South America · Travel guide
How to Get to Patagonia: Flights, Routes and Times (2026)
How to get to Patagonia: fly to Santiago or Buenos Aires, then to Punta Arenas or El Calafate. Which airport for each park, and the road between.
This is the reasoning we use when we date a trip, not an article written to fill a blog. The itineraries it feeds are here.
How to get to Patagonia comes down to two flights. First you fly to Santiago in Chile or Buenos Aires in Argentina; then you take a domestic flight south, to Punta Arenas or Puerto Natales for Torres del Paine, or to El Calafate for the Perito Moreno glacier and El Chaltén. Ushuaia and Bariloche have their own airports. The one route that does not exist is a scheduled flight between the Chilean and the Argentine parks, so if you want both, you cross by road.
Where to fly in Patagonia, by what you want to see
Where to fly in Patagonia depends on the park, not the country you start in:
| You want to see | Fly to | From |
|---|---|---|
| Torres del Paine | Punta Arenas, or Puerto Natales in season | Santiago |
| Perito Moreno glacier | El Calafate | Buenos Aires |
| Fitz Roy and El Chaltén | El Calafate, then by road | Buenos Aires |
| Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego | Ushuaia | Buenos Aires or El Calafate |
| The northern lakes | Bariloche | Buenos Aires or El Calafate |
If you are coming from North America, the first leg ends in one of the two capitals. Delta, for example, flies daily all year between Atlanta and Santiago. Plan a night in the capital before going south if your long flight lands in the morning after a night in the air.
From Santiago to Patagonia, by air
From Santiago to Patagonia, the main route is the flight to Punta Arenas, about three hours and 20 minutes according to JetSMART. Puerto Natales, the base town for Torres del Paine, has its own airfield with seasonal flights from Santiago, according to Chile’s tourism board.
One change to plan around: Chile’s public works ministry is repairing the Puerto Natales runway, and between January and March 2027 commercial flights there will run only from Friday to Sunday. On other days of the week that summer, fly to Punta Arenas instead.
The road south to the park
From Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales is 250 km of paved road, according to CONAF, Chile’s forest service, and the park is beyond Puerto Natales. That is why the first night is in Puerto Natales: the flight, the drive and the road into the park do not fit in one day.
How to get to Torres del Paine
How to get to Torres del Paine, then, is by road from Puerto Natales, by bus, transfer or rental car, or straight from the Argentine side through the border at Villa Cerro Castillo, which CONAF places 52 km from the park’s Sarmiento gate.
From Buenos Aires to Patagonia, by air
From Buenos Aires to Patagonia, Aerolíneas Argentinas flies direct to the three main airports. El Calafate, it says, is under three hours from Buenos Aires. The airline’s route pages also show the direct links inside Argentine Patagonia, which let you string the regions together without going back to the capital:
| Airport | Direct flights with Aerolíneas Argentinas |
|---|---|
| El Calafate | Buenos Aires, Bariloche, Córdoba, Trelew, Ushuaia |
| Ushuaia | Buenos Aires, El Calafate, Córdoba, and Trelew in summer |
| Bariloche | Buenos Aires, Córdoba, El Calafate, Rosario, Mendoza |
None of those routes goes to Chile. For El Chaltén, you fly to El Calafate and continue by road; the daily buses between the two towns run on a paved road.
Crossing the border by road
There is no scheduled flight between the two sides of Patagonia. The Chilean regional airline DAP lists its regular routes inside Chile only, and Aerolíneas flies from El Calafate to Argentine cities only. So the crossing is by road, and it takes a day.
The bus between the two sides
The scheduled bus from El Calafate to Puerto Natales takes about five hours, according to torresdelpaine.com, which sells the service, including the border. Argentina’s government lists the Dorotea crossing, on this route, as open from 08:00 to 21:30 on 14 October 2026; hours change with the season, so check it the week you travel. Our 10-day Chile and Argentina Patagonia trip puts this crossing in the middle of the trip, with nothing else planned that day.
To Ushuaia, by land or by ship
Ushuaia is on the island of Tierra del Fuego, so the road from Punta Arenas crosses the Strait of Magellan by ferry and then the border at San Sebastián, which Argentina lists as open from 08:00 to 22:00. It is a long day; most travellers fly. The slow alternative is by sea: the Australis ships sail between Ushuaia and Punta Arenas through the fjords, a voyage of five days and four nights.
From the north, across the lakes
If you are coming from Chile’s Lake District, the Cruce Andino joins Puerto Varas and Bariloche by boat and bus across three lakes in about 12 hours, according to its operator. It is the scenic way into Argentine Patagonia from the north.
Patagonia travel tips for the journey
These are the Patagonia travel tips we give every traveller before booking, built from the routes above:
- Fly into one capital and home from the other. With Santiago at one end and Buenos Aires at the other, you never double back across the Andes.
- Count the night in Puerto Natales. Nobody flies into Punta Arenas and sleeps in the park the same day.
- Give the border day nothing else. Five hours by bus becomes more with wind, queues or a late start.
- Check the Puerto Natales flight days for January to March 2027 before booking, because of the runway works.
- Book December to February early. That is the busy season, covered in our guide to the best time to visit Patagonia.
Once you know how you will get there, our Patagonia itinerary shows how many days each side needs, and our guide to things to do in Patagonia shows what to do when you arrive.
Asked before booking
The questions we get on this
- What airport do you fly into for Patagonia?
- For Torres del Paine in Chile, Punta Arenas, or Puerto Natales when its seasonal flights run. For the Perito Moreno glacier and El Chaltén in Argentina, El Calafate. For the end of the continent, Ushuaia, and for the northern lakes, Bariloche. All of them are reached through Santiago or Buenos Aires, not directly from North America or Europe.
- How long is the flight from Buenos Aires to Patagonia?
- Aerolíneas Argentinas says El Calafate is under three hours from Buenos Aires by direct flight, and it also flies direct from Buenos Aires to Ushuaia and to Bariloche. Allow most of a day for the move, with the transfer to the airport and the drive from El Calafate airport to town.
- What is the best way to travel around Patagonia?
- By air between regions and by road within them. Flights link El Calafate, Ushuaia and Bariloche on the Argentine side, but no scheduled flight crosses between Chilean and Argentine Patagonia, so the two sides are joined by road. The bus between El Calafate and Puerto Natales takes about five hours, border included.