How to plan a family trip through Argentina that works for everyone

Argentina has what it takes to live up to that picture, but it also has scale. Buenos Aires and southern Patagonia sit more than three hours apart by air. Every destination added means another flight, another suitcase unpacked and repacked, another unfamiliar bed where a small child has to learn to fall asleep all over again. That’s the first real decision in any family trip, long before a single destination gets chosen, and it’s also the one that carries the most uncertainty, because there’s no way to know if you’ve chosen well until the trip has already begun.

The question that actually matters isn’t how many places fit on the map. It’s whether each stage chosen makes sense for everyone travelling, without the itinerary itself becoming the most exhausting part of the trip. It’s the question that, at Argentina On The Go, shapes every family itinerary before a single destination does.

Domestic flights also cost something that never shows up on the departure board. Between the transfer to the airport, the wait, and the stretch until check-in at the next hotel, a short flight between two destinations ends up eating half a day of holiday. Adding one more destination doesn’t just add that flight, it takes that half-day away from everywhere else on the itinerary.

Buenos Aires tends to be the natural starting point, and from there Iguazú and Bariloche sit at an easy distance, the lightest to fit in anywhere on the map. El Calafate asks for a fair bit more logistics. Combining Buenos Aires with Iguazú and Bariloche builds a trip with short transfers from start to finish. Adding El Calafate stretches things considerably further, and that’s where it’s worth thinking again about how much each stop needs before it stops feeling like a stopover, before deciding whether it earns its place.

The destination chosen matters less than it seems. What really shapes the day-to-day of the trip is the age of those living it, and Argentina offers options rather more precise than usually gets shown.

Iguazú, in that sense, is an unusual case. The upper circuit runs along walkways with no steps at all, and a separate accessible train leads to the Devil’s Throat. Between the two routes, grandparents, parents and small children end up sharing nearly the whole outing, something that rarely happens at an adventure destination. With very young children, Iguazú and Buenos Aires tend to be the lightest combination the country has to offer.

Bariloche shifts the kind of question worth asking. There, it matters less how far each person can walk than how much variety the group needs to avoid repeating the same kind of day. Kayaking, boat trips, cycling, and in winter, ski schools designed specifically for those just starting out on snow. With teenagers, that variety tends to hold their interest better than a single city or landscape.

Southern Patagonia adds another layer, that of the excursion with rules of its own. Walking on the Perito Moreno glacier is possible from the age of eight, with crampons and a guide, on a ninety-minute walk paced for families. And for those who’d rather not step onto the ice, the walkways facing the glacier offer some of the best views in the country, asking nothing more than to stand and look.

Buenos Aires rounds out the picture from another angle entirely, that of the city that doesn’t ask anything special of any age. A walk through the woods of Palermo, an afternoon in San Telmo or a boat trip along the Tigre Delta work just as well for a six-year-old as for a fourteen-year-old, which is exactly why it works so well as a first or last stop on the trip.

That’s exactly the work we do at Argentina On The Go when we put together a family itinerary, not starting from a list of attractions, but from who’s travelling and how much time they have to do it in. For those just beginning to think about that trip, still unsure how to sort through so many good options, at Argentina On The Go we work out the route around the children’s ages and the real number of days available, starting with a first call.