Review: South America Tour, Argentina & Chile, Buenos Aires, Santiago, Torres del Paine, Atacama, Perito Moreno Glacier Hike, Tango

I recently took a two week vacation with a friend throughout Argentina and Chile, and we booked the entire trip using this travel agency.  We are both Spanish teachers in the U.S. and we wanted to make sure we saw different parts of each country and got plenty of Spanish speaking in :)  We stayed in 5 different cities:

Night 1 - overnight flight

Nights 2 - 3 in Buenos Aires, Argentina

Nights 4 - 6 in El Calafate, Argentina

Nights 7 - 8 in Puerto Natales, Chile

Nights 9 - 10 in Santiago de Chile

Nights 11 - 13 in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile

Night 14 - overnight flight

We are so happy our agent recommended these locations for the amount of time listed.  We told him the type of vacation we were seeking, and he pulled it off even though we can be very particular about what we want at times!  We wanted to see a variety of different cities and regions across the two countries, and this was the perfect mix of adventure and culture.  Our agent booked excursions for us each of the days we were not traveling between cities.  This was actually perfect because we felt we maximized our time by waking up a little earlier than we normally would on vacation to make sure we took advantage of the opportunities and experiences!  And it allowed us to do a little relaxing and exploring on our own on the days we didn’t have excursions.

Our amazing excursions included: 1) Buenos Aires Christmas dinner experience where we at steak, drank wine, and made our own empanadas, 2) private city tour of Buenos Aires, 3) Buenos Aires tango lesson and going out after the lesson with the instructors to two local tango clubs, 4) trekking on Perito Moreno glacier, 5) cruise to visit floating icebergs and two other large glaciers in Patagonia, 6) trekking in Torres del Paine national park, 7) day trip to Valparaiso and Viña Del Mar that included stops at two vineyards, 8) trekking through Moon Valley and Death Valley in the Atacama Desert, 9) visit to geysers before sunrise, 10) visits to salt flats in the Atacama Desert.  All in all, we had amazing weather for all these excursions, I think you can only rely on luck for that!!

We were extremely impressed with how organized our trip was.  Every single time we arrived at the airport, there was someone waiting there with our names on a sign.  Every single check in at each of the 5 hotels was smooth and they always had our information and were expecting our arrival.  There was never any confusion about what type of room we needed or any other accommodations.  Transfers to and from the hotels for each excursion were always punctual, and again, the tour guides always expected us and were really friendly!  We learned so much from them.  The tour guides will speak in both English and Spanish for the tourists depending on which language you prefer.  We were really impressed with how knowledgeable they all were!  Oh and another big plus - all of our excursions were paid for ahead of time through our agent, which made it so easy!  We noticed some of the other tourists getting out and paying for each one, so it was nice to not have to worry about having cash for those!

I highly recommend this travel agency!  They even booked all of our flights, so that was TREMENDOUSLY helpful!