break off and fall into Lake Argentino below, often with a loud, thunder-like sound that carries across the valley.

After the visit, you return to your hotel in El Calafate.

After breakfast, you will catch your flight back to Buenos Aires. On arrival, a transfer will take you right back to your original hotel to check in. The rest of the afternoon and evening are completely yours to unwind. Whether you want to catch up on sleep, hunt down some local leather goods, or just grab a sidewalk table in Palermo for coffee and people-watching.

After breakfast, you are taken to the international airport for your flight back to London. You leave Argentina with the memories of a beautiful tour that took you from the streets and cafés of Buenos Aires to the glaciers of El Calafate and the open landscapes of Ushuaia.