Day trip to see the King Penguins in Porvenir, from Punta Arenas

Nature
The wow factor for nature - does it show nature at its best? Doesn't need to be the wildebeest migration or diving with hundreds of hammerheads. Rather make you pause as you realise just how awesome the natural world can be
3
Culture
How much does this experience showcase some of the better and finer things that us humans can offer? Sure, it can be ancient ruins and renaissance churches, but it can also be festivals or soaking up some of the great modern cities of the world
1
Fun factor/activity
Very simple - was it fun? This is usually linked in with doing some kind of activity - i mean, walking along some cliffs is nice, but paragliding from them, now that is fun. Its a vastly underrated factor in a truly great experience
1
Avoid the crowds
Big tour groups and being surrounded by loud fellow tourists can sap the life out of even the greatest of travel experiences. This score is to reflect just how much you can avoid this. But. . . The score also takes into account if the crowds actually add to the experience, such as with a party town or a bustling local market
3
World famous
How world famous is the experience?
2
unique
How hard is it to have a similar experience in other places round the world?
3
Overall TE Score
The overall travel experiences score:  fun factor + avoid the crowds + (best of nature or culture) + (best of world famous or unique). Then convert into a score out of 100
25 *What the scores mean and where do they come from
RANKING
How this travel experience ranks compared to all the other experiences on this site, based on the travel experience (te) score
444th/453
Bottom 10%
continent
South America
country
Chile
Length of time
1 day or less
Typical daily price
This gives you a rough idea of the daily price based on 2 people travelling where they can split costs like accommodation. It excludes travel there and back, and factors in inflation the numbers in brackets show the price range for the full time of the experience (so not necessarily daily). It is a range to reflect different budget vs higher end
$110 ($60-$100 in 2019 prices)
Time of year visited
January
Primary Tags
Click on any of the tags to see all travel experiences with the same tag
Ferry Wildlife - Penguins
All Tags
Wow Factor
The wow factor reflects just how much you’re likely to say “wow”. As there’s a lot of experiences in the world, and a lot of wows, i’ve gone with a simple ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ to ⭐️ score, and a separate category for the truly "gash"
Gash
Summary

I look back at this and do laugh to myself quite a lot.  My girlfriend was super keen to see the penguins and we had some spare time in Patagonia before one of our big hikes, so decided to head from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas and arrange one of the day trips to see the King Penguins in Porvenir.  Yes the penguins are cute, yes the Fernando Cordero Rusque Museum in Porvenir is worth a quick look, and yes getting a couple of ferries can give a chance to look at the landscape from the water.  Unfortunately though, my recommendation would be don’t do it mainly because:

  • You’ll be spending the full day travelling from Punta Arenas to Porvenir for roughly an hour looking at the penguins
  • The penguins, cute as they are, are roughly 80m (250 feet) away so you have to look at them through the telescopes provided / just squint a lot
  • Both the penguin colony at Useless Bay, the museum and the ferry stops can feel quite crowded, which is a bit of a sharp change after having vast areas to yourself in the areas around
  • The scenery is quite nice, but nothing compared to the sights to the north in Patagonia around Torres del Paine (see 3 very civilised days in Torres del Paine National Park for some inspiration), nor to the south around Ushuaia in the remainder of the Tierra del Fuego (see A trip to the end of the earth, 4 days in the Tierra del Fuego for further tips)
  • Even with the penguins, you could get far closer and see more, albeit smaller, penguins in the Beagle Channel next to Ushuaia
  • Punta Arenas felt far more industrial and quite frankly less to do that the more quaint Puerto Natales or the more bustling Ushuaia
  • [The trip from Puerto Natales to Punta Arenas and back takes up the best part of a day either side of the day trip to see the penguins.  But, that is our own silly fault for planning that]

Not a fan!

Highlights
IMG_1835-aspect-ratio-900-675

Seeing the King Penguins . . . from afar

  • Get picked up around 8am to take the ferry from Punta Arenas to Porvenir
  • Visit the Fernando Cordero Rusque Museum in Porvenir
  • Observe the King Penguins at Useless Bay
  • Head up to the north point of the Tierra del Fuego to get the ferry back to the mainland and return to Punta Arenas

Similar adventures around the world

Experiences nearby

The below map shows experiences nearby with a colour that reflect the Overall Score of those experiences

Similar experiences around the world

Taking a boat trip through Milford Sound
Overall Score: 65

10 days campervanning around the South Island of New Zealand
Overall Score: 80

Macquarie Harbour in Tasmania – fishing, sailing, trains and hiking
Overall Score: 88

Driving down the West Coast of Scotland – Glencoe, Oban, Skye and the Harry Potter Bridge
Overall Score: 78

Boat trip around the Beagle Channel in the Tierra del Fuego
Overall Score: 53

Score Detail

The scores you see above are really the point of this whole site, rather than just the individual travel review you're seeing above.  They fit into a much bigger summary of 20 years of travel, across 100+ countries, from dirt-poor backpacking to the luxury end, rushed weekends to months on the road.  Every one of the 500+ experiences have a "wow factor" score and a few other scores that add up to a more analytical Travel Experience (TE) score.  For more info, have a look at the About page for the travel philosophy that drives them.

But, more importantly, have a play with the map above and on the Home page to see which of these experiences rank as really Maximum Wow-factor all the way down to the proper "Gash".

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *