The list of what Argentina is known for is intriguing: soccer, spectacular steak, gauchos, tango, the Andes, and Evita, to name just a few cultural icons. This is a country of vast landscapes, dynamic cities, and spectacular natural beauty. It’s also a place with a proud heritage and a strong national identity.
Argentina is an enormous country, stretching 2,360 miles from the north, which is subtropical, to the dramatic landscapes of Patagonia in the far south. The scenery ranges from the rippling expanse of the pampas in the north to the jagged Andes, which form the spine of South America, and rolling vineyards where some of the world’s finest reds are produced.
Whether your interests are in food and wine, political history, exploring wild landscapes, or spotting abundant marine life, Argentina is bound to intrigue and seduce you.
El Caminito
El Caminito, Buenos Aires
Instantly recognizable, colorful El Caminito is the most famous street in La Boca, a famed neighborhood in Buenos Aires. The houses here, former tenement shacks covered in corrugated zinc, are painted in brilliant shades of red, yellow, orange, and turquoise. They’re adorned with jaunty figures peering out of the windows; look out for Eva Peron and legendary footballer Diego Maradona, among others.
La Boca was once the home of many Italian immigrants who arrived in Buenos Aires between 1880 and 1930. Many of them worked at the nearby port and developed the tradition of decorating their lowly tenement houses with paint that they salvaged from the shipyard.
Today, El Caminito is officially a pedestrian museum, the houses no longer inhabited. It’s undeniably touristy but genuinely enchanting to visit. Couples dancing tango in the street and the sounds of more tango drifting out of the nearby bars just add to the atmosphere.
Teatro Colon
Teatro Colon, Buenos Aires
Buenos Aires’ impressive opera house, Teatro Colon, is a colossal neoclassical structure occupying an entire block in the city center. The theater is one of the world’s great opera houses, up there with La Scala in Milan and the Royal Opera House in London, and attracts world-class performances of opera and ballet.
Even if you don’t have time for a performance, take one of the backstage tours. You’ll marvel at the plush interiors, all gold, red velvet, and glittering chandeliers, and the sheer size of the venue, which accommodates 3,000. A tour will show you the beautiful foyer, the backstage area, the dressing rooms, and the elaborate costume department.
Eva Peron
La Recoleta, Buenos Aires
Touring a cemetery may seem like a strange choice when visiting a new city, but La Recoleta in Buenos Aires has to be one of the most beautiful resting places in the world. More to the point, this is the burial place of Eva Peron, Argentina’s most famous daughter, better known as Evita.
The cemetery was founded in 1732 and has always been the most prestigious place in Buenos Aires to be buried. The architecture is exquisite, with mausoleums in neat blocks designed in the baroque, neo-gothic, and Art Deco styles, in marble and granite. Birdsong fills the air and the cemetery cats, fed by the locals, snooze in the sunshine.
La Recoleta, Buenos Aires
The space is enormous; the cemetery covers 14 acres, although most people come to pay their respects to Evita. Her tomb is marked Familia Duarte, her maiden name, and there’s a plaque commemorating her life. The tomb is easily identified by the profusion of flowers left by admirers.
Peron was a polarizing figure, though; First Lady of Argentina from 1946 to her premature death from cancer in 1952, she championed the socialist cause but was hated as well as adored.
For more Evita history, visit the Casa Rosada, the former presidential palace, on the vast Plaza de Mayo in the city center. It’s from the balcony here that Peron addressed a vast crowd of her supporters.
Soccer
La Bombonera, Buenos Aires
Soccer, or fútbol, is a national passion in Argentina. Buenos Aires is its epicenter, famed for two of the mightiest teams, River Plate and Boca Juniors. If you’re in town on the day of a match, the atmosphere will be electric. Knowing a little about soccer is a great way to start up a conversation with a local, too, as absolutely everybody here supports a football team.
If you’re really interested, you could join a stadium tour that includes La Bombonera, home of Boca Juniors, and El Monumental, the home ground of River Plate. Better still, try to secure tickets to a game—it’s an experience you won’t forget.
Iguazu Falls
Iguazu Falls
The mind-blowing Iguazu Falls is a UNESCO World Heritage Site and the largest waterfall system in the world.
The falls span the border of Argentina and Brazil, each of which protects the area as a national park. There are hundreds of individual waterfalls, but the most dramatic section is called the Devil’s Throat, or Garganta del Diablo, a mighty, thundering cascade 269 feet high and 492 feet wide.
Gaze down on it from a walkway and marvel at the raw power of nature as you’re drenched by the spray. Getting wet is inevitable but it’s all part of the fun.
You can see these famous South American waterfalls by hiking trail, from the various lookout points, or on a boat ride. As well as the falls, there’s much more to see around here, not least the wildlife that inhabits the surrounding rainforest, including giant anteaters, ocelots, and sleek jaguars.
Asado
Asado
Argentina is one of the top producers of cattle, and cooking meat has been elevated to a fine art here. The traditional Argentinian barbecue is called an asado, and you’ll see asado restaurants in every major town, as well as on the estancias, or ranches, themselves. Families will also host their own asados, lively occasions usually involving large numbers of friends and relatives and mountains of food.
An asado is more than beef, though. Typically, as well as steaks and ribs, chicken, chorizo sausages, lamb, and pork will be cooked over an open fire on a parrilla, or grill by the asador, the head cook. An asado is accompanied by various salads and plenty of fine Argentinian red wine; the silky Malbecs here are among the best in the world.
The ritual of an asado in Argentina also has great cultural significance. The method of cooking stems from the time of the gauchos, nomadic cowboys, who would slow-cook their meat over an open flame.
Tango
Tango show
What is Argentina known for? If there’s one thing, it’s tango. No visit to Buenos Aires is complete without taking in a tango show. This sultry, passionate dance originated on the streets in the late 19th century, combining influences from Africa, Cuba, and Europe. It’s mesmerizing to watch, whether you take in a professional performance at one of the city’s many tango palaces, or stop to admire street dancers in La Boca or at the San Telmo Market.
You can show off your own moves, too, at a salon de baile, or dance hall, where anybody can go to dance. Dress the part; Buenos Aires is an elegant city. You’ll see dancers of every age in these halls; indeed, at a professional show, the best dancers are often seniors. You could even join a class; there are tango lessons all over the city for every level of experience.
Ushuaia
Tierra del Fuego National Park
There’s something of a thrill in the knowledge that you’re visiting the southernmost city in the world, huddled on the very tip of South America, where the Andes mountains meet the Drake Passage and the next landfall is Antarctica.
As such, Ushuaia has something of a frontier feel that gives it an exciting edge. People come here for hiking amid the spectacular nature of the surrounding Tierra del Fuego National Park or as a staging post en route to Antarctica.
The city has unusual origins. Although the Tierra del Fuego region had been inhabited for centuries by native tribes, the city itself grew out of a penal colony that was established by the government in 1896. Ushuaia’s early inhabitants were serial killers, conmen, and pirates, and many buildings in the city, as well as the nearby railroad, were built by forced labor.
Museo Maritimo y Presidio, Ushuaia
The prison itself was grim with brutal conditions. It closed in 1947 and today houses a fascinating museum, the Museo Maritimo y Presidio. You can get a sense of how spartan the cells were, where the worst offenders were shackled, and how bitterly cold it must have been in the long, dark winters. There are also displays telling the grisly backstories of some of the most notorious offenders.
On a more cheery note, Ushuaia has some excellent restaurants, a lively waterfront area, and some fun souvenir shops where you can buy anything from locally made jewelry and sculpture to tea towels, Patagonian chocolate, or gin with the “fin del mundo” theme.
The End of the World Train
The End of the World Train, Ushuaia
One of the best things to do in Ushuaia is to ride on the Tren del Fin del Mundo, or the End of the World Train. This vintage train chugs from its station outside the city up into the Tierra del Fuego National Park on tracks built by prisoners when Ushuaia was a penal colony. The train was used to collect wood and stone to take back to the city for construction projects.
Today, the scenic train ride is absolutely enchanting. You’ll trundle up Mount Susana through the atmospheric lenga forest, the trees festooned with Old Man’s Beard lichen, and past rushing rivers. There’s a stop at La Macarena waterfall, where you can breathe the clear air and photograph the tumbling falls. You’ll also learn about the history of the railroad and the prisoners who built it.
Welsh Patagonia
Gaiman
Patagonia may seem like an unlikely place in the world to find a Welsh-speaking community, but some 5,000 people here speak Welsh and maintain Welsh traditions, not least afternoon tea, their faith, and a love of rugby.
A small group of Welsh migrants arrived in Patagonia in the mid-19th century, seeking a utopia where they could preserve their culture, which they feared was being eroded in Britain. Despite the initial hardships, the community thrived and grew.
Today, as you explore the vast plains inland from Puerto Madryn, you’ll find places with Welsh names, such as Trelew, Dolavon, and Gaiman, as well as Welsh chapels and an abundance of tea houses. Locals will speak Welsh and Spanish, but not necessarily English.
Welsh cakes
Visit the little town of Gaiman and you can learn about the history of the pioneers in the Historical Museum. Next, it’s time for a traditional Welsh afternoon tea: dainty cakes, sandwiches, scones with jam and clotted cream, and Welsh cakes, which are made from flour, butter, currants, eggs, and spices such as cinnamon and allspice.
The Beagle Channel
The Beagle Channel
The Beagle Channel, a narrow strait that connects the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, is a legendary waterway in wild Tierra del Fuego, the scattered jigsaw of islands that characterizes the southern tip of Argentina. The channel is named after The Beagle, the ship on which Charles Darwin sailed when he visited in 1833.
The best way to appreciate the Beagle Channel is to take a boat trip from Ushuaia. You’ll stop at an island inhabited by Magellanic penguins, which bustle about their business, seemingly oblivious to observers. Sea lions bask on the rocks, while seabirds shriek in the sky.
Les Eclaireurs lighthouse
Another famous sight in the Beagle Channel is the red-and-white Les Eclaireurs lighthouse, standing on a rock at the entrance to the approach to the port of Ushuaia. The lighthouse played an essential role in history, guiding seafarers around the many rocky islets, and is still in operation today, albeit by a remote control.
The bright colors of the lighthouse against the bleak islands, the steely-gray sea and the razor-sharp, snowy peaks that surround the city make a wonderful photo.
Unique Wildlife
Southern right whale
Puerto Madryn, the gateway to Patagonia’s barren but beautiful Peninsula Valdés, is one of the best places in the world for whale watching and dolphin spotting. You can join a boat ride to spot rare Commerson’s dolphins, lively, black and white creatures that look like mini orcas, and southern right whales at certain times of the year.
Take a trip to wild Punta Loma, where you can observe a permanent sea lion colony and cormorant rookery, and to Punta Tombo, where there’s a large colony of enchanting Magellanic penguins. You’ll also spot big, blubbery elephant seals, which are here year-round. Inland from the wave-pounded coast, look out for armadillos and foxes, and guanacos, close relatives of llamas, which live wild in Argentina.
Iguazu Falls
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