Founded in 1536, Buenos Aires was administered by a Spanish viceroy for nearly three centuries before winning its independence in 1816. A sleepy port town for most of that time, it wasn’t until the turn of the 20th century that the city finally emerged as an important shipping center. Today, Argentina’s democratically elected government has made it South America’s safest (and most expensive) country. This cosmopolitan city is characterized by broad boulevards with huge shade trees, beautiful residential districts, plazas containing monuments and fountains, interspersed with 20th-century high-rise buildings. It is a truly great walking city.

The southernmost city in the world, Ushuaia is the capital of Argentine Tierra del Fuego and an important naval base boasting a strategic as well as a picturesque location on the shores of Ushuaia Bay and the Beagle Channel. This rustic coastal town is set among waterfalls, glaciers, snow-clad mountains and beech forests, and the nutrient-rich local waters abound with marine life. Though the houses here are painted warm, pastel colors, the weather is chilly year-round and winter sports such as downhill and cross-country skiing and skating are popular. Ushuaia’s principal industries are raising sheep, logging, fishing and trapping. It became a boomtown with 30,000 residents in the late 1980’s when the government sought to increase Argentina’s presence near Antarctica by giving tax breaks to citizens who settled here.