Encounter one of Earth’s most extreme environments through the extraordinary steppelands, glaciers and stark coastlines of South America’s furthest frontier. Step into a land of true contrast, where the vast emptiness of silent plains opens out onto towering pillars of granite, glaciers, and huge ice fields second only to those of the Antarctic.

Puerto Pirámides on the Valdés peninsula – and nearby Puerto Madryn to an extent – is a veritable year-round water wonderland, a sanctuary for elephant seals, sea lions and fur seals, often frequented by pods of orcas, and even calving Southern right whales between the winter months of July and September. When summer arrives, head south to Punta Tombo to find the world’s largest colony of Magellanic penguins who are resident from September to March, and continue down the coast to Puerto Deseado for a frivolous festival of flippers, fins, feathers and fur, as you witness charismatic rockhopper penguins, five species of cormorant and Commerson’s dolphins in the estuary and a huge fur seal colony at the Cabo Blanco Natural Reserve. Finally you’ll reach the end of the world – well, its southernmost city – Ushuaia, the gateway to the dramatic Tierra Del Fuego National Park, a fossil-rich land of superlative natural beauty filled with waterfalls, forests, mountains and glaciers.