From one of the least-known nature reserves to one of the most popular! Peninsula Valdés is a UNESCO World Heritage site in the northern part of Patagonia, in the Argentinian province of Chubut. The peninsula is home to a wide variety of marine fauna, including Magellanic penguins, elephant seals, South American sea lions and killer whales. In fact, Peninsula Valdés is the only place in the world where, from around February through to April, you can see orca beaching themselves in order to hunt sea lions pups! Additionally, from June through to mid-December, the peninsula is also a globally important breeding ground for southern right whales1,2.
We were met by a bit of a surprise when we arrived at the entrance to Peninsula Valdés, when we discovered that the entrance fee to the National Park was $30,000 Argentinian pesos per person, which roughly equates to $30 USD each! This was quite significantly greater than what we had read online, and reminded us of why we often prefer to find nature and wildlife spots which are a little more off the beaten track! As a note, there is some conflicting information online (and even on the signs by the entrance which list the prices as ‘per person per day’) about the cost. From our experience, the price covers your stay for up to 5 days. Despite the high cost, we decided to pay and enter anyway as this was a place that we had read and heard so much about.
After entering the park, we first headed down to a viewpoint overlooking Isla de los Pajaros (which translates as ‘Bird Island’). From the viewpoint, we could see Chilean flamingos feeding on the shoreline and we could just about make out that there were Magellanic penguins on the island! We were excited to see them, as neither of us had seen penguins in the wild before, and hoped that we would get more close-up encounters with penguins over the next couple of days. The road down to the viewpoint was a 5 km gravel road, which Phil handled well at a nice slow speed. In hindsight though, we really should have taken this as a warning of what was to come the next day!
After leaving the viewpoint, we headed to the town of Puerto Pirámides to find a spot to park for the night. Again, there seemed to be some conflicting information about overnight parking on the peninsula. There were signs saying that camping is prohibited within the national park outside of the designated campsite. However, it is not clear if this is just for tents or whether motorhomes are also prohibited. We found a couple of places in the town on iOverlander and so headed to one of them – the bus station car park. There was a parking attendant at the bus station who said that we should ask the police whether we could park there overnight, as the answer will depend on who is on duty! We saw a few police officers that afternoon and evening who greeted us with a cheerful ‘buenas tardes’ and said nothing about our presence, so we figured we were OK!
After parking the van at the bus station (and paying an extra $2,500 pesos for the privilege!), we decided to take a stroll through the quirky coastal town of Puerto Pirámides and then hike to the nearby Punta Pirámides in order to see one of the South American sea lion colonies that call the peninsula home. It was a gorgeous evening walk over the hills and cliff-tops, and as we walked down towards the loberia (sea lion colony) we spotted a small family of sea lions, two parents and a pup, sitting on the rocks in the distance. It was so lovely to watch them interacting with each other for a few minutes, but the sounds of more sea lions drew us further down the hill, where we found the main colony. They were quite raucous! We had a fantastic view of the colony and watched them for over an hour as dusk fell. Among the sea lions, there were also blackish oystercatchers, imperial cormorants and a group of giant petrels, the latter being just as giant as their name suggests!
Although it wasn’t the most scenic of park-ups, we had an undisturbed night parked outside Puerto Pirámides bus station. We set off early the next morning to head to Punta Norte, where there is a mixed colony of elephant seals and sea lions as well as a Magellanic penguin colony a little further down the coast. The journey to the Punta Norte was definitely one we will always remember – 75 km of gravel washboard road! The locals, who once again don’t seem to notice poor road conditions (see our blog on Parque Nacional Lihué-Calel), sped along at around 80 kph whilst kicking up clouds of dust! Trying our best to look after our van, we took a much more steady approach, meaning that it took us around 2 and a half hours to get to Punta Norte.
Tired and worrying that we’d caused some costly damage to Phil, we were relieved to arrive and hoped to spot some sea lions and elephant seals in order to make the journey feel worthwhile. We were pleased therefore to see a large colony of sea lions and a few female elephant seals lounging on the beach along with two male elephant seals swimming just off the shore. We observed the males having a short squabble in the sea and would have loved to see them on land, where we could fully appreciate their size, but it was really cool to see them nonetheless.
After spending a little time watching the mixed colony, we returned to the van with the plan of visiting the penguin colony nearby. Unfortunately, in order to reach the penguin colony there is a 6 km detour from the ‘main’ road (on an even worse gravel road!), as well as an extra charge. Feeling like we’d already put Phil through enough, and that we had spent enough money in entrance fees, we made the decision to give this spot a miss. After all, we planned to visit the penguin colonies at Punta Tombo and Pigüinera Punta Entrada (near to Monte Leon National Park) in the coming days, where we knew we would likely see a lot of Magellanic penguins. A few more hours later, we reached the end of the gravel road, feeling quite exhausted from all the dust and the heat. We gave Phil a thorough check over, and were relieved to assess that he seemed to be fine, except for a wheel trim that had peeled off slightly (nothing a bit of silicone sealant can’t fix!) and a copious amounts of dust that had gotten everywhere inside the van!!
So…Peninsula Valdés was not quite what we had expected. In large part this is down to us not doing enough research – for example, the peninsula is a whole lot bigger than we expected, and being a flagship national park we hadn’t considered that the main road through it would be gravel. We are not sure that – for us in a large campervan – the cost of the park entrance and the potential for damage to Phil’s suspension or other parts, due to road vibrations and rather extreme amounts of dust, were quite worth it for the wildlife the we encountered. However, a huge drawer for visitors to the peninsula are the southern right whales, and it was unfortunate that due to our overall travel plans we could only visit outside of southern right whale season. Additionally, we visited when the sea lion pups were still young and not yet swimming, and so we did not have the opportunity to witness the peninsula’s orcas unique hunting style. Therefore, if you do plan to go to Peninsula Valdés one day, maybe don’t do what we did – take a coach trip or a rental car and go later on in the year when the orcas and southern right whles are around!
Our next stop is Punta Tombo, where we hope to finally see some penguins up close! And if you’re worried for Phil, we’ve checked and there is another gravel road, but its only 23km each way this time so we’ll take it super slow!
How to get there
Peninsula Valdés is accessible by road, however be warned – the majority of the roads on the peninsula are gravel, so if you are travelling around Argentina/South America in your own vehicle you may want to look at other options. In order to reach the peninsula, take the turn for Ruta 2 off from Ruta 3 near Puerto Madryn. The entrance to the nature reserve is marked by guard booths on the Ameghino Isthmus, which is where you pay your entrance fee. The current price to enter (January 2025) is $30,000 pesos per person. We were told that once you enter, you can stay as long as you like.
A variety of different tours to the peninsula run regularly from the nearby town of Puerto Madryn. We wouldn’t usually opt for a tour ourselves, but in this case we would actually recommend taking a tour to get the most out of your visit to Peninsula Valdés (and not have to worry about the potential damage to your own vehicle or a hire car!). The peninsula is large (around 3,600 km2) so it is a long way between the different main sights on bumpy gravel roads.
When to go
The best time of year to visit the peninsula will depend largely on the wildlife you are hoping to spot. South American sea lions, Commerson’s dolphins, maras, rheas, armadillos, tinamous and many other species are present year-round. However, some of the key charismatic species are only present at certain times.
- Southern right whales visit between June and December to mate and calve.
- Magellanic penguins can be seen mid-September through to March.
- Orcas are easiest to see between March and May when they use a unique stranding technique to hunt young sea lions. They are present as early as October, but are much harder to spot outside of the March to May period.
- Elephant seals are present between July and March1.
Sources
- La Ruta Natural: https://larutanatural.gob.ar/en/must-see/11/valdes-peninsula
- UNESCO: https://whc.unesco.org/en/list/937/