Want to see the world's third largest glacier after Greenland and Antartica? It's located in Los Glaciares National Park, in Southern Patagonia, about 80km from El Calafate. This Unesco World Heritage site is a popular destination for visitors coming from Torres del Paine national park or El Chaltén as its relatively close and easy to get to with many transportation options.
It's easy to appreciate the enormity of this glacier as the viewing walkways are built to take it all in. If you want to get even closer, there are boat tours that you can buy tickets for or may be included in your tour purchase.
There are about 3-5km of metal walkways in the park, with short staircases and benches intermittently scattered throughout where you can gaze at just about every angle of the glacier. It is also wheelchair accessible in parts, with an elevator to descend from the gift shop centre to a large viewing platform.
How to get there
There are many options to get here - pre-arranged tours, both group and private, self-drive and public transit. You can also book a tour to walk on the ice.
We took public transit from El Calafate as it was the most affordable. Visiting the glacier is not inexpensive by any means, when you add up the cost of the tour or transportation and the entrance fees which is normally not included in the tour price. For 2 people on the public bus, we paid 26,600 ARS (approx $75 USD as of Feb 2023 with the blue dollar exchange). Prices for basic tours generally start around $100 USD per person and up, not including entrance fee as a comparison. The entrance fee tickets can be re-used within 3 days for half-price admission.
Public transit
To book a public bus, head to the Calafate bus terminal and any of the bus lines will sell tickets same day. Someone suggested taking the afternoon departure at around 12:30pm or 1pm as it's less crowded at the park and we were happy we did.
After about a 90 minute ride, the bus will first stop at the ticket entrance. If you are paying in pesos, a ticket collector comes on board the bus and will get tickets for you. They ask for your country of origin and its marked on the ticket when you get them. If you are paying by credit card, you just hop off the bus and its a quick 5 minute line to buy the ticket.
You will have about 3 hours to explore on your own, which is more than enough time to walk the full length at a very leisurely pace. It took us about 1 1/2 hours to complete all the boardwalks.
On the return to El Calafate, the bus may stop at a side street of the main road in town to let folks off and then continue onto the bus terminal.
Trailhead & Facilities
You are dropped off at the start of the trailhead on the east side of the park and the bus picks you up later at the centre of the park so you don't have to double-back to where you started. There are clean washrooms at the beginning and centre stops in the park. If you want to do the boat tour, there is a little booth just where you are dropped off and you will definitely have time to do this. We brought our lunch with us and sat on one of the many benches on the walkways.
Staying in El Calafate?
We stayed at the modern and very affordable Folk hostel, just 450m from the main bus terminal. Using booking.com we were upgraded to a private room with private bath. As we were on a budget, walking distance to the bus terminal was important for us to help minimize spending money getting to and from our accommodations. The main street, Av. del Libertador is only a 10 minute walk away. This was our first stop in Argentina coming from Chile after hiking in Torres del Paine, so we did not have any ARS pesos on hand. The staff at Folk gave us our room and let us pop into town to exchange our USD as you normally have to pay on check-in. There is a laundromat a two minute walk away that had one of the best exchange rates we saw. We also did some laundry there as it was much needed and cost under $4 USD for about 3kg of laundry, with a small discount as a guest of the hostel. Close by is a supermercado, with a great butcher. We bought sandwich fixings here for our trip to the glacier and it was only about $2 USD. These rates are all blue dollar rates.
Exploring the town of El Calafate
El Calafate is a beautiful town. It is truly the land of giants - lavender bushes were 6 feet tall and rose bushes had the most massive flowers on them. They perfume the streets and they seem to be everywhere, in the churches, the parks and gardens of homes. I suppose when you have 16+ hours of daylight in the summers, the plants just keep growing!
Av del Libertador is great to wander around and window shop. It is very much geared toward the well-heeled tourist, with many restaurants and cafes tucked beside the numerous chocolate shops. This is the place to get Calafate jam as they make great gifts and have the best prices. We sampled a couple chocolaterias and many have a Calafate-flavoured chocolate so definitely try it. We had Calafate ice cream which tastes like a cross between black currant and blueberry. The restaurants are also very affordable here too when you take into account the blue dollar exchange rate. We had a steak dinner at a very nice restaurant and it only cost about $40 USD for two when converted. Unheard of back in Toronto!
World's tiniest ice cream cones, it came with 2 flavours but we ate the Calafate before taking this snap.
Of course, I had to get my empanada fix in this town as well. We loved Don Luis cafeteria, specifically the quiet location off Av del Libertador on 9 de Julio as they have several locations. They make great coffees as well and it has such a nice ambiance, unlike the busy location on Libertador. The cafe also sold Calafate jam and tea, which was well-priced.
You won't be disappointed with a quick pit stop in El Calafate, especially as its conveniently close to the Glaciar Perito Moreno.
BUDGET BREAKDOWN
We spent 3 nights in El Calafate and 4 nights in El Chaltén. Below are the costs you can expect for 2 people, in USD not including food:
2 PEOPLE
Bus from Puerto Natales to El Calafate $54
3 nts Folk Hostel / Calafate (free upgrade) $67
Perito Moreno glacier bus, return $45
Perito Moreno park fees $31
Bus - El Calafate to El Chaltén $140
4 nts Airbnb - El Chaltén $335
Transfer / Río Electrico shuttle $11
TOTAL $683
You can also look at our YouTube videos and other posts here on other destinations in our Southern Patagonia trip. Let us know if you have any questions about this post!
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