Patagonia

El Calafate + El Chaltén Travel Notes

We spent time in both El Calafate and El Chaltén (January 2026), and this part of Patagonia ended up being one of those experiences that stays with you. It’s rugged and quiet and breathtaking in a way that’s hard to explain until you’re standing in it.

Here’s everything we did and what we learned along the way.

Laguna de los Tres hike (Monte Fitz-Roy, Cerro Poincenot, Aguja Saint-Exupéry)

El Calafate

El Calafate felt more like a base. It’s where you land, get your bearings, and then head out into the bigger landscapes.

Torres del Paine (day trip)

We rented a car in El Calafate and drove into Torres del Paine National Park for the day, and the landscape shifts the entire drive. You go from wide open, dry plains to dramatic, jagged peaks, with waterfalls, rivers, and bright blue lakes. It’s consistently impressive. It is also quite windy in places.

If you’re driving from Argentina into Chile for Torres del Paine National Park, the border process is pretty simple but does take a bit of time. You’ll first stop and go through Argentina’s exit customs, then drive a few miles and check in with Chile’s border control.

Border crossings into Chile for Torres del Paine National Park typically open around 8:00 AM and hours can vary by season, so it’s best to double-check current times here: https://www.pasosfronterizos.gov.cl/

One important thing to know. Don’t bring any fresh fruits or vegetables with you, even if you packed a lunch. Chile has strict agricultural rules and they will take them at the border. They come out to every car and do a full check. We didn’t know this and ended up losing about half our lunch.

There is a welcome center in the park where you can get food, so it’s not a big deal, just something to be aware of so you’re not surprised like we were.

We didn’t do any of the longer, more difficult hikes the park is known for. Instead, we did a shorter hike of about 1.5 hours that starts just beyond the Salto Grande mirador, called Cuernos Lookout.

Mirador Salto Grande

The water along the trail is this bright, almost electric blue, and the waterfalls are powerful and loud. As you move along, you get different views of the Cuernos del Paine in the distance, and the contrast between the dark rock, snow, and turquoise lakes is incredible. Every direction you look feels like a different view.

We also saw guanacos along the road. They didn’t seem bothered by cars, but they do get close, so you need to pay attention while driving.

Torres del Paine is the kind of place where you keep pulling over, not because you planned to, but because you don’t want to miss what’s right in front of you.

The end of Cuernos del Paine hike

Perito Moreno Glacier

Seeing Perito Moreno Glacier was one of the highlights of the whole trip.

They’ve built an extensive walkway system with different levels and viewpoints, so you can experience the glacier from multiple angles without needing to hike. You’ll hear it before you see pieces fall. That deep cracking sound followed by ice breaking off into the water. We were able to see a very large piece of the glacier calve. It was incredible to witness in real time. (See it here!)

This is what the walkway looked like.

We hadn’t planned on doing the boat ride, so we just walked up to the ticket window and bought tickets. They run at set times throughout the day, so it’s worth booking ahead if you can. The walkway system is more of an out-and-back setup, so if your boat time comes up while you’re out exploring, you’ll have to turn around and head all the way back to make it. Booking in advance helps you plan your time on the walkways so you’re not rushing or cutting it short.

Driving + Logistics Tips

We found that renting a car for a couple days to explore Torres del Paine and the glacier was cheaper than booking tours, and it gave us way more flexibility. We didn’t want to take the bus because we liked being able to stop whenever we wanted and spend extra time in certain places.

If you’re driving from El Calafate to Torres del Paine National Park, make sure to fill up in Esperanza, even if you still have half a tank. There’s nowhere else to get gas, so it’s a critical stop. We were told by the car rental company that there was another gas station in a town near the border, so we didn’t stress about it at first.

Cuernos del Paine hike, Torres del Paine National Park

We ended up spending the whole day driving through the park and exploring, and on the way back realized there was nothing out there. We were on pins and needles the entire drive, just hoping we’d make it. We rolled into Esperanza on fumes.

If you’re crossing the border with a rental car, you need to let the rental company know in advance so they can provide a vehicle with the proper permit to enter Chile. The permit was around $215. It’s also important to double check mileage limits ahead of time. We weren’t told there was one and were almost charged extra when we returned the car.

Sunset is late. Usually 16-18 hours of sunlight

It’s worth booking your rental early, as last-minute options for cheaper cars were limited. We also found it was better to go directly into local rental offices rather than booking online. Online reservations often had high deposits ($1,300–$2,000 USD) and higher prices compared to booking in person.

Money Tips

In El Calafate and El Chaltén you can only take out smaller amounts of money at ATMs and the fee is really high. However, it is better to have cash because they do upcharge you about 10 to 15% if you use a credit card.

El Chaltén

We took the bus from El Calafate to El Chaltén and back. It was easy and comfortable.(LINK)

There’s really no need to rent a car in El Chaltén. From what we saw, only one hike requires driving to it. Everything else starts right from the edge of town or from the welcome center at the other end, so you can walk everywhere you need to go.

There are also a couple of laundry spots in town that offer drop-off and pick-up, which is super convenient if you’re there for a few days of hiking.

Food + Coffee

Paisa High Mountain Coffee

Fresco for pizza

Parilla La Oveja Negra for dinner

Hiking

We did three main hikes while we were there.

Our first day was Laguna de los Tres (starts at the end of town). It’s quite challenging, especially the final stretch, but very doable and worth it. It took us about 9 hours

The top of Laguna los Tres

The last 1.5-2hrs of the hike was steep and very rocky

Worth it for the view!

So many beautiful angles and views along the entire hike. Walk a few minutes and the landscape changes and your view changes.

On the second day, we did Mirador Torres. Instead of the full Torres hike, we turned around at about 6 km rather than continuing the full 18 km route. It still gave us great views without committing to the full day.

Mirador Torres

On the third day, we did Loma del Pliegue Tumbado (starts at the welcome center). Parts of it are steep, but overall it felt more manageable than Laguna de los Tres. The panoramic view at the top is incredible and this hike felt less crowded and a bit more underrated. Really glad we did it.

Panoramic view from the top. This photo doesn’t do the view justice. There were even more mountains!

Loma del Pliegue Tumbado hike

Weather makes a big difference here. I’d recommend checking it daily and choosing hikes based on conditions. Laguna de los Tres and Loma are heavily weather dependent. If it’s cloudy, you miss the views that make them worth it, and the wind at the top can be pretty intense.

Loma del Pliegue Tumbado hike

We rented hiking poles from Patagonia Hikes and it made the descents much easier. They have a large variety of camping and hiking gear for rent.

Final Thoughts

This part of Patagonia felt like a mix of effort and ease, planning and letting go. There were long driving days, windy overlooks, quiet small towns, and hikes that asked something of you physically, but gave something back in return every time.

It’s a place where the scale of everything shifts. The landscapes are bigger than you expect, the weather changes quickly, and your plans often adjust with it. You learn to slow down a bit, pay attention, and not rush what’s in front of you.

More than anything, it’s just nature in every direction. Water, rock, ice, wind. Pachamama in full presence.

Everything familiar fell away

I said this trip was going to change me in ways I couldn’t see yet and stretch me. And I’m feeling the growing pains. There are so many unknowns. You struggle to understand people. They struggle to understand you. You don’t feel understood. Even the simplest daily needs feel harder.

There’s this loss of autonomy because communicating is hard, so sometimes you don’t. Sometimes you stay quiet because you’re scared you’ll come off rude. Sometimes you stay quiet because you honestly don’t even know how to explain what you need.

You don’t know the customs. You don’t know how things work. You don’t know if you should be reading into something or letting it go. If you’re accidentally doing something that is insulting or considered rude. Yet, there are people doing this every day of their lives with far less privilege than I have. All of this has given me a new kind of sympathy for people who move across the world and start over. The work. The courage it takes.

It can feel isolating. I miss connection. I miss friends. I miss my kids. I miss my dog. Every little inconvenience hits harder. Not knowing when we’ll have a hot shower. Not knowing the language. Being unsure of myself. Being hyper aware of my surroundings while also trying to relax and take it all in. I have no more patterns. No routine. No appointments. No kids to hug. No friends to swing by and see. No guaranteed heat or AC. No closet full of warmer clothes. No spice rack. No pots and pans. No fully functioning kitchen. No comfortable bed. No steady connection. No solid sense of identity, or at least the one I built for myself.

And it’s not just the travel or the environment that has changed. My roles have changed. My body is changing. Everything familiar has fallen away all at once. It’s not just a shift in scenery but a shift in who I am.

I’m excited for this chapter, but also overwhelmed. Also a little like… okay, what the hell now? What does the next chapter of Kristin look like?

Maybe this is my reflection chapter where I finally get to choose for me. There are chapters I wish I could erase. Chapters I cringe at. Chapters that taught me things the hard way. Chapters that give me strength. Chapters that give me hope.

But in this chapter I get to take all the lessons from those previous chapters, let go of the things that still burden me while keeping the wisdom they left behind, and make this the most “me” chapter yet.

In growth and gratitude,
Kristin

What makes any place feel like home

It’s a Friday, and it’s early here. The weird thing is that I’m waking up earlier than ever before on our travels. I’m paying attention to my body rhythm more, following some unspoken promise to myself to be more in tune, more something on this trip. It’s working out, I guess, because I don’t have to use an alarm anymore. Some doctor somewhere would surely be applauding their own wisdom. Definitely Jaclyn, my sister-in-law, who is a sleep guru.

I’m staring out at my perfect combination of elements—water and mountains—from the deck of an architectural marvel that my buddy who runs a miniature Airbnb empire told me would surely cost a thousand dollars a night in the states. In Guatapé, Colombia? I still can’t quite get used to the drastically different economies; even after taxes and fees, it’s less than the price of a Motel 6 rolling through Kansas on I-70. It’s beautiful, and I feel incredibly grateful.

It’s chilly, but I’m comfortable in shorts and a long sleeve hoodie shirt that was never not going on this trip with me. Also, I wake up and put on shoes. Not really a barefoot guy.

And I’m thinking about you.

Today, Kristin and I have been gone a month and are moving to stop number three already, moving from Guatapé to Medellin, Colombia. And I love surprises. I was raised by two surprise-loving parents. (On a roadtrip as a child, they once told us we were on our way home when they’d driven to Las Vegas instead.) But what’s funny is the way I seem to be looking for less surprises at the places we temporarily make our home. I am consciously and subconsciously looking for markers that make a place feel like home, even as I crave adventure and excitement. And I have to say, the things I’m coming up with are pretty weird.

Some of these markers will feel common and you’ll wonder how you got this far into this ridiculous set of musings. But what strikes me is that some of these little things are acutely odd. They seem to feed some hungry monster babies in my brain that are unsuspectingly aggressive. And before I get weird, let me say that the main element that’s missing is you. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

No big surprise here—I am missing my desk. I have worked most of my adult career on a desktop computer with two giant monitors and I wasn’t raised in coffee shops and I am still adjusting to using my laptop on my lap. I literally trained for this before we left, trying to challenge myself to work from other places (shoutout, Friday UX coworking crew). But the truth is that it remains a challenge. I am carrying my equipment to uncomfortable places and still learning to be chill about that.

I am missing my desk chair. In Cartagena, I bruised my tailbone by sitting in one bad chair for too long and I had to use Kristin’s travel pillow like a medical donut for my aching arse. I felt like an idiot, and it hurt like hell. For all of you who might earnestly offer concern, you are saints. I am happy to report that I have fully recovered.

I am missing my pillow. Beds aren’t usually a problem for me abroad. I like a good firm mattress and Airbnb mattresses abroad are usually firm, in my estimation. But the pillows are too fluffy, too plastic-y, too much-y all the time. I am a stomach sleeper and I like a decidedly deflated flat pillow, preferably made with real down feathers <pause for eye roll>. The place we’ve been staying in the past week has pillows that are airtight somehow, like children’s swim arm floaties. The worst. And while almost nothing keeps me from sleep, I am waking up with neck pain like some cliched middle aged man in a 1980’s painkiller commercial (pulsing red!).

I am missing my toothpaste. Like an idiot I didn’t think to pay attention to what brand since I just had some rote habit of writing it into a grocery list and never really committing it to long-term memory. My overly minty mouth is on fire and I am foaming from the mouth like I’m brushing with Scrubbing Bubbles.

Like a true bougie bro, I am missing my deli-fresh shaved-style lunchmeat. They just don’t really do that here in Colombia. They are a grocer + butcher + bodega type of culture. And the packaged lunchmeats are truly suspect. A little gelatinous, a little odd smelling, and a lot disgusting. I’ve tried to revert to the childhood version of myself that loved peeling off a slice of that pre-packaged bologna and rolling it up and inhaling, but it’s just not happening.

I am missing knowing what utensils and cookware we have and where it is. This is a totally unexpected disruption that is already a common complaint, and the cursing from the kitchen signals an acute frustration. I can’t quite capture Kristin’s frustration fully without the cursing part. It sucks not knowing what these kitchens are going to have for you to cook with, and it sucks not knowing where anything is.

I am missing my hat and shoe variety. I could live in five outfits for the rest of my life, but I love my hats and shoes. I miss choosing every day. I miss the vibes.

But mostly, I am missing you. If you’re reading this far, you probably care about me, about Kristin, or both. And I’m not being flippant in the way that people say, “Oh, we’ve missed you!” when they haven’t seen their coworker for a week while they were on vacation. 

I really do miss you.

And I know it hasn’t been that long. But it will be. It will be months until I see you again and we go to that place or do or say that thing we always do. And so I’m anticipating missing you along the way.

You have a place in my life. You are in my daily or weekly or monthly or yearly life. I meet you for coffee or pretend to like golf with you or invite you to lunch. I have laughs with you and our spouses and friends over dinner. I pester you at coworking or take a hike with you or ask you for advice about marriage or design work or mental health. I offer you stinging critiques and hot takes, on life, on love, on work, on dealing with your stupid project because that’s just what I do. And you’re up for it. You are my daughter or my son or my brother or my mother or my family or my friend. And I love you. I miss you.

Even on this amazing journey, you are a puzzle piece that leaves the picture just a little unfinished. I miss your energy and your collaboration and your support and your love.

For me, what makes any place feel like home is pretty simple. It’s my partner in life, Kristin. It’s my desk and my chair and my toothpaste and my lunchmeat and my utensils and my hats and my shoes. 

And also, it’s you.

To the road ahead,
Matt

Birth of a new season

I’m sure it’s the doula in me that brought this analogy to mind but these last few weeks have felt a lot like waiting for labor to start.

When you’re pregnant, you don’t really know what contractions are until they hit. You don’t know how your labor will unfold or what surprises will pop up in those long hours of waiting.

You just know it’s coming. You know it won’t be simple. You know there will be twists you didn’t plan for. And still, on the other side, something big and life changing is waiting. It’s a mix of nerves and excitement, of bracing for the unknown.

That’s pretty much how stepping into this next season feels for me. I’m excited. I’m nervous. I know it will stretch me and grow me in many ways. I know we’ll stumble here and there, and we’ll keep moving forward.

We’re about to birth our empty nest years. Not of a baby this time, but of a whole new chapter. There’s the ache of letting go, the anticipation of what’s ahead.

In just a few days, when we board that plane, it will feel like the very first push. The start of adventure waiting to be born. 

In growth and gratitude,
Kristin

We’re leaving the US for a year to travel

The countdown is officially on.

On August 27th, we’re grabbing our backpacks and catching a one-way flight to Colombia to begin a year of travel through South America and Europe.

This hasn’t been a sudden decision. It’s something we’ve talked about for years, a dream that always lived in the background while we were raising kids, building careers, and juggling the daily stuff of life. But now, with all five of our kids officially launched, it’s time. Not to dream about it. To actually do it.

Our first big leap was selling our home and downsizing from 26 years of parenting and life with kids into a small loft apartment in downtown Denver. We spent a year there, giving our youngest time to adjust to college life and giving ourselves space to figure out what was next.

And now we know.

We’re choosing curiosity over comfort, presence over routine. This trip isn’t about ticking off destinations. It’s about growing, reconnecting, and making room for the parts of ourselves that got tucked away in the thick of parenting.

If you’ve ever wondered what life after raising a family could look like, we hope you’ll follow along. We don’t have it all figured out, but we’re not waiting for perfect. We’re just going.

The adventure is about to begin and we’re so glad you’re here for it.

60 days and counting

It’s 60 days until we leave.

And if I’m being honest, I haven’t felt this unsettled about our trip since we started planning it.

The world feels heavy.

The news.

The violence.

The fear.

It all adds a layer of tension to this trip.

There’s a deep discomfort I carry around the identity of being American. I feel the weight of what’s being done in our country’s name. It brings shame, embarrassment, and heartbreak.

We also carry the awareness that we get to do this, to travel and move, with a level of freedom and safety not afforded to everyone. We are not stepping into this naively. That awareness matters to us.

We are not looking away from it.

We are choosing to stay present with the discomfort, to stay curious about what we don’t know, and to let the experience stretch us.

And that curiosity isn’t just about the world around us. It’s what is showing up in us too.

Everything feels unsettled, and honestly, so do I. I’m already feeling the weight of moving out of our apartment and saying goodbye to friends and family.

Every laugh, hike, co-working session, coffee, and hangout with friends feels like part of a quiet countdown.

The same with my kids, who are finding their way and stepping into more of who they are.

Choosing to leave during this season feels both right and wrong, brave and selfish, clear and completely tangled.

Choosing yourself after years of centering everyone else doesn’t come naturally. It feels strange. 

But I think this is the beginning. This discomfort feels like a cracking open. The space before something new.

A slow unraveling of old stories, beliefs, and thought patterns I’ve outgrown.

A quiet rebirth in how I show up for others, for my kids, and for myself.

It’s learning how to care for myself, believe in myself, trust myself, and love myself.

Hello, Curious, isn’t just about pretty places and packing tips. It’s about the real stuff. The raw stuff. The inner journey that mirrors the outer one.

So if you’re here for that, welcome.

In growth and gatitude,
Kristin 

The other side off excitment

Everybody we talk to gets so excited when we share our travel plans for the next year. They typically mention the adventure and freedom. 

But there’s another side to it.

We’re leaving a lot behind and I’m starting to feel the weight and emotions of it. 

Leaving my kids is going to be harder than I thought.

Each of my kids and I have such different relationships. And I’m wondering how much distance is about to challenge or change that.

How are our relationships going to work while I’m gone?

What will shift when I’m not physically present?

How will they handle us being away?

How will I?

They’re each in such different seasons, needing different kinds of support, or maybe none at all. It’s going to be challenging and probably feel really painful at times.

There will definitely be growing pains for all of us. 

Recent updates in my parents’ health have made this departure feel heavier. More uncertain.

Should we still go? 

Leaving friendships hurts.

It’s taken me ten years to find meaningful friendships here in Colorado after moving from Oklahoma and it feels scary to leave that behind.

I am really going to miss my friends.

What will it look like when we come back?

What will I have missed out on?

I don’t want to feel FOMO, but I know I will. Life will go on without me. 

We’re leaving our dog, and we feel awful imagining how confused he’ll be when we drop him off at someone else’s house. Even though they’re friends of ours, Burt doesn’t understand that.

He doesn’t know it’s temporary. He just knows we’re gone.

Then there’s my business.

I love what I do.

I’ve stepped back, and there are new things on the horizon. But they’re not rooted at home.

Not in person.

Not with my clients.

Over the past year, my business started to feel self-sufficient. I’ve had repeat clients, referrals from past clients and felt part of a larger community.

Will I be able to hop right back into doula work when we return?

What will business look like?

It feels scary and maybe even foolish to leave it behind. Like I’m jeopardizing something I worked so hard to build.

Lastly, it feels like I’m leaving a part of myself behind. There’s just this quiet knowing, a feeling, that this year will change me in ways I can’t yet name.

As always, there is an ‘AND’ to every one of these feelings.

I’ll share more about that later. But right now, with our departure so close, this is what’s sitting heavy on my heart.

In growth and gratitude,
Kristin