UKH

Hi All.

I was hoping for some advice on travelling the Patagonian road trip of the Carretera Austral from Puerto Montt down south to O'Higgins. I'd like to hire a car so we can stop off and hit some routes on the way but its not looking like thats possible as can't drop it off on a one way at O'Higgins

Has anyone done this route before? If so, any tips on car rental or is it just buses and thumbing a lift?

Cheers

James

Hi James,

I cycled the CA 4 years ago. If you don’t want to take a bike then buses and thumbing lifts is the way to go. The journey from O’Higgins to El Chalten is spectacular too.

Cheers,

George.

I've not driven it myself but could you hire in either Puerto Montt or Bariloche and then double back a bit at the end and drop the car in Calafate, which would enable youto visit Chalten as well if desired? I recently hired a car in Bariloche and I imagine it would be easy in Puerto Montt and Calafate also. We enquired and it's about 50% extra for a different drop off as the pick up for the equivilent amount of time when hiring in Argentina at least. Chilean/Argentinian border crossimgs are straightforward for the most part. Good luck!

I did it as a mixture of hitching and walking going South to North from El Calafate to I think around Villarrica before bussing up to Valparaiso. I took a couple of pairs of shoes and a limited rack and managed to find partners along the way, taking the occasional bus to get to climbing spots away from the CA. Drop me a message if you want to ask any questions.

The night buses are primo, £20-£30 gets you a long haul overnight journey with a meal and a film (in Spanish) much like a flight, the cheap seats are huge, comfy, loads of personal space and recline most of the way to horizontal, the spendy seats were about another £10-20 and go full horizontal.

Have fun!

Over summer we hired from BCS in Puerto Varas, right next to Puerto Montt, and paid extra to drop it off in Temuco before catching a flight back. O'Higgins is a fair bit further, so I guess that may be why you can't find anything.

May be worth whatsapping a few of the smaller companies to see if you can work out anything, seemed to work for us, even though it didn't show on comparison sites

I cycled the CA solo back in 2015. However you do it, just make sure you go. It is awesome. As others have said, I can highly recommend continuing on to El Chalten via the seasonal border crossing (walk/cycle only - no cars) and beyond if time allows.

O'Higgins is quite small so suspect you may struggle for car hire arrangements. A compromise could be to rent from PM to Coyhaique and then hitch hike the rest of the way (used to be super easy).

Other option which would be really fun is to hire touring / off road motorbikes which might give you more flexibility.

Enjoy!