Classic Argentina Patagonia Tour

Your guide meets you at Trelew Airport and drives you to downtown Puerto Madryn. The day proper starts at Punta Tombo, one of the most important Magellanic penguin colonies in South America. Thousands of penguins fish in the surf, sit on eggs and raise chicks along the beach.

From there the route loops through Chubut: Rawson, the provincial capital, and the Playa Unión waterfront; Trelew; and Gaiman, where Welsh descendants keep their teahouse tradition going. The Paleontology Museum closes the day, then you return to Puerto Madryn and your hotel. The penguin colony visit runs from October to March only.

A full day on Peninsula Valdés, a wildlife reserve reached through Patagonian landscape and rustic farms. At Puerto Pirámides, look out for Southern right whales from June to December, or sea lions from December to March. Lunch is included, at the Punta Delgada Lighthouse, with the coastline spread out below.

Caleta Valdés is where the elephant seals haul out, males weighing up to 3 tons and reaching about 6 meters long. Bird Island comes next, for flamingos in the wetlands and gulls and petrels overhead. Then back to Puerto Madryn, with the evening yours.

Fly south to Ushuaia, Argentina's southernmost city. Your guide meets you on arrival for a 2-hour city tour with a museum visit. It starts on the coastal avenue along the Beagle Channel and the harbor, then moves through the old town to the former prison, a reminder that Ushuaia began as a convict colony. The End of the World Museum fills in the rest of the picture.

Afterward you check in to a hotel near the water, with the Beagle Channel in front and the Andes behind.

Argentina's first coastal national park gets a 4-hour tour. The landscape is lenga forest bent by the wind, mountains and waterfalls. Paths lead to Ensenada Bay and Lapataia Bay, and the route circles Lago Roca. Keep an eye out for guanacos, Andean foxes and beavers; geese, ducks and oystercatchers work the rivers and lakes.

The End of the World Train is part of the visit. It rides the Fuegian South Railway from the edge of Ushuaia along the Pipo River, on a line that prisoners originally built to haul timber for firewood. Back in town, the rest of the day is yours.

A transfer to the airport, then a flight north to El Calafate, the base for the glaciers of Los Glaciares National Park. Check in to your hotel on arrival. Nothing is planned for the rest of the day, which is deliberate: the next two days are long ones on the ice. Spend it at the hotel pool or walking through town to see how Calafate lives when the tour groups are out.

A full day on the water. The cruise boat leaves from Punta Bandera and sails the Southern and Northern Bends, known as the Garganta del Diablo, or Devil's Throat. Drifting ice thickens as the boat approaches the Upsala Glacier. It then continues to Onelli Bay, where icebergs and floes sit in very still water.

The boat is back at the port in the late afternoon, and the evening is free.

The Perito Moreno Glacier sits next to Lago Argentino, inside Los Glaciares National Park. The drive in gives you the first views of the glacier against the surrounding peaks. Then you walk the walkways built along the lakeshore, which show the ice wall from several angles. Every so often a mass of ice breaks off and crashes into the lake. Wait for it; it is worth the patience.

You return to town in the afternoon. If the schedule allows, add a night here and do nothing in particular.

The loop closes here: Atlantic coast, Beagle Channel, glacier country. Nothing is scheduled today except your departure, whether that is a flight home or on to the next stop in South America. If your flight allows a free morning, one last walk through El Calafate is a better goodbye than a rushed breakfast.