Things to do in Ushuaia, ranked by what the trip is actually for

The order to do things in Ushuaia

Rank the city by where the scenery is and the order is clear: the channel first, then the forest and shoreline inside Tierra del Fuego National Park, then the penguin colony if your dates fall inside its season. That first item is available whatever month you land in, because the tourist port on Avenida Prefectura Naval Argentina dispatches channel boats in every season, while the cruise ships that fill the commercial pier are a summer arrival. The main municipal tourist information office stands on the same avenue at number 470, open daily 8:30 to 20:30, with a desk at the airport that opens for flight arrivals.

Two full days cover a sailing plus the park and the train. Three days let you add the museums, the waterfront and Puerto Almanza on the coast. If penguins are the reason you booked the flight, set aside a whole day for them, because the colony lies roughly 90 km down the eastern arm of the channel and getting there consumes most of the daylight you have.

Why the water comes before everything else

The things that make the channel worth the flight cannot be reached from the promenade: the ledges where cormorants nest, the rock the sea lions use, and the squat tower of Les Éclaireurs about 20 km out from the port. Ushuaia's municipal board calls this water Onashaga, the Yámana name, and presents it as lying between the Andes and the sea. Anyone hesitating over a boat should look at the dimensions Darwin wrote down, roughly 120 miles from end to end and about two miles wide on average, which means you spend the trip in a corridor between two shores instead of out on an ocean.

For a first sailing, take the short lighthouse-and-islands route with a landing included rather than a longer trip that keeps you on deck the whole time. Sail in the morning if you can. Only the Prefectura Naval Argentina announces cancellations, and a morning slot leaves the rest of the day to rebook if the water is closed; local operators say the same thing in plainer terms, which is to schedule the navigation early in your stay rather than on your last morning.

One mistake costs people real money here. The mid-length penguin catamarans run 5 to 6 hours and watch the birds from the water a few metres off Isla Martillo, with nobody stepping onto the island at any point. If that landing is what you want, it is a separate, longer product, described in the penguin section below and on the dedicated page for the colony on this site.

The penguin colony and the estancia opposite it

Isla Martillo, listed by the municipal registry as the only penguin colony in the province, lies out on the eastern channel about 90 km from the pier, with Magellanic and Gentoo penguins present from October to April and king penguins turning up only now and then. Access is the part to settle before you slot it into a plan. Small groups with professional guides are the limit set by the provincial tourism authority, which classifies the island as a protected natural reserve, and the one-hour walk among the birds alongside a specialist guide is claimed by a single operator, on its own homepage, as the only authorised version.

Two formats exist and they are not interchangeable. The boat-based version stays afloat and the birds are watched from the deck. The walk lands you on the island by zodiac, using stairs and a gangway because there is no pier; it is rated low difficulty but is not recommended in pregnancy and is not suitable for people with reduced mobility. Dates for the combined bus-and-boat day: it opens on 15 October 2026, closes on 15 March 2027, and every day inside that window works apart from Tuesday.

Tuesday is blank for a reason. Estancia Harberton, the 1886 ranch at Ruta J Km 43 and the land gateway to the crossing, receives visitors from 11 October to March, 12:00 to 19:00, and closes on Tuesdays as well as on 25 December and 1 January. It is still run by the fifth and sixth generations of the founding family and has the Museo Acatushun with guided visits; its entrance fee is charged separately whenever a tour coincides with those opening hours.

National park, the train, and one day off a ship

Second on the shortlist, and the place to see the channel from the land side: more than 68,000 hectares under protection, the southernmost such area in Argentina, with the channel shore forming its southern boundary. Put entry on its own budget line, since neither the train ticket nor the tours listed here include it: from 1 June 2026 the general daily rate is AR$40.000.

Treat the End of the World Train as a sightseeing ride in its own right; it will not move you around the park. Count 1 h 50 min out and back from Estación Fin del Mundo, which sits at Km 3065 of National Route 3 some 8 km from the centre, with three stations on the line, around 20 minutes at La Macarena for the waterfall and the viewpoints, and ten languages of audio guide covering the last kilometres of the old prisoners' railway. The timetable splits by season: 9:30, 12:00 and 15:00 between 1 September and 30 April, then 9:45, 12:15 and 15:00 between 1 May and 31 August, with check-in closing 45 minutes before your train. For October 2026 to March 2027, Clase Turista costs AR$80.000 for adults, AR$40.000 for children aged 4 to 12, with Clase Premium at AR$250.000.

Arriving by ship compresses all of this into one window. One option built for that window is the Ushuaia Shore Excursion Tierra del Fuego National Park City Tour: 5 hours, from US$119, rated 4.5 ★ (167 reviews), an air-conditioned vehicle and a snack at a quiet spot looking at the mountains, with the park fee kept out of the price and settled by credit card at the park entry. The guide waits outside the cruise port exit with a CALA TOUR sign, the start time is the confirmed one even if the ship docks early, and the route is cut to fit the sailing time.

Ushuaia museums and the waterfront

The Museo Marítimo y del Presidio, at Yaganes and Gobernador Paz, fills the former prison with the Maritime Museum, the Antarctic Museum and the Museum of Marine Art. It opens daily 10:00 to 20:00 with last admission at 19:30, and tickets are valid for two consecutive days, which is the sensible way to use it. From 1 October 2026 adult admission is AR$50.000, AR$39.000 for students up to 24 with ID, and AR$127.000 for a family of two adults with up to three under-18s; accompanied children under 12 do not pay. This is also where the replica of the Faro del Fin del Mundo stands, the lighthouse most people picture when they book a cruise: the real one sits on Isla de los Estados, over 200 km away and out of reach on any day trip, while the boats turn at Les Éclaireurs.

The Museo del Fin del Mundo splits across two buildings on one ticket, the old Banco Nación at Maipú 173 and the Antigua Casa de Gobierno annex at Maipú 465, built between 1886 and 1890 and used in turn as governor's residence, government house and provincial legislature. Slot it into a weekday between 9:00 and 18:00, or a Saturday from 13:00 to 19:00; Sundays and public holidays are out. Spanish-language guided tours run at Maipú 173 on Tuesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday at 15:00, and at the annex on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday at 16:00.

• Other city museums: Casa Beban and the Espacio Pensar Malvinas, plus the Antigua Casa de Gobierno; the Museo de la Ciudad is temporarily closed.
• Walking the waterfront fills an easy hour: the Bahía Encerrada Urban Nature Reserve first, then the Paseo de las Rosas, ending where the commercial pier and the Antarctic Pioneers Promenade take the cruise ships.
• San Martín, one block inland, is the street for restaurants, shops and agencies, with an Open Air Gallery running four blocks.

The coast road east, the mountain walks and winter

Puerto Almanza is worth a half day. The fishing village sits on the Argentine shore about 75 km from Ushuaia according to the municipal board, reached by National Route 3 and then Provincial Route J, and its family-run restaurants work with freshly caught centolla patagónica along with mussels, cholga, trout and róbalo. Lunch out there and a view across the water to Chile makes a full afternoon.

For walking, Laguna Esmeralda is the standard half day: 9 km round trip, 4 to 5 hours, 220 m of climb, with the trailhead 18 km from town on National Route 3. If your dates are still flexible, the stretch the provincial tourism authority singles out for photography and hiking is late March to May, when the forest turns colour, temperatures usually stay under 10°C and frosts arrive more often as May goes on.

Winter does not close the city down. Cerro Castor lies 27 km out on Ruta 3 at km 26 and its 2026 winter season ran from 28 June to 6 October. Expect averages of 1°C to 6°C, the deepest snow in July and August and only about 7 hours of daylight, which is the argument for taking the morning sailing if you are also going out on the channel; the boats keep working the water all year. Summer sits at the other end of the scale, averaging about 10 to 15°C, seldom going past 25°C, and stretching daylight to 18 hours.

Questions people ask

Read also