bus travel in argentina: buenos aires to ushuaia

I was told that Argentina has the best bus travel in South America. Hearing this, I was all over it - I really, really love long road trips.

Starting out in Buenos Aires, a complete newbie to the South American continent, the prospect of how to go about getting tickets and figuring out where to go in the first place was a bit daunting.

I finally narrowed it down to Ushuaia. Tierra del Fuego. The end of the world.

Destination decided, I went online to get a better idea of how to go about getting the right bus tickets.

Can we pause for a bit and discuss how overwhelming the Internet can be? Sometimes having a world of people telling you how to do something can be the opposite of useful. Which is why I was profoundly thankful to the ever helpful Adam Seper for his straightforward overview of the Argentine bus system.

Having a better idea of what the heck I was doing, I made my way to the Retiro Bus Station. At the Andesmar window, I bought my tickets to Río Gallegos, then another to Ushuaia.

This had been the first step I’d made as a solo traveler. I left the station inordinately proud of myself.

Since then I’ve done a lot of bus travel in Argentina. I still love it and have learned that it’s important to do your research before. Finding yourself on a bus at hour 10 with no book, no movie playing and the last paved patch of road a distant memory, can make you long for the luxury of cama seating (the seats that recline to 180 degrees!) and the magical words of “meals included”.

I made this video a couple of weeks go, but haven’t had a chance to share it yet:

Before I go, here's a crazy fact for the day: Did you see all that open space in the video? Yeah. That's cause approximately one-third of the Argentine population lives in Buenos Aires. That leaves a huge country with a lot of empty space.