How many days for a road trip in Argentina?

The orders of magnitude quickly temper ambitions: 1,600 km separate Buenos Aires from Bariloche, 1,500 km from Salta, and over 2,700 km from El Calafate. None of these drives offers enough scenic interest to justify two or three days of pampa behind the wheel: almost every independent traveller therefore combines domestic flights with regional car rentals — you land in Salta, Bariloche or El Calafate, rent locally, drive the loop, return the car and fly on. Dropping a vehicle off in another province triggers one-way fees that are often prohibitive: the regional loop isn't a fallback, it's the rational way to travel this country.

Within each region, the realistic pace is slower than the maps suggest. A study by Susanne Becken and Jude Wilson, published in 2007 in the Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing and based on interviews with road-trip travellers, shows that self-drive tourists spontaneously stick to a “budget” of 3 to 5 hours of driving per day, whatever the actual distance covered (study available on Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Becken+Wilson+Trip+Planning+Decision+Making+Self-Drive+Tourists). On Patagonian ripio or the switchbacks of the Northwest, that time budget works out to 200-300 km per day — the figure to keep in mind when sizing your stages.

With a week, the densest format is the Andean Northwest out of Salta: the classic loop drops to Cachi over the Cuesta del Obispo and its switchbacks above 3,300 m (160 km, about 3 h), follows the legendary Ruta 40 through the Quebrada de las Flechas to Cafayate and its high-altitude vineyards (160 km, 4 to 5 h, largely on gravel), then climbs back to Salta through the red rocks of the Quebrada de las Conchas (190 km, about 3 h). Allow 5 to 6 days for this 500-600 km loop, plus a one-day extension north to Purmamarca and the seven-coloured mountain.

The southern alternative also fits in a week: El Calafate and the Perito Moreno glacier (80 km from town, a full day on the walkways), then El Chaltén, Argentina's trekking capital at the foot of Fitz Roy (215 km, about 2 h 30 on empty asphalt), for three to four nights of hiking — Laguna de los Tres, Laguna Torre. A third, gentler option: the lake district around Bariloche, with the Seven Lakes road to San Martín de los Andes (110 km, to be stretched with every possible detour) and the Circuito Chico. One week, one region: that's the base contract of Argentine self-drive.

Ten to twelve days open up the most recommendable format for a first trip: two contrasting regions linked by air, with a one- or two-night stopover in Buenos Aires — most domestic flights connect there. The most requested duo combines the Northwest (5 to 6 days of loop from Salta) with glacier Patagonia (4 to 5 days between El Calafate and El Chaltén): high desert, vineyards and cardón cacti on one side, glaciers and granite on the other. The lakes-glaciers alternative (Bariloche + El Calafate) is more homogeneous but cuts down the flying hours.

The logistics are simple as long as you respect them: one car per region, picked up and returned at the same airport, never a single rental dragged from one region to another. Domestic airlines link Buenos Aires daily with Salta (2 h flight), Bariloche (2 h) and El Calafate (3 h); book these segments early in high season — January-February for Patagonia, July-September for the North — because it's these, far more than the cars, that sell out at the last minute.

From two weeks, the run down the Patagonian Ruta 40 becomes possible: from Bariloche to El Calafate, allow 1,400 to 1,500 km including several ripio sections, through one of the emptiest areas of the continent — fuel stations sometimes 200 km apart, staging towns like Gobernador Gregores or Perito Moreno (the town, not to be confused with the glacier), and the Cueva de las Manos, its 9,000-year-old rock paintings, as an unmissable detour. Five to seven days of driving for the link, plus the stays at both ends: the full format needs 15 to 18 days.

Three weeks and up allow you either to add a third region to the programme — the Northwest, or the Iguazú Falls by plane — or to push Patagonia to the end: Torres del Paine on the Chilean side, even Ushuaia and Tierra del Fuego. It's also the duration that finally allows real buffer days, precious in a region where wind or a degraded track can force you to slow down.

Patagonia is swept by the most constant westerly winds on the planet, and that's not a figure of speech: the work of René Garreaud and his colleagues, published in 2013 in the Journal of Climate, documents this near-permanent westerlies regime that peaks precisely during the austral summer, the tourist season (study available on Google Scholar: scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Large-Scale+Control+on+the+Patagonian+Climate+Garreaud). In practice, gusts of 80 to 100 km/h are routine between November and February: they demand a firm grip on the wheel on exposed sections, holding on to the doors when stopped — the wind literally tears them from your hands — and a margin added to every driving-time estimate.

This wind is why Patagonian distances tire you more than their European equivalent, and one more argument for not compressing the Ruta 40 below five days of driving. One final planning point: if your route crosses to the Chilean side — Torres del Paine, Carretera Austral —, taking a rental car out of the country requires a customs authorisation issued by the rental company, to be requested several days before departure; our article on crossing the Chile-Argentina border in a rental car details the procedure.