How to get to Patagonia from Buenos Aires?
I'm heading to Buenos Aires in a week and would like to get to Patagonia and back in 12 days.
I assume I've got to get down to El Calafate and from there we can organize trekking and visit the Perito Moreno glacier.
I'm on a budget, and it seems like flying and taking the bus is going to be around the same price, and both are pretty expensive ($200/person round trip). Would there be an advantage to taking the bus besides getting there quicker? (Nice scenery I'd miss from a plane maybe?)
Best Answer
You only have 12 days. If you take a bus round-trip from Buenos Aires to El Calafate, you're going to waste 2-3 days getting there and 2-3 days getting back. That's almost half of your vacation on a bus! On top of that, a brief check I did of the price on the Andesmar bus via Puerto Madryn shows a round trip price of around $700 USD (depends on the seats) whereas LAN flies there round trip for around $500 USD.
Patagonia is an amazing place and you should try to spend as much time there as you can. The scenery in the interior of Argentina is spectacular for it's vast emptiness, but trust me after a few hours looking out the bus window you'll have seen enough.
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Is there a train from Buenos Aires to Patagonia?
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Average direct flight time is 11 hours 10 minutes. The fastest direct flight from Buenos Aires to Patagonia is 11 hours 10 minutes.What is the best way to get to Patagonia?
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Answer 2
I agree with most of what Mark wrote. However, instead of visiting websites of individual bus companies or going to the Retiro bus terminal, there's a far better way to find out the prices and schedules of intercity buses anywhere in Argentina:
Just enter origin, destination and date, and hit "buscar". If you want, with credit card you can also buy the ticket directly from the site & print it.
For example, for Buenos Aires (Retiro) - Puerto Madryn, there are 6 different operators running lots of buses daily. Results can be handily sorted by duration, price etc. Quickest is 18 hours (Condor - Estrella), while cheapest is AR$ 525 (El Pinguino) one-way.
(If price isn't the main factor, I can also recommend Andesmar. Though I haven't tried most of the companies on the BA-PM route, like El Pinguino, Don Otto or Via Tac.)
For Puerto Madryn - El Calafate, Andesmar seems to be the only option with one daily bus; AR$ 835 (cama ejecutivo) or AR$ 950 (cama suite).
Good point by user27478 too. I think everyone should take at least one long-distance bus trip while in Argentina, but spending big part of your 12 days in buses probably isn't optimal. Still, of course you'd miss something if you fly. If nothing else, you will better appreciate the vastness of it all and maybe feel some additional sense of (In Patagonia type) adventure going by road. :-)
(One option: visit Patagonia later with more time, and go to perhaps Salta or Mendoza instead.)
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