Patagonia on a BUDGET?! Watch this before you go!

welcome to the end of the world we have arrived the Southernmost city in the world and today we are starting our adventure around one of the world's most famous hiking destinations Patagonia get ready to learn everything you need to know about traveling through this unique mountainous region on a budget for details about getting good value from your accommodation and limiting transport costs to hiking tips and how to avoid mistakes whilst exploring one of the most stunning places in South America before we begin we are Mark and NASA and we are currently traveling through South America and as you will know if you have watched our previous videos we have been making our way south towards the southern tip of this amazing continent the time has finally come for us to do something we have been talking about for years hiking in Patagonia Patagonia is a region that lies between Argentina and Chile and is famous for some of the most breathtaking scenery on the planet but it does have the reputation as being one of the places in South America that you could easily burn through money before we talk about that though how do you even go about getting down to this remote Corner well for us and what is most likely one of the best and cheapest options is to fly from Buenos Aires to the city that lies on the very southernmost tip of South America usual we wanted to fly from Buenos Aires to ushraia but as with all plane tickets to and from Patagonia it seemed a bit expensive but we used our old friend Western Union in Argentina and we withdrew enough cash from Western Union and what we did was we went to the aerolinus argentinius airline agent in Buenos Aires and bought the ticket in person with our cash that way we only paid 55 of what we would have done if we had about it online we're very happy because we just checked into our apartment here in ushra and as I mentioned in the previous video this is the reason why it's so important to buy your Euro or dollars at the blue dollar rate because usually it can be quite expensive and this apartment would have cost us 134 Euro for two nights but with buying our cash at the blue dollar rate we got it for just 73 Euro for the two nights which is a saving of 60 Euros so why wouldn't you do it just do it it's great this is one of those places that when you glance at your location on Google Maps you find it hard to believe you have made it this far it really is one of the most interesting places we have been and it is the perfect starting block for your journey through Patagonia if it's chewy here but not as chill as it is over there is a Scenic City surrounded by snow-capped mountains and there are lots of hikes and tours that people like to do and one of them is to take a boat out to see the penguin sea lions and birds right but there's three types of Tours you can take one is a drive through the mountains where you get to a point and you get off the bus get onto a little boat and you go see the Penguins on Ela Martia which is the Penguin Island essentially the second option is to take a boat to Ila Martia you can't get off the ball in this one and then the third option is the one where you sail to the penguin Island get off onto the penguin Island and have a walk around with penguins but unfortunately for us our penguin turret got canceled twice because of strong winds in the area [Music] we enjoyed our time in Nashua anyway and are glad we came for a visit to the end of the world now it was time to take the long 22 hour bus journey to El califate to get to one of the must-see places at any Patagonia itinerary should include periti Mariana Glacier [Music] one thing about ashwaia is that there's no actual official bus terminal you have go to a ticket office which we'll put the link of in the description down below long distance buses here can seem expensive but are still much cheaper than flying and are a convenient way to get our own Patagonia but make sure to buy your tickets in advance because there are a lot of Travelers in this area and the ticket offices can be quite crowded the amazing geographical Landmark that is perito Moreno Glacier lies 90 minutes west of el calafate by bus you will arrive at Park Nacional dos glacieres which is 15 Euro each to enter the boss will leave you within a short walk to the glacier itself so there's no need to worry about bringing hiking boots to this attraction we actually joked that we could have worn our heavy honest flip-flops this is one of the only Glitters in the world that's actually still growing and they reckon it actually expands by like two meters every day so that's mad as we're walking past it here in the walkway you can hear it cracking and some of the ice pieces are falling to the ocean and you can hear the wind howling over the tub not only is it still growing it's actually one of the oldest Glitters as well they reckon it started forming about 2.6 in 2004 they made the hole to reach the bottom of the glacier and actually 500 meters here it's not like always sitting on the water no it's like iced Cliffs the lake starts at the these Cliffs and there is a lot of ice under this water as well so this is basically like an iceberg where you can see only the top and there is much more under the water and the pictures I've seen I kind of expected there to be a corner where you could see the glacier from its perfect perspective but there's actually loads of places that you can stop and have a look at it from all different kind of angles so when you get to the car park you see hundreds of cars and buses and you're kind of thinking ah here we go again another tourist trap but when you're actually at the glacier it's not that busy and there are loads of places you can get a good view of it from next up on our Patagonia itinerary was a trip to one of the most iconic mountains in the whole of South America and one of the most incredible natural attractions we have ever laid eyes on Mount Fitzroy to get to this epic Viewpoint it will take some hard work but as the old saying goes if it was easy everyone would do it from El calafate take the short bus journey to El shelter a delightful Little Village tucked at the bottom of this amazing region of snow-capped mountains and lakes you can actually see Mount Fitzroy from the tone itself but that's not enough the iconic hike to Laguna De Los Tres starts right in the village of el Shelton and is a 20 kilometer round trip from the start of the trail this hike is completely free and you won't even need to take a bus or a taxi to the trailhead they say that the first part is Patagonian flat we just found out the Patagonian flat it's not so flood at all the hike itself is moderately easy for the first eight kilometers with stunning views of Fitzroy and the surrounding mountains along the way what the this U is mental like I don't understand how it can get even better however the last two kilometers to get to the Laguna are long Steep and challenging but the reward at the top is absolutely breathtaking we had seen hundreds of pictures and videos of this famous hike but nothing can prepare you for how immense these mountains ridges and Glaciers look when you see them up close and personal oh so we're almost halfway back down to El Shelton after a hike and we just thought we would say some things that we noticed along the way so with regards to what you should wear just wear loads of layers because at some points we were roasting and sweating and we were taken off our jacket and our fleeces and our t-shirt other times especially at the somewhat need your hat and a big jacket like it was a wind gust or something else here wear Sun cream because when the sun does shine it's pretty strong here with regards to food we brought uh ham and cheese sandwiches that we made last night and we brought two each with us to be honest we probably didn't need that many we had lunch up at the top and then we had some boiled eggs as well and we're fine water we brought two liters each but when we were finished then there's loads of rivers and little streams that we just filled them up in so I wouldn't worry too much about water bring a bottle and then you can fill it up as you go along we don't usually drink water from streams and stuff but here it's really really super clean and lovely it tastes delicious so directly from the glacier some things which I find interesting to know before doing this kind of things is can you bring a drone at the beginning they say like it's not allowed to fight here and I wouldn't advise you to do it anyway but if it would be illegal because the wind is really strong here you would just lose it like the motors would be overloaded so just don't risk it and also I would advise you to bring a wet lens if you have or just use your phone for this kind of shots because this Lagoon is quite Broad and betray itself is so massive like we didn't expect it's not like oh we like and like some rocks a white lens would be a good choice and it was the most difficult hike but it was the most incredible Place we've ever seen so just do it do it if you can we must admit we did get very lucky with the weather and only stayed in El Shelton for two nights doing the hike on our only full day in the village we met some people that had been there five or six days waiting for a clear sunny day to do the Fitzroy hike so just keep that in mind there are also smaller hikes that a lot of people choose to do but we just chose to do the best one if you're not like us and you find yourself in a spell of bad weather you're probably better off waiting in El calafate until the weather forecast changes and then when you see a spell of good weather then go to El Shelton because El calafate is a nicer town it's got a lake with flamingos in it lots of places to eat drink and more affordable accommodations when we were looking at accommodation for our show 10 we found everything on booking.com was very expensive so we went and hostel world and found our hostel called La Comerica and it seemed to be the cheapest place that we found anywhere in El celten for the two nights so when visiting Patagonia a lot of people like going to Bariloche which is a Lake District in Argentina and there is also Lake District in Chile just across the border we decided to skip this part because you just thought we've seen enough Lakes but maybe we are wrong and this place is very beautiful but anyway if you want to go to brilloche we would advise you to play from Buenos Aires to breloche and then make your way down so there is a 24-hour bus from very Lodge to Asia 10 and then you go to El colifate and from you can go to Punta Arenas which is Chile inside of Patagonia which we are going to talk about now a bus from El Shelton back to El calafate and a connection onto the Chilean turn of Porto natales will leave you in the perfect spot to explore Taurus delpania National Park this time we decided not to commit to the famous wro hiking tracks that are so popular in this park called The W track is over here towards disclosures the first route and then the second route is 3 through the mountains and then the third track is around this mountain to the three towers you can drive around and get an up-close view of the actual track itself rather than hiking it which for us has been a great option to do the multi-day tricks you will have to prepare a lot of camping gear and book a campsite in the Park Way in advance there are regular buses from Puerto Natalie's bus station to the trailhead to do this famous hike bus tours but there are also a lot of one day tours to explore tourist Alpine which we believe is very underrated way of exploring this area from getting a beautiful view of gray glacier hiking up to an amazing Viewpoint of Francis Glacier overlooking the bluest water you could imagine and even making it to a picturesque setting to take in this stunning three towers with these flamingos this was a very rewarding day trip and one we would highly recommend on this tour we've actually lost current of the amount of places we've stopped that and each one has just been more dramatic more beautiful a better view of the Mountain of The Bluest Lake you've ever seen it's just getting better and better and better one difference between the Chilean side and the Argentinian side however is that you do have to pay the Hefty fee of 35 each to enter tourist airplane after Puerto natalis is just a short trip to Punta Arenas where there are direct flights to Santiago which is our next destination we're here in plantar Venice famous spot for seeing penguins and also for it being right on the street of Magellan we have two penguin tours booked in them both get canceled so we're gonna just pretend that these birds are penguins because they look kind of like penguins from a distance so we've seen penguins they are definitely penguiny enough for me so happy enough so before we tell you which side of Patagonia Argentinian or Chilean we preferred we would love to say that we absolutely loved both of them they are quite different as well so it's not like you are repeating yourself we're going to United States they were absolutely stunning the landscape is unbelievable so if you can do both but now I'll just talk about some points which made us prefer one side over the other the first one is when you go on the long hike in Asia 10 you don't have to drive anywhere you just walk out of your accommodation and go on your hike then you come back to your accommodation great day great day out but if you do the same thing in Torres Del Pony you have to go on a bus then you do your 20 24 kilometer hike they need to go on the bus imagine like it's in just in my head is so tiring because it's a challenging thing so obviously everything inside is just way more convenient if you prefer camping in Argentina you don't have to pay for it at all you can just take your gear and camp and the campsites but in tourist Del Pine you have to pre-book your camping site and then pay for it so way in advance a lot of money and stuff like that and Chile is the most expensive country in South America so everything you do is automatically going to be more expensive so Argentina is naturally just winning in this point we love both but if you would choose one we'll probably advise you to go to Argentina so to evaluate Patagonia is not going to be cheap whatever way you do it but the point of this video is to try to give you some tips on how to budget and how to limit your spending when you're there we've put together five key tips that we find really helped us get the most out of our money when we're in Patagonia tip number one you're gonna be sick of hearing me say this about Argentina but you have to use Western Union get as much cash from Western Union as you possibly can on the Argentinian side because it helps so much honestly it helps so much some places even give you a great exchange rate if you've got US dollars so if you can bring some US dollars as well tip number two book airbnbs or hostels with kitchen so you can prepare your own simple meals another tip about accommodation is try to book your accommodation closer to the bus station so you don't have to spend money on taxis actually in California we couldn't find taxi at night so we have to walk like one kilometer so don't repeat our mistake tip number three this might be an obvious one but take the long distance buses instead of flying everywhere even though the long distance buses are still not the cheapest thing you can do fly in a Patagonia just seems to be overly expensive and the long distance buses save you a nice accommodation because you can sleep on the bus and they're quite comfortable so definitely use this option in Paraguay tip number four by 6.56 liters bottles of water instead of buying a lot of small bottles you go through a lot of water on this kind of Adventures and little things like this adapt tip number five don't spend longer in each place then you have to and the difference in spending two to three nights in one of the towns compared to spending four and five nights in one of the towns is obviously going to be huge and usually when you are somewhere in Patagonia you're there for a specific reason if you're in El calafati you'll be there to see the glacier if you're going to LCL 10 the big goal is to see Fitzroy if you're important to tallies you want to get to tourist Opana book two to three nights if the weather's good in each Place get to the turn do what you got to do there and we absolutely love Patagonia but for now it's time to explore a northern part of Chile after spending some time in Santiago we are heading to asakama Desert we're going to be renting a truck in the Atacama and doing some road trips so make sure not to miss out on those Adventures if you enjoyed this video please don't forget to leave a like And subscribe to the channel it will mean the world to us what do you think about our itinerary would you commit to that let us know in the comments and if you do make it to Patagonia we hope you'll have something to remember just like us change [Music]

Channel: Something To Remember

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Keywords: Patagonia, Chile, argentina, Patagonia on a budget, how to travel Patagonia, best of Patagonia, is Patagonia expensive, how expensive is Patagonia, Patagonia hiking, Patagonia chilena, Patagonia argentina, Torres del Paine, Laguna de los tres, fitz roy hike, mount fitz roy, patagonia Chile vs argentina, el Chalten, perito moreno Glaicier, el Calafate, Ushuaia, Puerto natales, punta arenas, Patagonia full guide, Patagonia tips, Patagonia travel guide, hikes Patagonia

Id: QITjxH48P3c

Length: 16min 9sec (969 seconds)

Published: Tue Jan 31 2023