At Swoop, we don’t just talk about Patagonia all day – we live and breathe it. Our team travels regularly throughout the region, plus we have many Swoopers who live in both Chile and Argentina, from the Lakes in northern Patagonia right down to Puerto Natales close to Torres del Paine.
In the 2024/25 travel season that’s just wrapped, we sent more than 2,800 travellers to Patagonia. On top of that, more than 20 of our own Patagonia specialists had their own adventures, hiking and camping, getting close to wildlife and glaciers and trying out some of the best lodges in South America. We do this so we can offer our travellers the best inside knowledge to find their perfect trip. We asked each member of our team to pick out their personal highlights from the road.
Torres del Paine
I’ve visited Torres del Paine on a number of occasions, so I’m always on the lookout for new experiences there. My absolute favourite thing on this trip was hiking by myself at the end of a long day to the viewpoint at Mirador Condor for sunset. Not only was I treated to a magnificent display of light and clouds over the massif, I was the only person there: it felt like I had my very own private national park.
– Burnham stayed at Estancia Cerro Guido in Torres del Paine
I felt like I won the golden ticket by getting to stay at two of Torres del Paine’s luxury lodges. I was blown away by Explora’s incredible location right in the heart of the park, but Tierra took my heart with its incredible architecture and fine dining. The spa, with its view of the mountains, made me feel like an absolute queen.
– Sydney explored the luxury lodges of Torres del Paine
I loved my stay in Patagonia Camp on Lake Toro just outside Torres del Paine National Park. It feels as if you’re in your own personal reserve in the loveliest yurts imaginable. I was bowled over by how hard they work to make sure the camp is truly sustainable. A tour of the water filtration system wasn’t what I expected from a luxury camp, but it was fascinating!
– Hannah stayed in Patagonia Camp in Torres del Paine.
I took the long road to Torres del Paine by hiking the Brush Lake route to join the W Trek. Given how much talk there is about too many hikers on the W, it was fabulous to walk a completely new trail and feel like we had the park entirely to ourselves. Patagonia threw every type of weather at us, but the slow off-the-beaten-track approach to the Paine Massif made it all worthwhile.
– Imy hiked our W Trek with Brush Lake Extension trip in Torres del Paine.
Tierra del Fuego
I cruised around Tierra del Fuego from Punta Arenas to Ushuaia. There was a lot of excitement on board about landing at Cape Horn, but for me the real highlight was Pia Glacier. The views as you approach it in the ship are incredible, but when you’re up close in a zodiac near its immense ice wall, you feel dwarfed and humbled. It’s very active, like a living thing, with an incredible soundtrack of cracking ice.
– Isidora sailed on our Wildlife, Glaciers & Cape Horn Cruise around Tierra del Fuego
Ushuaia really opened my eyes to the great outdoors potential for Tierra del Fuego. I always thought of it as a destination for cruise ships, so to find some really gnarly hiking routes in the mountains so close to the city was completely unexpected. Even trekking for a few hours puts you out of reach of civilisation – after camping out on the trail for a few days, I felt like I had discovered a whole new frontier.
– Nicolas hiked our Trekking Deep into Tierra del Fuego trip
My highlight was very much a personal one: I finally got to cross the Beagle Channel by boat from Ushuaia to Navarino Island. It’s a trip that had been tempting me for all the years I’d worked in Ushuaia but which I’d never quite managed to pull off. I was grinning like a kid the whole time we were on the water – and stepping foot on Navarino to see the great teeth of the Dientes mountain range loom above me felt like crossing one of Patagonia’s great frontiers.
– David stayed at Errante EcoLodge on Navarino Island
Aysen
My big discovery this year was Tamango National Reserve near Cochrane on the edge of Patagonia National Park. It’s a truly remote and secluded place, even by the standards of Aysen. The nature there doesn’t seem to pay you any mind – we were out on a hike and were surprised by a large herd of huemul deer running out of the woods across our path. What a moment!
– Alicia visited Patagonia National Park in Aysen
Spending time with Swoop’s partners Mary & Christian in Cerro Castillo in Aysen was my personal highlight. I already knew their horse riding trips were well known, but I got a new level of insight through helping Christian—a local gaucho—get the horses to and from their pastures in the mountains. As a Chilean, connecting with the local Aysen culture was fantastic.
– Tomas stayed at B&B Cerro Castillo in Aysen
In Aysen I discovered some of the cliches exist because they’re true. This one? That the journey is just as important as the destination. I explored the Carretera Austral highway, where the landscape was like a mindboggling landscape painting that changed constantly through the car window. The drive from Cerro Castillo to Puerto Rio Tranquillo (where I visited the Marble Caves) was as beautiful as anything I’d seen, from wild craggy mountains to the most serene turquoise of Lago General Carrera.
– Cecilia explored the Carretera Austral highway in Aysen.
Los Glaciares
By far my biggest thrill of this year was getting roped up to climb the Paso Cuadrado in Los Glaciares. With a local mountaineering guide friend, we hiked up through lenga forest and past glacial lakes to scramble up granite rocks to reach the pass. From El Chaltén, Mount FitzRoy looks like it stands alone, but from this epic vantage point it was just one peak surrounded by all its friends, from Guillaumet and Mermoz to Cerro Torres and Pollone. It truly felt like being on top of the world.
– Harriet climbed Paso Cuadrado from El Chaltén.
I got to return to Los Glaciaries National Park for the first time in years. It was so much greener that I remembered it! As well as reconnecting to the highlights of the park with day hikes around El Chaltén, the places I saw for the first time were a revelation: the quiet calm of walking in the near-empty Huemules Reserve, and the tranquility of Lago del Desierto.
– Marce stayed at Explora El Chaltén and Aguas Arriba Lodge in Los Glaciares
Los Glaciares for me was all about the autumn colours and the glorious light. I camped at Poincenot near the ascent to Laguna de Los Tres. The sunlight in those shortening days hits so differently than at the height of summer – the leaves on the trees just sing out in gold and red, with Mount FitzRoy framed in a sky that was the most impossible blue.
– Lauren hiked the El Chaltén Express in Los Glaciares.
Hiking the Huemul Circuit was one of the best things I’ve done in Patagonia since I hung up my guiding boots. The diversity of landscapes you pass through is incredible—just seeing the Southern Patagonian Ice Field is amazing in itself—but as a hiker I also loved that diversity of terrains that we walked on. One day there was a clear trail, another day we were scrambling on moraine or across a glacier, and at another point we were using ziplines to cross rivers. It felt like a true adventure.
– Minerva hiked the Huemul Circuit in Los Glaciares
The Chilean Lake District
After a series of big Patagonia wildlife encounters in recent years—from pumas to humpback whales—this trip was all about slowing down on a series of micro-safaris. In the Valdivian temperate rainforest of the Chilean Lake District, I immersed myself in an ecosystem of giant trees that were dripping with mosses, ferns and fungi, and was rewarded with one of the most beautiful creatures I’ve ever seen: the tiny but gorgeous Darwin’s frog.
– Danny stayed at Futangue Lodge in the Chilean Lake District
It was a joy for me to explore the northern part of the Chilean Lake District this year, not least of all because I got to connect with members of the Swoop team who live in Pucón – a town that’s overlooked by the cartoonishly-shaped Villarica volcano. With its great outdoor activities and wilderness lodges, Pucón feels like a place with massive untapped potential for travellers – I’ve become quite evangelical about it!
– Iain stayed at Vira Vira and the Huilo Huilo Biological Reserve in the Chilean Lake District.
My trip was all about eating not just well but sustainably too, by discovering the amazing farm to table scene in the Chilean Lake District. I ate at several places but my favourite was 100K near Puerto Varas, where I helped pick vegetables in the garden and then as an assistant in the kitchen. We all sat around the dining table with some good Chilean wine: it was like being invited over to a friend’s house for the best long and lazy lunch.
– Lujan stayed at Vira Vira in the Chilean Lake District
The best of the rest
As someone who lives in Santiago, I’m used to seeing the snowy peaks of the Andes from a distance, so it was joyful to head out of the office to explore the part of Chile where the mountains tumble straight into the sea, and the fjords are thick with ice from calving glaciers. Cruising around the southern Chilean Fjords from Puerto Natales was a constant delight, where the air was fresher than fresh and I could get close to ice that was bluer than blue.
– Nico sailed on our Southern Patagonia Glaciers Cruise
As a former trekking guide, I’ve always been a bit suspicious of big cities: give me big mountains and big skies! So it was something of a surprise for me to spend an extended period of time in Buenos Aires and really get to know it. A personal highlight was eating at Fogon: a full spectrum showpiece for Argentina’s passionate love affair with meat.
– Felipe stayed at Hotel Vain in Buenos Aires.
Tracking pumas in Torres del Paine is something I’ve wanted to do for a long time, so I was eager to be up early every day to spend time with local tracker Marcial, who was so passionate about his job. It was incredible to do a safari on foot – the pumas blithely ignored us as they sniffed the air for guanacos and their cubs practised their hunting behaviour.
– Chloe joined our Pumas, Penguins & Whales Wildlife Tour.
As you can tell, no matter how many times you’ve travelled there, Patagonia is always full of surprises. It’s experiences like these that keep us coming back to the region time and again – and make us so passionate about sharing the ends of Earth with other travellers. Bring on the next season! If you’re feeling inspired, get in touch to start planning your own adventure story in Patagonia.
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