Argentina

Torres Del Paine National Park is in Chile. I haven't been to Argentina yet. My friend sang praise about mountain resort Bariloche. If you are into wine you can visit Mendoza. Argentina is on my list.

Keep in mind just how incredibly expansive Argentina is - to get from one region to another, you'll have to take an internal flight. I would highly recommend Iguazu Falls on the Argentina/Brazil border, it's an amazing place to visit and not as far away from Buenos Aires as Ushuaia (which is as far south as you can go). Buenos Aires (BA) itself is worth at least a few days (at least 2 if not more), so that does not leave you much time for side trips (maybe 5 days?). Another place not far from BA is the Tigre Delta, although I didn't end up making it there.

I spent 12 days just in northwest Argentina (a few days spent on Buenos Aires, a side trip to Iguazu Fallls, a flight to Salta and then driving to several Andean towns/villages from Salta).... all the scenery was very diverse and colorful, but it was quite a challenge to plan a do-it-yourself trip by car (very hard to estimate how long it would take on roads of various quality). I couldn't recommend doing what I did to anyone because it was too fast paced and covered too much in too short of a time period.

Buy a hard copy of the Footprint Guide to Argentina (it's the best resource I've found) or check out this online resource to get started with planning. Since you only have 8 days, you should probably be very selective on what area or subarea you want to see based on your interests (otherwise, you'll spend a lot of time just in transit since it's such a huge country).

http://www.footprinttravelguides.com/latin-america/argentina/

Also, you may want to check out this tour group to get itinerary ideas...they focus on Central and South America, including Argentina. When I was there, I covered the area that's part of their "Discover Salta" tour (except as an unguided trip with a rental car from Salta)

http://www.southernexplorations.com/

Thanks so much for your input. It has provided me with a good jump start in my thinking of how to proceed.

That is a great tip using the itinerary ideas. Thank you !

Hi Anny,
The one thing I found a bit frustrating (and this is true of other countries as well) is that all Aerolineas Argentinas (national air carrier) internal flights get routed through Buenos Aires (at least that was the case when I went in 2009). So, for example, you can't fly from Mendozo to Ushuaia (or any other pair of cities) without first making a stop in Buenos Aires...this adds a lot of time to what would normally be a rather short flight. That's why I said that you have to be very selective when you only have only 8 days (so as not to waste half a day at the airport and flying). As you can tell by the sample tours, they are longer than 8 days because it takes that long to cover these areas even with the efficiency of a tour (so count of it taking longer if you do it yourself).

Argentina is gorgeous, I hope you have a great time. It is extremely inexpensive, especially if you do it on your own (the food and wine are great value and high quality). If you want to just see two large cities, I would recommend Salta (in addition to Buenos Aires). Salta is a beautiful colonial city - I would have liked to have more days there than I did.

Here's another site you may want to check (great photos here):
http://www.argentina.travel/en

Agnes this is so helpful. These are great sites. I am trying to plan a very specific trip because I don't want to move really quickly and feel squeezed.

I an thinking of a day in buenos aires. A flight to el calafate and a little travel / hiking around there. A drive to torres del Paine and some days there. El chalten and see Fitz Roy. And back to buenos aires for the flight home.
Now to work out the details !
Anny

Its a big country so with such a short period of time you will need to choose an area I think. These were my favourites -
Iguazu Falls - so beautiful, make sure you see it from both sides.
Valdes peninsula - walk with the penguins and seals etc
Moreno glacier - absolutely breathtaking
Torres del Paine NP (as already stated it is in Chile but could be combined with a trip to Moreno) - one of our favourite places in the world.
It has been a while since we were last there (1997/98) so obviously things could have changed, but we loved it.

Are you going to Australia and Argentina on the same trip?

Yes. After Australia I am going to Argentina.