the Arakur Ushuaia Resort & Spa, for the pool on the cliff. Jon booked it for us; ask him.

Laguna Esmeralda, 4.5 km each way from Route 3. Waterproof boots; the mud is the difficulty.

the End of the World Train into Tierra del Fuego National Park, then Lapataia Bay and Lago Roca.

Uber in town, a private driver or a tour for the day trips.

Beagle or Cape Horn, brewed in Ushuaia.

layers and a shell. Mid-March is already autumn at 54° south.

Ushuaia: the end of the world, before the ship

Every Antarctic voyage out of Argentina starts here, and most people fly in the day before and see nothing but the pier. We gave the end of the world three days first, from 17 March 2026, and it earned them. Ushuaia sits at 54°48′ south on the Beagle Channel, squeezed between the water and the Martial mountains: 85,000 people in the city that calls itself the southernmost in the world, a claim Puerto Williams across the channel in Chile disputes. It grew out of a prison. The penal colony ran from 1896 to 1947, and its convicts cut the timber that heated and built the early town.

The fortress on the hill

Our luxury tip is the Arakur Ushuaia Resort & Spa, and the reviews are right to reach for words like fortress: from below it is a long grey rampart of stone and glass along the top of a cliff, alone in the forest. It stands inside the Cerro Alarkén nature reserve, a hundred hectares of native woodland with walking trails, north-east of the centre. A free shuttle runs down into town every hour, fifteen minutes each way, and the hotel belongs to the Leading Hotels of the World; Jon booked it for us.

The reason to stay is the pool. It is heated, indoors, and runs out through the glass to an infinity edge and a row of hot tubs on the cliff. Our phone put the water at 240 metres above sea level, and from it you look down over the whole of Ushuaia, the airport on its peninsula, and the Beagle Channel to the mountains of Chile. You can watch your ship tie up at the pier from the water. Cold, and breathtaking.

A long, low hotel of glass and stone along the top of a cliff, seen from the grassy slope below under a grey sky — The Arakur on its cliff, from the road below · 18 March

From inside the pool: a floor-to-ceiling window and a slate wall frame the view down over Ushuaia's airport peninsula, a cruise ship at the pier and the Beagle Channel — From the pool: the airport, the pier and the Beagle Channel · 18 March

An emerald lake

The hike everyone in Ushuaia recommends is Laguna Esmeralda, and they are right. The trailhead is 18 kilometres east of town on Route 3, in the Tierra Mayor valley; from there it is about 4.5 kilometres each way and 200 metres of climbing, four to five hours with a stop at the top. The hard part is not the gradient. It is the mud: the path crosses peat bog on boardwalks and planks, and where they run out you sink.

Then the trees stop and the lake is there, milky turquoise from the sediment the Ojo del Albino glacier grinds off the mountains above it, in a bowl of peaks that already had fresh snow on them in the third week of March. We had the shore almost to ourselves. Late season is quiet season here too.

Milky turquoise water in the foreground, tussock and low bushes, and a valley rising to snow-dusted peaks and a glacier under low cloud — Laguna Esmeralda and the Ojo del Albino glacier · 18 March

A hiker in a blue jacket stands on the sandy shore with arms spread wide, facing the turquoise lake and the snowy mountains — At the lake · 18 March

The full width of the lake, pale green water below dark forested slopes and a wall of grey and white peaks — The lake from its outflow · 18 March

A milky glacial river tumbling over boulders between lenga trees, a rounded mountain behind — The river from the lake, beside the trail · 18 March

The beavers

Halfway up, the trail crosses a landscape that looks bombed: a flooded flat of dead silver trunks, ponds and dams. This is beaver country, and there should be no beavers here at all. In 1946 the Argentine Navy flew a planeload of Canadian beavers to Tierra del Fuego and released them at Lago Fagnano to start a fur trade. The fur trade never happened. The beavers, with no wolves, no bears and no coyotes to eat them, spread across the whole archipelago.

Their dams flood the valley floors and drown the lenga forest, which, unlike the willows and aspens of Canada, does not grow back once it has stood in water. Both Argentina and Chile now talk about eradication. Until then, the trail to the lake goes over their dams, which at least make a dry path across the bog.

A flooded bog with pale dead tree trunks standing in the water and a snow-topped mountain behind — Beaver-flooded forest on the Laguna Esmeralda trail · 18 March

The prisoners' train

The Tren del Fin del Mundo, the End of the World Train, is the southernmost working railway on Earth, and it began as a punishment. The prison built the line in 1910 to haul rock, sand and timber, and the convicts rode it out into the forest every morning to cut wood for the town's stoves. The prison closed in 1947, the line in 1952; in 1994 it came back as a heritage railway on 500-millimetre track, seven kilometres from the End of the World station, eight kilometres west of Ushuaia, through the Pipo valley and the Toro gorge into the national park.

It is a tourist train, and it knows it: small steam engines, small carriages, a commentary. Take the morning departure anyway. The gorge is lovely, the stumps the prisoners left are still standing, and it drops you inside the park, where a driver or a tour can pick you up.

A small green steam locomotive with brass fittings and a red-and-white buffer beam at the platform, steam rising, the driver at the cab — The morning train at the End of the World station · 19 March

A calm bay with rocky islets and low scrub in the foreground, forested hills and a distant headland under a grey sky — Lapataia Bay, where Route 3 ends · 19 March

Green-grey layered rocks at the shore of the Beagle Channel, an island and snow-capped mountains across the water — The Beagle Channel from the park's shore · 19 March

Where the road ends

Tierra del Fuego National Park starts 11 kilometres west of town: 630 square kilometres of lenga and ñire forest, peat bog and channel shore, protected since 1960 and the southernmost national park in Argentina. Route 3, the Argentine leg of the Pan-American Highway, runs into it and stops at Lapataia Bay, which is as far south as you can drive on the continent's road network.

Give it half a day with a driver or a tour. Lapataia Bay for the end of the road; Ensenada Zaratiegui for the post office at the end of the world; and Lago Roca, the long glacial lake that runs north-west into Chile, which the park called by its indigenous name, Acigami, from 2008 until the government changed the signs back in 2024. Streams the colour of tea run through the bog between them. At the end of the season the car parks are empty and the light is low all day.

A long, still lake reflecting the clouds, mountains on both shores running away into the distance — Lago Roca, running north-west towards Chile · 19 March

A clear stream running through grass and red-tipped plants, lenga forest and a rocky ridge behind under a blue sky — A stream in the park · 19 March

Getting around

You don't need a hire car. Uber worked for us in and around town, a private driver for the day worked for the park, and the organised tours work too: to Laguna Esmeralda, to the park with the train included, along the Beagle Channel by boat. Pick whichever suits the day. The Arakur's shuttle covers the hotel-to-town run.

The local beer

Ushuaia brews its own. Beagle and its sister brand Cape Horn come from the Fuegian Beverage Company in town, brewed to the German purity law with glacial water and Patagonian hops, and they carry the province's Fin del Mundo quality seal. Order one with the king crab. It is the beer you will see on every table, and it deserves to be.

If you go

Pro tip

Two full days before the ship. One for Laguna Esmeralda, one for the park and the train. Flights to the end of the world run late more often than ships wait, so the buffer is insurance as well as a holiday.

Where to stay? the Arakur Ushuaia Resort & Spa, for the pool on the cliff. Jon booked it for us; ask him.
Which hike? Laguna Esmeralda, 4.5 km each way from Route 3. Waterproof boots; the mud is the difficulty.
Which train? the End of the World Train into Tierra del Fuego National Park, then Lapataia Bay and Lago Roca.
How to get around? Uber in town, a private driver or a tour for the day trips.
What to drink? Beagle or Cape Horn, brewed in Ushuaia.
What to pack? layers and a shell. Mid-March is already autumn at 54° south.