Argentina Guide
The Atlantic resorts and the Pampas
The Atlantic resorts
Running alongside the South Atlantic Ocean, Argentina's score of beach resorts are mostly visited by domestic tourists. The beaches are not, in truth, the continent's most fabulous – if it's white sands and warm seas you're after, you'd be better off heading north to Brazil. However, if you can't or don't want to travel that far but are anxious to hear the thud of waves on the shore, the province's string of resorts are more than passable places to spend a few relaxing days, and are backed by a generally excellent infrastructure.
Heading southeast from the capital on the Buenos Aires– La Plata Autopista, the first major settlement you come to is not strictly speaking a coastal town at all, but the province's tidy capital, La Plata, a university town that is situated, like the national capital, on the Río de la Plata estuary. The river finally fans out into the ocean around 150km southwest of Buenos Aires city – directly opposite Uruguay's capital, Montevideo. On the Argentine side, the province concaves into the huge bay, the Bahía Samborombón, and it is at its furthest tip that the Atlantic coast proper starts, with San Clemente del Tuyú. The stretch of road between here and Mar del Plata, known as the Interbalnearia, is lined with resorts, of which the best are the trendy pair Pinamar and Villa Gesell and their smaller satellites Cariló and Mar de las Pampas. Further along the highway, now RP-11, about 400km from the capital, you come to the daddy of all Argentine resorts – Mar del Plata. After "Mardel", as the coast bends around to the west, it becomes less frequented. The coastal road ends at Necochea, and with it the bulk of Porteño tourism. After this, the rows of small resorts are more down-to-earth, local places, visited mostly by provincial day-trippers. The port city of Bahía Blanca no longer has a beach – and nor are you likely to wish to take a dip next to the country's largest petrochemical complex – but it has a charming port area and is an important transport hub, connecting you to destinations further south in Patagonia or west to La Pampa.