How we planned our Patagonia trip
Our first glimpse of Torres del Paine
Disclaimer: Let me start by saying that his post is not sponsored in any way. We paid for the entire trip on our own.
Planning trips when you’re constantly juggling a chemo infusion schedule is tough. I have infusion every two weeks so that limits the length of our trips. We also can’t plan too far in advance because I have CT scans about every 8-10 weeks so we can only plan about two months in advance after we know the results of the scan. We don’t know how things with my health will be months out from a trip.
Our philosophy for planning this Patagonia trip, as well as all of our trips these days, is to try not to have each day too planned, because I never know when I might start feeling crappy. Though a lot of people backpack the famous “O” or “W” routes of Torres del Paine, both David and I knew that wouldn’t work for us for a couple of different reasons.
David is definitely a lux traveler (those who really know him know how much he loves a private plunge pool!), and needs the following after a long day of hiking: a hot bath, a hot shower, a comfortable bed, a cold beer, a hearty meal, reliable wifi, and enough charging plugs for all our electronic devices.
For me, with how volatile my energy levels can be as well as how I can feel great one minute and then have awful abdominal pains or nausea the next, having a comfortable bed, private bathroom as well as a tranquil spa are things that I really value when we travel.
With these thoughts in mind, I started going through blogs, magazines, and of course, Instagram, for inspiration. There were three luxury hotels I had saved multiple times in random notes/saved folders that I knew I wanted to stay at on this trip: The Singular Patagonia, Tierra Patagonia, and EOLO Patagonia. After looking at each hotel website and trying to book myself, I realized we would also need a rental car, or would need to sign on to a tour for transportation amongst these three places as well as through two national parks.
We much prefer to do private travel and I usually love to plan the details of every trip, but after reading some travel blogs and looking up a few luxury travel companies that had high ratings in some of my trusted travel guieds, I easily landed on Quasar Expeditions. They are a full service travel company, meaning they take care of all your hotel reservations for you, including food/beverage programs, all of your excursions, and advise you on the best itineraries and major sites not to miss.
This is my only crappy photo I have of our awesome Jeep
To top it all off, instead of doing everything in a group, they have a self-drive option where you get to drive around the park and follow the itinerary at your own pace and you’re not locked in to any group activities. On the day of check-in, a Quasar representative drops off to your hotel a tricked-out Jeep that can handle the mostly unpaved roads in Patagonia, and comes equipped with a GPS with all your destinations pre-programmed, a satellite phone with 24 hour assistance, a GPS tracker in case you get lost either on the roads or on the trails and need emergency help, as well as binoculars, maps, trekking poles, and a cooler full of coffee/tea, water, snacks (really got me there with the free snacks)!
The Quasar team was SO beyond helpful. Tara was incredible in helping us with itinerary and pre-trip logistics. She held dates for us after we explained my medical situation and called to check in on us. Martín was also an incredible resource. They helped keep us organized in terms of travel documents, car insurance, arranging flights, airport transfers, guides and excursions, dinner reservations—you name it they helped. With the struggles I have now keeping up with my doctor’s visits and other appointments, the team at Quasar definitely made the whole process much less stressful. They sent reminders for deadlines and kept us on track with getting the proper documentation sent to them in a timely manner.
Quasar has a detailed itinerary for each day that highlights the major sites and activities, but there is room for customization which we definitely took advantage of. We wanted this trip to be active so we opted for some of the more challenging hikes and activities.
I would 100% recommend Quasar Expeditions if you are looking for a mid-level to luxury Patagonia trip where you stay in hotels and have a rough itinerary of things to do but also want to take things at your own pace. They also have itineraries to the Galapagos, Ecuador, and Peru! I’ll definitely be looking into further trips with them, if I can convince David to go on another vacation that is primarily Type-II fun!
We did the Patagonia 7-day itinerary, which included one night in Puerto Natales at The Singular, three nights at Tierra Patagonia, and 2 nights at EOLO Patagonia in El Calafate. All food and open bar was included at each place we stayed, as well as spa access. More on each of our hotels as well as what we did each day later!
If we had more time I would have loved to visit El Chaltén and spend some time hiking around Mt. Fitz Roy, but given our time was limited (due to my chemo schedule and David’s vacation limits), my fatigue was kicking in from all the activity, and we also wanted to spend a few days in Buenos Aires, we unfortunately had to skip it this time around.
We flew into Santiago, then to Punta Arenas, where we stayed a lovely boutique hotel called La Yegua Loca where we had a lovely dinner and a nice long rest before our car transfer to The Singular the next day.
On the way back, we flew from El Calafate to Buenos Aires, and spent three days there before heading back to Seattle.
This was a trip that was high on my bucket list and it exceeded my very high expectations! Definitely top 5 places I’ve ever been!
