As I said in yesterday’s blog, the vast majority of ships heading to Antarctica begin their trek from the small seaside town of Ushuaia.

The town is at the very southern tip of both Argentina and the South American continent.

If it wasn’t already obvious, you can’t just board a flight and fly directly there.

Nope, getting there takes a little bit of work…

Flying to Buenos Aires

Because Ushuaia is in Argentina, it makes perfect sense that your first step should be to fly into Argentina’s largest city.

The international airport in Buenos Aires has flights from all over the world arriving there every day.

No matter where you are in the world, you can get a flight into Buenos Aires.

Now, as far as a direct flight, well, that’s another story.

In fact, from both the United States and Europe, there are only a handful of cities from each that fly there directly.

And if you’re in Canada, like I am, there’s none.

Zip.   Zero.   Ziltch.

So, what I’m saying is, aside from a handful of cities, prepare for a long transit time to get to Buenos Aires.

My route from Vancouver to Buenos Aires is going to take a whopping 26 hours and 41 minutes across 3 different flights.

Add in the time to transit to and from the airports plus early arrival for checkin and I’m looking at a transit time of almost 34 hours.

Yikes!

As I said, I’m taking 3 flights – one from Vancouver to Toronto, another from Toronto to São Paulo, and finally a third one from São Paulo to Buenos Aires.

I’ll have a short 81 minute layover in Toronto but a whopping 8 hour layover in São Paulo, Brazil.

An 8 hour layover

So, naïve me, when I first saw I had an 8 hour layover in São Paulo, I was kind of excited.

After all, I have never been to be Brazil before and 8 hours seemed like plenty of time to go explore the city of São Paulo for awhile.

Oh, naïve, little me.   Little did I know…

It didn’t take too much Google searching and reddit reading to find out that was all a pipe dream.

For one, that 8 hour layover is really only 7 hours when you take into account the time it takes to deplane and clear customs.

Then I’d have to also be back at the airport at least 2 hours before my next flight, so now it was only really 5 hours.

Still, though, 5 hours is enough time to go explore a city, grab some lunch, hell, maybe even join a free walking tour, right?

Yeah, well, except it takes almost 2 hours to get into the city.

Oh, and the cherry on top?

Beginning this last April 2025, Brazil now requires residents of Australia, United States, and Canada to acquire a $80usd evisa just to enter the country.

So, yeah, roaming around Brazil isn’t going to happen on this trip.

The question then becomes what the hell am I going to do for 8 hours at the São Paulo airport?!?

Well, turns out there are two hotels located inside the airport itself that offer an hourly rate to grab some sleep and refresh.

Assuming I don’t sleep on my flights, which, if history tells me anything, I won’t be able to, I’ll have been up for almost 24 hours by the time I land in São Paulo.

Sleeping for a few hours sounds like the perfect solution.

Of course, there are always obstacles it seems and, in this spot, it’s no different.

Turns out one of the hotels is on the “airside” area of the terminal while the other is on the “landside”.

Since I can’t actually go through immigration because of my lack of visa, I can only stay in the one on the airside and, of course, that one is the more expensive of the two cause, ya know, nothing is ever easy.

The one on the landside is priced at $120 for 4 hours, which, while still pretty expensive, I was prepared to pay to get that much needed sleep.

The other hotel is $100 more – a whopping $220 for just a few hours sleep.

Insane!

Having said all that, I still don’t know what I’m going to do when I arrive at the airport.

I may see if I can somehow get to the hotel on the landside without a visa or I may just be so deliriously tired that I fork over the $220 at the other hotel.

Or, more likely, I’ll find a lounge or a quiet spot somewhere on some chairs to lay out for a few hours.

Oh, the fun of traveling – what will happen?   Stay tuned, I guess.

Back to flying

Eventually I’ll board my final flight and after another 3 hours, I’ll land in Buenos Aires around 9pm local time.

In total, the return flight I booked from Vancouver to Buenos Aires comes in at around $1500cdn.

I, however, used up 103,475 Aeroplan miles to cover the entire cost which also explains why I have such a janky itinerary with that ridiculously long layover in São Paulo.

Of course, Buenos Aires isn’t the final destination when you’re going to Antarctica.

From there, it’s another 3½ hour flight down to Ushuaia.

There’s a handful of different companies that fly down there and it’s actually pretty reasonably priced at around $130.

Now, of course, you’d have to be a complete sadist to hop on that last flight after being in transit already for so long so the obvious thing to do is to spend some time in Buenos Aires before boarding that final flight down to Ushuaia.

And, that, is what I’m going to be doing.

I haven’t really mentioned it and, it almost comes across as an afterthought, but I’ll actually be spending a full 8 days in Buenos Aires which will also include a day trip over to the country of Uruguay.

So, while this is being billed as the great Antarctica Trip of 2025, I’ll also be visiting countries number 63 and 64 on this trip as well.

Only 9 days to go!!!