Tierra del Fuego National Park and End of the World Train Tour Ushuaia

The End of the World Train

The End of the World Train, or Tren del Fin del Mundo, is a narrow-gauge heritage railway that starts about 8 kilometres west of Ushuaia and runs into Tierra del Fuego National Park. Its origins lie in the prison railway built from 1909, when convicts of the Ushuaia penitentiary were taken into the forest each day to cut timber for the growing town. The line closed in the 1950s and reopened in 1994 as a tourist railway, with small locomotives pulling wooden-panelled carriages along a track just 500 millimetres wide.

The ride lasts about an hour and follows the Pipo River valley, stopping at the Macarena waterfall where you can climb to a viewpoint and see a reconstruction of a Yámana camp, then crossing the peat bog and the ghostly forest of tree stumps left by the prisoners' axes before arriving at the park station. For many visitors the train is the most memorable part of a Tierra del Fuego National Park tour, and this option includes the ticket.

Tierra del Fuego National Park

Tierra del Fuego National Park was created in 1960 to protect the southern tip of the Andes, where the mountains meet the sea. It covers roughly 69,000 hectares along the Chilean border, from the Beagle Channel coast up to peaks and glaciers, though only the southern strip near the coast is open to visitors. Dense forests of lenga and ñire beech, which turn red and gold in autumn, cover the lower slopes; above them are peat bogs, lakes of glacial origin and bare rock. Foxes, guanacos, Andean condors, kelp geese and the introduced beaver all live here.

Our guided drive follows the park road to its best viewpoints, with short walks of a few minutes at each stop to admire the scenery and take photos. A park entry fee is paid at the gate on arrival. Ushuaia national park tours are the classic half-day outing from the city, and this one combines the landscape with the stories of the native Yámana people, the missionaries and the prison that shaped the region.

Ensenada Zaratiegui and the Beagle Channel coast

Ensenada Zaratiegui is a small sheltered bay on the Beagle Channel inside the park, with a pebble beach, a wooden jetty and a view across the water to the Chilean island of Navarino and its snow peaks. A small timber post office stands on the shore here, known as the southernmost post office in the world, where visitors can have their passport stamped for a small fee. The bay is also a starting point for the coastal path that runs east along the channel through the forest.

The tour stops at the bay for photos and a few minutes on the beach. The views along this coast are among the best in the park: calm water, dark forest down to the shoreline and the mountains of the Chilean side rising opposite. Weather changes fast here, so the guide keeps the timing flexible to catch the best light. This is the stop where visitors most often say the end of the world feels real.

Lapataia Bay: the end of the Pan-American route

Lapataia Bay lies at the western end of the park road, where the Lapataia River flows into a long, sheltered inlet of the Beagle Channel. National Route 3, which begins in Buenos Aires, ends here at a wooden sign recording the distance to Alaska along the Pan-American route: nearly 18,000 kilometres. Beyond the sign a short boardwalk leads to a viewpoint over the bay, with islands, reedbeds and the mountains of the Chilean side in the distance, and shell middens left by the Yámana people thousands of years ago are visible beside the path.

Lapataia Bay is the natural climax of the tour and the photo everyone wants, so the guide allows time for the walk to the viewpoint and the sign. Depending on the departure and the group's pace, there may also be a stop at the green and black lagoons or at Lake Acigami, formerly called Lake Roca, whose far shore lies in Chile. From Lapataia the vehicle returns to Ushuaia, with drop-off in the city centre.

Ushuaia: the southernmost city

Ushuaia stretches along the north shore of the Beagle Channel beneath the Martial mountains, the capital of Argentina's province of Tierra del Fuego and the usual starting point for Antarctic voyages. Founded in 1884 around an Anglican mission and later a penal colony, it has grown into a lively town of coloured houses, a busy waterfront and the Avenida San Martín shopping street running parallel to the port. Its airport is about 5 kilometres from the centre, and the national park entrance lies 12 kilometres to the west.

We collect you from hotels and private addresses throughout the Ushuaia metropolitan area for the 07:30 and 10:30 departures, but not from the airport, since flight delays would hold up the group. The tour ends at Avenida San Martín 775 in the city centre, convenient for lunch, the shops and the port. Ushuaia day trips are short on distance, which is why this half-day format works so well.