Argentina
Ushuaia
The last city before Antarctica, where beech forests dissolve into glaciers at the planet's edge.
Ushuaia sits at 54°S on the southern shore of Tierra del Fuego — beyond it, the Beagle Channel, the Drake Passage, and then nothing human until Antarctica. The light here behaves differently: summer afternoons stretch to 10pm and paint the Martial Range in shades of amber and rose, while winter storms strip the lenga beech trees to skeletal silhouettes against a pewter sky. This is the city that every Antarctic expedition uses as its final contact with the rest of the world.
Ushuaia is the southernmost city on Earth, founded in 1884 as a penal colony where Argentina sent its most dangerous prisoners — the old prison building still stands beside the maritime museum in the city centre, its cells intact. The Beagle Channel running past the waterfront was named for Darwin's survey vessel HMS Beagle, which charted these waters in the 1830s during the voyage that led to On the Origin of Species. Tierra del Fuego National Park, accessible by road from the city, preserves subpolar forest of peat bogs, beaver ponds, and ancient lenga beech — a landscape Darwin himself walked. In winter, the Cerro Castor ski centre operates as the world's most southerly downhill resort, drawing skiers from across South America to its runs above the Beagle Channel.
Solo
Ushuaia draws a particular traveller — someone who needs to stand at the end of the road and feel it. The city's end-of-the-world mythology is a gravitational force for the solo explorer, and the Antarctic expedition community that passes through gives the waterfront bars a remarkable cast of characters.
Couple
Summer evening cruises along the Beagle Channel, with glaciers reflected in water so still it looks painted and albatrosses crossing overhead, are among the most quietly dramatic hours available in Patagonia.
Friends
The combination of skiing, trekking, Beagle Channel boat trips, and some of South America's best king crab makes Ushuaia an adventure base with an exceptional table. Every evening ends in a restaurant with a fire and a bottle of Malbec.
Family
The End of the World train, the penguin colony at Martillo Island, and the accessible national park trails make Ushuaia one of Patagonia's most family-functional bases — children grasp the end-of-the-world concept immediately, and the wildlife encounters require no patience training.
- Beagle Channel cruises depart the town dock to Martillo Island, where penguins breed within wading distance.
- Hiking trails from the town centre reach glaciers and beaver-dammed valleys within two hours on foot.
- The End of the World train runs through the national park on the original prisoners' narrow-gauge line.
- Sub-Antarctic king crab is pulled from the channel and served within hours at harbourfront restaurants.
Centolla king crab pulled from the Beagle Channel that morning, served simply with lemon and melted butter.
Patagonian lamb slow-roasted on an iron cross over lenga-wood embers until the skin crackles.
Pedra de Lume
Cape Verde
Float in a salt lake inside an extinct volcano, crater walls rising on every side.
Vale do Paúl
Cape Verde
Sugarcane terraces spill down a volcanic crater into the greenest valley in the archipelago.
Monastery of St. Anthony
Egypt
Earth's oldest inhabited monastery, wedged into a Red Sea mountain canyon since the fourth century.
Hoang Su Phi
Vietnam
Rice terraces so vertiginous they look like topographical maps carved directly into the sky.
Casabindo
Argentina
Argentina's only bull ceremony strips ribbons from horns at 3,400 metres each August.
Parque Nacional Los Alerces
Argentina
Alerce trees 2,600 years old standing in forest unchanged since the last ice age.
Ischigualasto
Argentina
A moonscape where 230-million-year-old dinosaur bones scatter across wind-eroded clay mushrooms and stone cannonballs.
Esteros del Iberá
Argentina
Caiman drift among giant lily pads in a freshwater marsh where time itself pools and stills.