Perito Moreno Glacier (El Calafate Argentina)

The Perito Moreno glacier is a natural wonder in Argentina made of big, blue, beautiful ice. In fact, this stunning glacier covers more surface area than the entire city of Buenos Aires.

You can see this Patagonian glacier from a metal walkway that spans the edge of the lake, or there are even glacier trekking tours so you can hike on top of the ice with a local guide!

Needless to say, seeing this glacier and hiking on it is an amazing experience, and it’s very popular with tourists coming to the Los Glaciares National Park. It’s also surprisingly easy to do on a day trip from the town of El Calafate, in Argentina’s southern Patagonia region.

This travel guide will explain how to get to Perito Moreno glacier from El Calafate (with or without a tour), and then I’ll share some interesting facts about the glacier itself!

Where Is Perito Moreno Glacier?

The Perito Moreno glacier is located on Lake Argentino, near the town of El Calafate, in Argentina’s famous Patagonia region.

El Calafate is a tourist friendly town with lots of comfy hotels and good restaurants, so it’s a great place to base yourself for visiting the Perito Moreno glacier and other sights in Patagonia.
 

How To Get To Perito Moreno Glacier

The closest airport to the Perito Moreno glacier is the small international airport in El Calafate (FTE), which has direct flights from Buenos Aires, Cordoba, Ushuaia, and other places.

The flight from Buenos Aires to El Calafate takes about 3 hours and it’s offered by multiple airlines, with pretty reasonable prices. There are two airports in Buenos Aires (AEP or EZE) and you can use either of them to fly here.

You can shop for flights to Argentina on Skyscanner.

Once you arrive in El Calafate, it’s a 60-90 minute drive to Perito Moreno glacier, depending on your pace. The road is winding when you get near the end, but it’s all paved and in good condition.

If you’re driving, you can find the location on the map here, although they’ll usually ask you to park earlier and take a free shuttle the rest of the way to the glacier since there’s limited parking.

You can get to Perito Moreno with a bus, private taxi, or rental car. The bus service is offered by multiple companies with regular departures from the bus terminal in El Calafate.

If you want to simplify things even more, there are also day tours to Perito Moreno glacier from El Calafate that handle all of the transportation for you (more on that below).

Best Perito Moreno Glacier Tours

One of the easiest ways to visit the Perito Moreno glacier is with a day tour from El Calafate.

GetYourGuide has high-rated day tours to see Perito Moreno glacier from the walkway, with an optional boat cruise to see it from another angle. These tours include a bilingual tour guide and hotel pickup and drop-off from El Calafate. They’re usually shared group tours, or they also have private tours.

If you’re mainly wanting to do trekking on the ice, they have a glacier ‘mini-trekking’ tour which I used myself, and they also have the ‘Big Ice’ trek where you get to go farther and see more of Perito Moreno glacier.

If you don’t think your fitness level is good enough for hiking on the ice, they have a ‘Safari Azul’ tour that takes you to a beach in front of the glacier, where you can touch the ice and see it up close without trekking on it. Last, but not least, they also have kayaking tours and boat cruises at the Perito Moreno glacier.

We’ve used GetYourGuide for lots of tours and activities around the world, and they’re great. Highly recommended!

Perito Moreno Glacier Walkway: What To Expect

The most popular way to see the Perito Moreno glacier is from the metal walkway that spans the edge of Lake Argentino and its turquoise colored waters.

The views are sensational and easy to access! There’s a whole network of platforms here showing different sides of the glacier, and the walkways are divided into color coded circuits.

In my opinion, the very best views are on the red and yellow circuits. The black and green circuits don’t have much to see, although the blue circuit occasionally allows you to see some floating icebergs up close.