PUBLISHED APRIL 18, 2023

The last train to Patagonia leaves at 6 p.m. on Fridays from Viedma, a small city on Argentina’s Atlantic coast. Eighteen hours and 513 miles later—having crossed the country from east to west—it arrives in Bariloche, a picturesque mountain town in the foothills of the snowcapped Andes.

The Tren Patagónico is the only regularly scheduled, long-distance passenger train left operating in this vast region of southern Argentina and Chile. Carrying people, vehicles, and freight, it traverses territory so epic and remote that you can look out the window for hours and only see brown, gently rolling steppe that seems to stretch on forever.