Argentina & Chile Travel Review: El Chaltén, Torres del Paine, Serranía de Hornocal, Hiking, Ice Trekking, Marble Caves

Review by traveler

Alex A.

3.4.2023

General Info

Traveler Review

Which Country (Countries) did you visit on this trip?

Argentina

Chile

Your overall comments on the trip and the travel company:

The goods:
This travel company designed and curated a wonderful, though very expensive, trip for us through Chile and Argentina highlights. Sami, our trip planner, was able to create a very streamlined itinerary connecting all my desired destinations in a logical loop. Every detail, including custom deliveries and returns for rental cars and connection flights running on different days for different routes, was taken into consideration and planned in advance. All accommodations were great and not over luxurious, exactly what we asked for. The entire itinerary was presented in a simple single working document on the web that was changing during our planning stage to reflect my comments and then was a guide during the trip. Dedicated support group from our travel agency was tracking our trip 24/7. I would never able to plan and execute such a month long trip myself. We really enjoyed our vacation.
The not so goods:
During the trip we experienced a couple of quite stressful mishaps, where our airport transfers did not show up and we had to scramble for alternative transportation to catch our planes. I understand that such incidents can happen, but our travel company may want to look for more reliable providers in the two capitals. After the trip it took me more than 3 weeks to get reimbursed for these undelivered services as promised.
The trip was very expensive, given the high US dollar and very low pesos at the time of trip.

What were the most enjoyable or memorable parts of your trip?

Every destination on this trip was enjoyable. The most memorable were, probably, the hikes, where we had to work hard to reach our goals. They were: Laguna Torre hike from El Chaltén, Mirador Torres del Paine hike from the hotel in Torres del Paine, Ice trekking on Exploradores Glacier. Also, quite memorable were beautiful Marble caves, penguin colony on Península Valdés, and Mirador Serranía de Hornocal. We did not enjoy hike to Lago de los Tres and Mirador Monte Fitz Roy as much as expected due to the super crowded last portion of the trail.

If you could take your trip again, what would you do differently?

In cities we would only go with walking tours. While getting to a particular destination in a city by car is convenient, observing a city from back seats of a small van is a very frustrating experience. You can only see the first two floors of buildings at best, not much to appreciate architecture.

Travel Company Comments:

Hi Alex,
Thank you for taking your time to share your feedback with us.
We are happy to hear that you have enjoyed your month-long trip around Chile & Argentina. We are sure you and Inga made some great memories.
It is really disappointing for us as well that we were not able to avoid the mishaps with two of your airport transfers. We will of course take this opportunity to work harder to ensure this does not happen again with any future guests.
Regarding the delay in the refund, unfortunately there are some internal steps to follow which caused the delay, but the money was refunded as agreed.
Thank you again for taking your time and for allowing us to organize your trip.
Warm regards