Argentina Vacations, Argentina Vacation Reviews, Tourism Guide

Argentina Vacation Guide

You’ll probably arrive in Argentina via Buenos Aires, where the cosmopolitan inhabitants invigorate visitors with trendy galleries, lively bars and tango, tango, tango. Huge steaks and skillful soccer each have their place too, as does literature and the long-held traditions of a complex, raunchy city, all of which serve to stir up the same passion in visitors that locals seem to take for granted. While Buenos Aires is undoubtedly the cultural hub, Córdoba is almost as funky, with contemporary galleries mixing with trance DJs and ancient Jesuit ruins, while tiny mountain villages lie just up the hill.

In ‘wine country’, Mendoza’s laid back day time attitude and ‘place to be seen’ nightlife combine with the inevitable vineyard tours to make an Argentine must see, where plenty settle down for the backpacking equivalent of the long haul, setting up the city as a temporary base camp. Carolina is a more rustic town, with ancient caves plastered in rock paintings and the remnants of a long-passed gold rush still hanging in the air; dirt roads and faded stone houses give a genuine ‘step back in time’ feel.

To the south, the fierce lands of Patagonia are like entering a world without people: immense and untouched, with spiky peaks, enviable plant life and a perfect night sky unpolluted by city lights. At the Reserva Faunística Península Valdés you can get up close with the flicking extremities of splashing whales, or watch icebergs crumble into the sea from the Glacier Perito Moreno, which advances and tumbles at a hasty 2 meters per day. Parque Provincial Ischigualasto – or ‘valley of the moon’ – is another Argentine wonder, draped in twisting rock formations and scattered with dinosaur bones slowly revealed by the passing of time.

Other natural attractions include the ski resorts and hiking trails of the Lake District, and the deafening roar of the Iguazu Falls, where you’ll be soaked in the gentle mist that covers the surrounding hills, and Brazil and Paraguay are almost close enough to touch.

Combining cities with an almost Parisian sense of style with varied natural wonders spread across the length of half a hemisphere, some visitors are so captivated by Argentina they never leave. With its colorful culture and undeniable passion for life, this particular chunk of South America stirs something in many a romantic soul.