Around Argentina by car

Dear Sirs!

My name is Alexander Sominsky. I live in Moscow, Russia. Next (2009) January I plan to travel around Argentina by car. The approximate schedule of the travel is following:

Day 1 BA - Necochea
Day 2 Necochea
Day 3 Necochea - Viedma
Day 4 Viedma - Puerto Piramides
Day 5 Peninsula Valdes
Day 6 Puerto Piramides - Comodoro Rivadavia
Day 7 Comodoro Rivadavia - Rio Gallegos
Day 8 Rio Gallegos - Ushuaia
Day 9 Ushuaia
Day 10 Ushuaia - Rio Gallegos
Day 11 Rio Gallegos - El Calafate
Day 12 El Calafate
Day 13 El Calafate - Las Horquetas
Day 14 Las Horquetas - Perito Moreno
Day 15 Perito Moreno - Gobernador Costa
Day 16 Gobernador Costa - Bariloche
Day 17 Bariloche
Day 18 Bariloche - Chos Malal
Day 19 Chos Malal - Mendosa
Day 20 Mendoza
Day 21 Mendoza - La Rioja
Day 22 La Rioja - Quimili
Day 23 Quimili – Corrientes
Day 24 Corrientes - Puerto Iguazu
Day 25 Iguazu
Day 26 Puerto Iguazu - Santo Tome
Day 27 Santo Tome - Concepcion del Uruguay
Day 28 Concepcion del Uruguay - Buenos Aires
Day 29 Buenos Aires
Day 30 Buenos Aires
Day 31 Reserve
Day 32 Reserve

I’ll quite obliged for any opignion, comment, advice or criticism.

Really I have a lot of questions. The first one is: how to rent a car cheaper? I found the prices for car rent in Argentina very high…
Reply to this

FionaB

Do buses go by Routa 40?

I'll consider your idea, but really I prefer to be free of buses' schedules.

What about the idea generally?

Thanks!

PS. Of course, I wont drive in BA. Reply to this

Hi Alex,
I would agree with Fiona that buses are a good bet. They are very comfortable, economical and go very regularly (therefore being tied to bus schedules is not generally a problem). We have hired cars for short periods of time when we have gone to areas which are harder to reach by bus (eg. the gorgeous Los Alerces National Park near Esquel).
We travelled Ruta 40 by bus although we had been tempted to go by car. In the end we were glad to have taken the bus as it was a VERY long journey and nice for someone else to be doing all of the driving. Also, a lot of the road is ripio (gravel) and in a hire car you would have to go slowly to make sure you did not damage the car - buses don´t care about that so much!
As to your itinerary, it looks good but you are covering a lot of ground. You might want to consider cutting out some bits (eg. Rio Gallegos, Ushuaia) and spend longer in other places. But then I completely understand that desire to see as much as possible in the time you have!
As for car hire prices, we have paid around US$45-50 a day. I know that car hire companies usually give discounts for hire over 1 week. We have always gone with local companies rather than international ones.
Finally, have a look at my blogs for some more ideas and feel free to ask more questions if I can help!
Best wishes,
Ruth Reply to this

That looks a lot better. You are going to some places off the tourist map (which I think you will enjoy very much) as well as some well traveled paths.
Check if you can fly from Puerto Madryn to Ushuaia, then you could put it in around day 6 and not have to do it from BA. Reply to this