There are certain trips that change your life, whether it’s that first time to Europe or the trip where you got totally out of your comfort zone. My trip to Chile and Argentina was definitely the latter, full of off the grid adventures, backpacking up active streams, surviving crazy suspension bridges and so much more. Last week I shared the first leg of our adventure in Puerto Natales, so today I wanted to show a few pictures from our trip to Patagonia in Chile and Argentina.

So, full disclosure – since we spent most of the time backpacking or leaving our packs behind for day hikes, I usually hiked around without my heavy duty {literally and figuratively} camera. We usually tried to fit all our hiking gear into a small day pack, so we had to nix any non-essentials. I did get a few snaps when hiking around with my big backpack and while staying at Refugios {hostels on the trail}, so while the trip was gorgeous, I didn’t get to capture all the highlights I usually would!

Brief overview of people who are thinking about traveling to Patagonia: Patagonia boarders both Chile and Argentina, and there are various areas you can visit in both countries. We wanted to go all out while we were there for a few weeks, so we visited Torres Del Paine on the Chile side, one of the most famous areas in Patagonia. Torres Del Paine is a huge park that’s over 900 square miles, and visitors from all over the world traveling to complete the circuit {a full circle in the park} or the W trail {a slightly shorter trail that covers all the highlights of the park}. Tom and I did an abbreviated version of the W trail, hiking the glacier, lakes, Britanico, the French Valley and more. Below are a few of the highlights and some of my tips for first time {or newbie} backpackers! For those who are planning a trip to Torres Del Paine, there are tons of trips you can do based on how much you want to hike, your skill level and most importantly, how many days you have to explore the park. Tom and I only had 4 days that we could spend in the park since we wanted to spend time in both Puerto Natales, Calafate and Buenos Aires, so we chose to do an abbreviated W trail so we could see the highlights of the park. Don’t get me wrong, while it was slightly shorter we definitely did our fair share of walking to get everything packed into 4-5 days – one day we even hiked about 18 miles which was both thrilling and so exhausting that I’m pretty sure we went to bed at 8:30 that night, whoops! Anyways…here’s the way we navigated the park.

Day 1: Boat from Lago Grey hotel to Grey Glacier 

Tom and I took a car from Puerto Natales into the park to kick off our journey, which turned out to be about a 3 hour car ride {which included a surprisingly fun pit-stop at Cueva Del Milodon, a cave that was once home to a giant sloth…this is real life…}. We reserved our tickets for the park in advance and showed the park rangers our itinerary to prove to them that we had actually planned a trip and reserved places to stay. I didn’t know before we got to the park, but a lot of time people try to just sneak in and “figure it out when they get there”, which doesn’t quite work since there’s a finite amount of hotels and places to camp out. So in short – make sure that you have your trip planned so they don’t kick you out!

From Lago Grey we took a 1 way boat to Grey Glacier, the largest glacier in Torres Del Paine. The glacier is huge and so incredibly beautiful – and the area around it is perfect to kick off your hiking adventures. We stayed at refugios for most of our trip {hostels in the park where you can either sleep in bunk beds or camp out}, and we made our way to hike up to the Refugio Grey to drop of our backpacks and explore. I’d never been backpacking before, so it took a little getting used to carrying everything I brought along on my back for the majority of the week. Even with a 30 pound bag, it gets heavy after walking a few miles, so we made sure to take day trips/drop off our bags whenever we had a chance.

Since we only had a day at Grey glacier, we spent most of the time exploring around the refugio and hiking the amazing suspension bridges that crossed over parts of the glacier and busy streams. If you have a fear of heights, you might be inclined to skip this part, but it was actually one of my favorite parts of the park – even if I did get a little dizzy/feared why I didn’t have to sign a waiver. Let’s just say that South Americans are a little more lax when it comes to danger and falling from a few hundred feet…Day 2: 4 Hour Hike to Refugio Lago Pehoe 

The next day we had breakfast at the refugio and started our W hike to refugio Lago Pehoe. This was the longest hike we had to do with our backpacks on, and while it was only about 10 km, quite a bit of it was uphill…and upstream…and pretty crazy steep. While I was a little tired as a novice backpacker, I survived and made it Refugio Pehoe {one of our favorite refugios}, situated on of the idyllic Lago Pehoe.   What’s nice about refugios is that you can stay inside the refugios in their communal or private rooms, or camp outside with your own gear. I won’t go as far to say that it’s Patagonia’s version of glamping, but staying in the refugio is actually surprisingly nice. All the refugios offer breakfast, lunch and dinner {which you can either pay for with your room, or drop in if you’re around the area for a hike} and have a fully stocked bar for celebrating after a day of hiking. We usually split a bottle of wine after an especially long hike and sat outside loading up on Pringles, dried fruit and nuts and some epically large glasses of Chilean wine. Not quite roughing it, which was the perfect compromise for backpacking/exploring the wilderness for a full week.  Day 3: The French Valley & Britanico {also the day where we walked 18 miles…}

Since we were doing a shorter version of the W trail, we tried to fit quite a bit into a jam-packed 4 days. So we made the most of it on the third day from hiking from Lake Pehoe to Campamento Italiano {a camping site} up to the French Valley and all the way up to Britanico, one of the highest and most beautiful views in Torres Del Paine. While traveling we met people from all around the world, and almost unanimously they said that Britanico was their favorite view on the W trail. So, like the crazy people we were, we decided we were going to hike from our refugio 9-10 miles to Britanico and all the way back to the refugio. Let me just say that it was an amazing experience, but dear god was it a long and crazy hard hike! But as you can see, the view was worth it. After feeling like I was climbing up rocks for a solid hour, we finally made it to the top of the mountain and took in the view of some of the highest peaks in the park. There are not many moments that truly leave me speechless, but getting to the top of the mountain was one of the most amazing things I’ve ever accomplished. My camera doesn’t do it any justice, so just believe me when I say it’s definitely worth the trip.

Once we finally made it back to our refugio, we drank more wine and then headed on a boat to take us to the towers, our last stop in Torres Del Paine for day 4. After hiking for so long, we were both exhausted and when we got to hotel Torres, we grabbed dinner around 10PM and promptly went to bed. There’s pretty much nothing more satisfying than sleeping in a comfy, big bed and being very well fed after a long, rewarding day of hiking. I’m pretty sure it was the best nights sleep of my life! Day 4: Tom does the Towers, Maya Weenies Out. 

So, to give you some context in an attempt to make myself feel better, day 4 of our trip was thanks-freaking-giving, which is basically the American national day for gluttony. So after hiking 18 miles, getting into our really nice hotel late at night, and thinking how nice it would be to sit around and read while drinking a latte, I chickened out and let Tom get up at 6 AM to climb the towers alone. And while you might think that it was incredibly selfish of me, Tom had the time of his life sprinting up a mountain that would have slowly killed me after the exhausting day before. Do I regret that I was kinda a weenie and chickened out? Yes. Did I have the best day ever reading crap fiction and drinking lattes, you bet I did. Relationships and travel are all about compromise, right? And I compromised the day away sitting at this really cute bar… And honestly, if this was your hotel after trekking in the wilderness, you might weenie out too! I spent the day exploring, eating real vs. camp food at the hotel restaurant, relaxing and snapping photos outside. I tried to become best friends with the horses too, but this was about as close as they’d let me get. For the record, Tom had an amazing time and let me know that the 8 hour hike up and down the mountain to see the towers was totally worth it {you can get a peek at the views here!}, so if you’re tougher than I am it comes highly recommended 😉

After a few incredible days of hiking, we took a bus from our hotel and hopped over to Calafate Argentina, part of Patagonia on the Chile side. The bus ride was a solid 5+ hours, and we had another late night getting to our hotel in Calafate. Thankfully we got some sleep on the bus and rolled in just in time for a late dinner before completely losing it after a few days of crazy traveling. Patagonia comes highly recommended, but definitely be prepared to be exhausted and a little over traveling!  Day 5: Calafate, Argentina 

Truth be told, Calafate wasn’t on our original Patagonia agenda, even though El Chalten is known as another beautiful area to explore on the Argentina side of Patagonia (and Calafate is usually the city people stay at when/before exploring Chalten}. After traveling our little hearts out, we decided to spend the almost full day we had in the city exploring before catching a plane to the last leg of our adventure in Buenos Aires – but if we would have had more time, we definitely would have spent a day or two exploring the area too.

I lucked out in Calafate because Tom picked a beautiful hotel {Hotel Splendor} to spend the last day of our Patagonia trip at, and it felt amazing sleeping in until 9 and waking up to a delicious, fancy breakfast. We spent the rest of the afternoon exploring the city, trying to find flamingos at the famous Lago Nimez Reserve {we failed}, and doing a little shopping before leaving Patagonia. It was a cute, sleepy little town {I’d say spend a few days there if you’re looking to stop in Calafate}, and it felt nice to be “back in civilization” with restaurants, coffee shops and and real internet – although I did start to miss being off the grid the more  my inbox started to fill up.   The last place we stopped for lunch before heading to BA was a cute little restaurant called Mi Rancho that we discovered while searching for a place to eat in the area. It felt more like a converted living room than a restaurant, and it was so cozy with friendly waiters and the most delicious food. We ate an amazing salad with grilled shrimp {which we were especially excited about since it can be hard to track down veggies at times!}, handmade empanadas and a pizza to share – and a few big glasses of Argentinian wine, you can never forget the wine when traveling in South America.  Needless to say, it was an incredible adventure, and I was so lucky to get to experience such a beautiful and truly life-changing place. And while I might give myself a little credit for writing this post so we can remember it, all the credit really goes to Tom who magically planned our entire trip in just under a week thanks to discovering Vertice Patagonia and being the trip planning king. It was quite the adventure and will go down as one of my all time favorite trips, and even though I was a backpacking newbie it was a blast from the first day to our last.

If you’re on the fence about exploring Patagonia, I would say DO IT in a heartbeat! Just make sure to get some hiking shoes, a backpack, hiking sticks, and give yourself enough time to make it happen – at least 5-6 days hiking the W trail so you can relax rather than rush. Plus, if 60 year old hippie moms can trek 45+ km, you can do it too – and believe me, there were many times that we were the youngest people on the trail. Nothing makes you realize how strong you are like hiking around the end of the earth with a backpack, and if I can do it you definitely can too!