Visiting the Perito Moreno Glacier in El Calafete, Argentina- Most visitors stay in the town of El Calafere in Argentina to be able to get to the famous glacier in Patagonia’s Los Glaciares National Park, the Perito Moreno Glacier. The El Calafete Glacier is popular to visit, not only for its up close and personal views, but its size, its vibrant blue layers, having a chance to walk on it, and it’s massive sheer drop offs. This article will cover, where to stay, when to go, price/cost, tours, how to get there and more.

Fact About The Perito Moreno Glacier

The ice spans at 121 square miles
The glacier is located in both Chile and Argentina
Unlike most glaciers this glacier is actually still growing
Was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 1981
From the water to the top of some parts of the glacier is 73 meters high!

Where To Stay

The closest major town to stay in by the glacier is El Calafete, Argentina. This town is about 78 kilometers to the west. If driving this is about a 1 hour and a half drive. You won’t find too many options in between. Especially looking for something near restaurants. We did enjoy our time here, we spent two nights, lots of small local restaurants, bars, shops and we even found some local beers and breweries.

We stayed both nights at Folk Suites. They have both hostel style shared rooms and private rooms. Breakfast is included and they helped us with purchasing our tickets for the glacier and more.

AirBnB also has lots of options, use this link for $55 off your first stay.

Booking.com

We paired this area with a stay in El Chalten to Hike Fitz Roy the next day. Then driving back to Puerto Natales to hike the W Trek. After the W Trek we headed back to Santiago to go to Mendoza. It was the perfect two week itinerary.

How To Get There

By Tour

A lot of hotels and hostels will help arrange tours and tickets. If not, the main street in El Calafete is lined with tourism offices that will help with bookings. You can pair a lot of your tours to make the visit all day by adding in a glacier hike, a boat ride of a kayak adventure to get to see the glacier even closer.

By Bus

There are also four bus companies based in El Calafate running daily round trips for about 15 USD.

By Car

If you’re arriving via your own car, you’ll need to take Provincial Route No. 15 from El Calafate, which is 80km (50 miles) and will take about an hour and a half. This is a fairly easy drive, not much around once there so make sure you have a full tank of gas and bring some snacks. Before getting to the viewing area you will need to stop at the gates to turn in your ticket, or purchase one.

After purchasing a ticket, you will have a slight drive along side the waters until you arrive at the parking lot. If their top lot is filled, which it probably will be as it is very small they will direct you to the large lot by the bar. Here you have the option to take the walking platforms to the glacier to the included bus to the viewing areas. Both of these routes will take you to the same area.

We choose to take the bus there, and then walk the path back.

When To Go

For great weather I would also suggest Patagonia in their summer months. it still gets chilly and windy but the temperatures are much more enjoyable, in my opinion. They experience summer in December, January, February and March. We went at the end of December.

Price

The cost for visiting the glacier and park is at around $500 Argentinian Pesos (about US$35). This will include, parking, buses ride to the viewing platforms, and an all day access to the walking paths to view the glaciers. But on top of that you do have some optional ways of seeing the glacier. This can be paid by credit card, but cash on hand is also a good precaution.

Optional Tours

Boat

Hike

Kayak

We were crunched on time so we drove our selves and opted out on all the extras. If I had to pick any I would have done the glacier hike. Hiking, climbing and being able to touch the ice seems like fun. I am sure this varies by weather but to us the boats and kayaks were not getting super close, the view might not have been as much different as we were getting on the boardwalks.

I have heard some walk up tours are cash only, but some can and should be booked ahead of time. Especially during peak season.

Walking Paths & Viewing Platforms

As for the boardwalk to see the glacier, included in your ticket into the park, you have tons of options of places to walk and see different angles of the glacier. We did about all of them. As mentioned before we took the bus up to the main area, it had a restaurant and there is an elevator tower from the upper parking lot area down to the upper walkway, so this section is wheelchair accessible.

We took lots of the different paths spending a few hours here before heading back via boardwalk to the parking lot. If you don’t want to walk back the bus will take you back as well.

Stay awhile as you will probably get to see some of the ice break off and fall into the water.

Getting here early is best, the crowds definitely picked up the longer we were there. When we first arrived it felt like we were the only ones there. But even for being peak season we never felt like it was overly crowded.

If in this area of Argentina and Chile the glacier is definitely worth checking out, we have seen a lot of glaciers around the world and this one definitely tops them all by a long shot.

What To Bring

It does get cold and windy the closer you get to the glacier, we left on a rather warm day and by the time we were at the glacier we were layering up. You can check out my W Trek Packing List to see what I wore for hiking in this area of Patagonia and Chile.

For the glacier visit I brought:

Raincoat– You never know what the weather will do and to keep the wind off.

Wool Headband– to hold the hair down and keep my ears warm.

Jeans

A warmer Zip Up Jacket

Long sleeve and short sleeve layers

Sunglasses

Study shoes to walk on the grates of the boardwalk.

Lightweight Packable Backpackto hold our belongings.

Camera

Snacks