Argentina's Most Breathtaking Road Is As Legendary And Thrilling As America's Route 66

The entirety of Argentina is walled to the west by the hulking Andes mountains. Cleaving between its snow-slicked peaks, Ruta 40 is a 3,227-mile highway that guides travelers through the rainbow-hued rocks of the alpine deserts and ramshackle villages long-since marked on the maps. Around vast lapis lakes, fire-frothing lava fields, and endless snaking passes through the Andes mountains. To the gigantic glaciers at the end of the world and the gateway to travels final frontier, Antarctica. Argentina, its incomparably diverse landscape and captivating culture, is best explored overland. It's best explored on Ruta 40.

La Cuarenta, or "the forty," is designed solely for insatiable adventurers. Its long desolated stretches, unpaved patches, and sparsely-mapped portions take preparation. Ensure you pay careful attention to the immense deserted stretches of Patagonia, where fuel, food, and mechanical repairs can be hard to come by and need to be stocked in advance. Rent or buy a 4x4 to be prepared for the dirt roads, hairpin bends, and gust-buffeted stretches of steppe that make up many of the most rewarding sections of the drive. 

While it may seem antithetical, starting your trip in the antipodean winter is actually the better bet — in summer, rains accompany the warm weather in the north and the remoter stretches of road can get washed away. It's more challenging than the legendary Route 66, more epic. Don't let the research put you off. It's worth tracking down gas and supplies and mechanical parts if it means you get to set out to the wide-open horizons that stretch endlessly down one of the world's best road trip routes.

After an arid, dust-brushed start at La Quiaca, on the Bolivian border, your route will run through the rust red rocks of Jujuy, Salta, and Tucuman. The geologic ruins of the Triassic age are ribboned amber and russet, pastel purple, pink, and green. Stop off regularly at the side of this stretch of Ruta 40 to explore river valleys dried for millennia, to step into the lilac sky on mirrored salt flats to rival the Bolivian altiplano, and wander between fields of 26-foot cacti. Visit the small city of Salta, a low-built cowboy town where gauchos regularly ride in for an evening tipple in traditional ware.

Heading south through gargantuan mountain passes with sweeping views of the Argentine pampas, the next big city you'll hit is Bariloche. Quickly leaving what little civilization there is to encounter on Ruta 40, the next stretch will carry you past the countless transparent, glacier-fed lakes of Nahuel Huapi National Park to one of the world's only temperate rainforests, the Valdivian Jungle, at Puerto Blest. 

Another 75 miles of twisting high-altitude road takes travelers to El Bolson, a laidback town surrounded by lakes and riverside hikes before reaching Epuyen, further south, where you'll enter the real stretch of the Patagonian steppe. Marked by steep desert rock pockmarked by caves, hidden waterfalls, and high-intensity outdoor climbing. Exploring this section, you can meander through the colossal Alerce trees in Los Alcerces National Park or join the gauchos or a horseback ride through Los Huemules Reserva de Montana.

Few places encompass endless expanse like Patagonia. Roaming guanacos and pink-flushed flamingos in roadside lagoons are among the only other life you'll find on the road south to Calafate. The road flanked by infinite horizon is worth the whipping winds — it leads to Los Glaciares National Park, where a cacophony of falling, mammoth chunks of glacier hit the water like a bomb across the Southern Patagonian Ice Field. Stop off to strap on a pair of crampons and explore the surface of the city-sized Perito Moreno Glacier or scale the 11,000-ft granite summit of Mount Fitz Roy in El Chaltén. 

Stretch your legs after the very lengthy ride on one of the hundreds of hiking trails that surrounds this Patagonian hotspot. The soaring mountain peaks sit alongside meadows laced with blooming wildflowers and gigantic conders, prowling pumas, and lazing vicunas are commonly spotted sharing the trails. It's also home to Cueva de las Manos, where the handprints of prehistoric Patagonians remain from nearly 10 millennia ago.

From here, Ruta 40 hits its final stretch. It heads next to the end of the world, the "Land of Fire," Tierra del Fuego. Straddling the archipelagic isles of southern Argentina and Chile, the road finishes at a national park easily traversable by trail. Take out on foot to find clusters of penguins sitting on secluded beaches, mountain-rimmed glacial lakes, and dramatic coastal crag. The epic Ruta 40 finally comes to a finish most southerly point in the Americas, the earth's final stop before the vast Antarctic Ocean expanse.