This is your destination guide for Argentina.
This is your destination guide for Bariloche & the Lake District
📍 Part of ArgentinaGlacier-blue lakes, a main street full of chocolate shops, and mountains you ski in winter and paddle in summer.
The reality: You land at a small airport, drive twenty minutes, and the road opens onto a lake so big it has waves. Behind the town there are ski runs. In front of it, a chocolate shop every few doors and a stone civic centre that looks like it was lifted from Bavaria. This is Patagonia — but not the empty, windswept one on the postcards.
Most people treat Bariloche as a base and never get past the Circuito Chico. That's the mistake. The town is the busy front door; the lake district behind it is the point — the Seven Lakes road north to San Martín de los Andes, the quiet forest of Villa La Angostura, the hop-growing valley of El Bolsón. The crowds thin fast once you drive.
Come in winter and Cerro Catedral is South America's largest ski resort. Come in summer and the same mountain is a two-hour hike to a climbers' hut, and the lakes are cold enough to make you gasp. Rent a car, pick a lake road, and stop a lot. The town will still be there when you get back. So will the chocolate.
The whole region is built around water. Glacier-fed lakes sit in folds between forested mountains, and they are not warm — most stay cold enough to swim only in January and February, and even then briefly. The colour is the draw: deep blue near the town, milky turquoise where glacial silt feeds in.
Lago Nahuel Huapi — the big one. Bariloche sits on its southern shore, and it's large enough to whip up real waves on a windy afternoon. Boat trips run out to Isla Victoria and the Bosque de Arrayanes, a forest of cinnamon-barked myrtle trees on the Quetrihué peninsula.
The Circuito Chico — the short loop west of town along Avenida Bustillo. It passes Lago Moreno, the Llao Llao peninsula, and the chairlift up Cerro Campanario. You can drive it in an hour or spend a day. Most people drive it badly, stopping only at the first viewpoint.
Lago Gutiérrez — closest swimmable lake to town, at the foot of Cerro Catedral. Quiet pebble beaches, no entrance gate, and the trailhead for Refugio Frey starts nearby.
The Seven Lakes route (Ruta de los Siete Lagos) — about 110 km of Ruta 40 between Villa La Angostura and San Martín de los Andes, paved the whole way, threading past Espejo, Correntoso, Escondido, Villarino, Falkner, Machónico and Lácar. Allow a full day, not the drive time. Every lake has a pull-off and most are empty by mid-afternoon.
Lago Correntoso — feeds Nahuel Huapi through the Río Correntoso, one of the shortest rivers in the world at around 200 metres. A strange, satisfying thing to stand next to.
Lago Mascardi — milky turquoise, on the gravel road toward Cerro Tronador. The Ventisquero Negro (Black Glacier) hangs at Tronador's base — worth the drive, but the lakes are the reason you're here, not the ice.
The lake district spreads across three provinces and four very different towns. Bariloche is the loud one. The others are why you keep driving.
San Carlos de Bariloche — the base. The Centro Cívico, built in grey stone and timber in the 1930s, is the prettiest part; Calle Mitre behind it is solid chocolate shops and souvenir wool. The centre is openly touristy and you should treat it as a supply stop, not the experience. Sleep here for restaurants and buses; spend your days out of it.
Villa La Angostura — an hour north on the lake's quieter side. Forested, calmer, more money. It's the gateway to the Bosque de Arrayanes and to Cerro Bayo, the smaller ski hill that locals prefer when Catedral is full.
San Martín de los Andes — the northern end of the Seven Lakes route, on Lago Lácar. Lower, greener and gentler than Bariloche, with a deliberately low-rise town centre and the Chapelco ski hill above it. Many people prefer it to Bariloche and quietly base here instead.
El Bolsón — two hours south, a 1970s hippie valley that never quite left. Hops and raspberries grow in the warm microclimate, the Saturday feria fills the plaza with artisans, and the surrounding craft breweries gave Patagonian beer its start. Cerro Piltriquitrón looms over the whole thing.
Colonia Suiza — a tiny Swiss-settler hamlet on the Circuito Chico. Go on a Wednesday or Sunday for curanto, meat and vegetables slow-cooked in a covered pit in the ground. Order it before you arrive; they make a set amount.
One set of mountains, two completely different holidays depending on the month.
This is the rare place where the same peaks are a ski resort in July and a hiking network in February. Nahuel Huapi National Park has a proper system of mountain refuges (refugios) linked by trails, so you can day-hike to a hut and a meal or string several together over a week.
German, Swiss and Italian settlers shaped what people eat here, and it shows: smoked meats, alpine cheeses, raspberries, tea houses, and the two things the region is genuinely known for — chocolate and craft beer.
Chocolate — Bariloche's other religion. Calle Mitre has dozens of shops; the old names (Rapa Nui, Mamuschka, Del Turista) draw queues. Ask for chocolate en rama, the rough little "branches" of chocolate that are the local signature.
Cordero patagónico — Patagonian lamb, splayed on an iron cross over coals (al palo) and cooked slowly. The regional asado, and worth ordering wherever you see the cross outside a restaurant.
Trucha and ciervo — lake trout and farmed venison turn up smoked, in pâté, and on menus everywhere. The smoked-game picada with bread is a good cheap lunch.
Craft beer: Patagonia is where Argentine craft brewing began, and Bariloche is its home. Cervecería Berlina on Avenida Bustillo pours on a deck over Nahuel Huapi; Manush and Patagonia are easy in-town taprooms; the breweries around El Bolsón grow their own hops. A pint costs a fraction of what dinner does.
More of a beer-and-chocolate town than a wine one — see our full Argentina drinks guide →
December to March (summer) — the lakes, the hiking and the long evenings. Warm-ish days (18–26°C), cold water, trails open and refuges staffed. January is the busiest and dearest; March is the sweet spot as crowds thin but the weather holds.
Late June to September (winter) — ski season. Cerro Catedral opens around the last week of June and runs to late September. July is the one to plan around: it's both the busiest ski month and Argentine school-holiday season, when busloads of graduating students arrive for the traditional end-of-school trip. Book early or aim for August.
April and May (autumn) — the local secret. The native lenga and ñire forests turn deep red and orange, the air is still, and prices and crowds both drop. Cold nights, clear days, lifts and lake boats winding down. The best photographs of the year happen now.
One Patagonian caveat: the Andes here sit beside active Chilean volcanoes. In 2011 ash from Puyehue closed Bariloche's airport for weeks and dusted the whole town. It's rare and unpredictable rather than a reason to stay away — but it's why Patagonian airlines build in flexibility, and you should too.
Fly in. Bariloche's airport (BRC) is a two-hour flight from Buenos Aires, with seasonal links to other Argentine cities. The overland bus from Buenos Aires takes 20-plus hours — only romantic in theory.
Rent a car. The Seven Lakes route and the Circuito Chico are the whole reason to come, and both want a car. Roads are paved and good; book ahead in July and January when stock runs out. Local buses cover town and the main Bustillo strip, but they skip the viewpoints you actually came for.
One quirk worth knowing: the gravel road to Cerro Tronador via Pampa Linda is single-lane and one-way by time of day — uphill in the morning, downhill in the afternoon. Check the daily schedule before you set off, or you'll wait hours for the gate to flip.
Pick a base for the kind of days you want. The region is spread out, so where you sleep shapes the trip more than it does on a small island.
Bariloche centre — for restaurants, chocolate, nightlife and buses. Busiest and least scenic, most convenient.
Avenida Bustillo & the Circuito Chico — lakefront cabins and the grand Llao Llao hotel. Quiet, scenic, needs a car.
Villa Catedral — at the foot of the ski slopes, ski-in in winter. Dead in summer.
Villa La Angostura — forested and calmer, good for the northern lakes and Cerro Bayo.
San Martín de los Andes — the prettiest town base, best if the Seven Lakes route is your focus.
Bariloche is the expensive end of Argentina — pricier than Mendoza or Buenos Aires, and the old trick of changing cash for a much better rate is over. Since 2025, foreign Visa and Mastercard get the same near-official rate everywhere, so just pay by card and skip the money-changers. Still cheaper than the Alps it imitates.
Prices in US dollars because the peso moves monthly — pay by card for the automatic MEP rate. High season means both ski (Jul) and summer (Jan); shoulder months knock 30–40% off.
Go if you want the gentle, green, lake-and-forest side of Patagonia — Seven Lakes drives, a ski mountain and a hiking mountain that happen to be the same one, and a town that runs on chocolate. Skip if you came for the jagged-glacier Patagonia of the postcards, or for a quiet Argentine bargain that no longer exists.
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