How to Get to Torres del Paine: Every Route Compared

Laguna Amarga, Lago Sarmiento and Río Serrano

Torres del Paine has three vehicle entrances: Laguna Amarga, Lago Sarmiento and Río Serrano. Laguna Amarga is the one almost every bus and day tour from Puerto Natales uses, since it sits closest to the Torres sector and the main circuit road. Lago Sarmiento is a secondary entrance on the same approach from Puerto Natales. Río Serrano sits at the southern end of the park, and it is the gate used by vehicles and some tours coming up from the Serrano river side.

Gate hours run 07:00 to 21:00 from October to April, and 08:00 to 18:30 from May to September, with last entry at the closing time. Whichever gate you use, your ticket bought at pasesparques.cl is checked as a QR code at the booth, not paid for in cash on the spot.

By Bus

Buses to the park leave the Terminal Rodoviario in Puerto Natales, with the first departures around 06:30 and the latest around 18:00, roughly three services a day in season. Bus-Sur, Buses Gómez and Buses Juan Ojeda run the route. The ride to the Laguna Amarga gate takes close to 2 hours with stops, and fares checked in August 2026 ran about $15 to $17 one-way to Laguna Amarga, or $27 to $29 through to Hotel Lago Grey.

Outside November to March the schedule thins out, so reconfirm at the terminal before you plan a day around it.

By Rental Car

A rental car gives you the freedom to set your own pace between viewpoints. The drive from Puerto Natales to the Laguna Amarga gate covers roughly 110 km, about 2 hours on mostly gravel road. Agencies in Puerto Natales and Punta Arenas rent cars for the trip; rates vary too much by season and agency to quote a fixed number here, so check current pricing directly before you budget for it.

Whichever gate you drive to, park entry is bought online in advance, never at the gate itself.

By Day Tour

A day tour from Puerto Natales removes the timing problem entirely: pickup at your hotel, a guide who knows which viewpoints are worth the stop that day, and a set return time. The $75 day tour from Puerto Natales runs 12 hours and covers roughly the same ground as the bus, without you managing schedules or connections yourself. Park entrance is still charged separately on top of that price, the same as every option on this page.

Bus, Rental Car or Day Tour Compared

All three reach the same gate. The difference is time spent managing logistics versus money spent removing it.

Punta Arenas to the Park

Punta Arenas (PUQ) is the main year-round airport for the region, so many visitors fly in from Santiago and start their trip there rather than in Puerto Natales. The drive from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales alone covers 248 km, about 3 hours 15 minutes by bus, and the park gates are still roughly 110 km further north from Puerto Natales after that. That is why the day tour departing directly from Punta Arenas runs $106 for about 16 hours: most of the day is the drive itself, with the hours inside the park at the far end of it.

If your flight lands in Punta Arenas and you have just one day free, this option saves you from also arranging the Puerto Natales leg separately, at the cost of a long day in a van.

Crossing at Cancha Carrera

From El Calafate the road runs through Río Turbio to the Cancha Carrera border post, then on to Cerro Castillo on the Chilean side, which sits 59 km from Puerto Natales, about 1 hour further. Cancha Carrera is a seasonal pass, open roughly December to March, so this route is not available year-round; outside that window the crossing options narrow and journeys take longer. Chile bans bringing fresh fruit, vegetables, meat, dairy, seeds and honey across the border, and the checks at the post are real, so eat or discard anything on that list before you reach it.

All told, El Calafate to Puerto Natales covers about 272 km and takes 4.5 to 5.5 hours including the border. The day tour from El Calafate runs $207 for about 16 hours total, with roughly 7 hours of that each way just in transit, which makes it the longest and most expensive single-day option on this page. If you are based in El Calafate for the Perito Moreno glacier and want Torres del Paine as a side trip, go in with clear eyes about how much of the day is spent in the van.

Punta Arenas Over Puerto Natales

Punta Arenas (PUQ) is the airport with year-round scheduled service, and the one nearly every international itinerary routes through. Puerto Natales has its own airport, but service there runs seasonally and is thinner, so most visitors still fly into Punta Arenas and cover the last 248 km by road. We do not have a verified flight time from Santiago to quote here; older figures circulating online are not confirmed, so check your airline's own schedule rather than a round number from a blog post.

Once you land in Punta Arenas, the same bus, rental car and day-tour choices above apply for the final leg north.

Every Leg, Side by Side

Here is every distance and typical time named in this guide, in one place.

No Public Transport Inside the Gates

Once you are through a gate, there is no public bus network moving between viewpoints inside Torres del Paine. Day tours use a private van to shuttle between stops on a set route, which is most of what you are paying for beyond the driving itself. Independent visitors with a rental car do the same loop on their own schedule, on mostly gravel roads. Some hikers connect sights on foot along the trail network, which is a different kind of day than the ones this guide is about.

A catamaran also crosses Lake Pehoé to reach the Paine Grande side of the park, and it runs on a separate booking and schedule from the road network; the park entrance fee does not cover it. Reconfirm times and whether it is running before you plan a day around it, service is weather-dependent like everything else here.

Doing the Math, Puerto Natales Example

A round-trip bus fare to Laguna Amarga, doubling the one-way $15 to $17 fare, comes to roughly $30 to $34. Add the park entrance fee, 32,400 CLP (about $35) for a foreign adult daily pass, and an independent day by bus runs about $65 to $69 before food, and that is before accounting for the fact that once inside the gate you still have no van and no guide moving you between viewpoints on a fixed schedule; you are working around whatever the bus timetable allows.

The $75 day tour from Puerto Natales costs more up front, and park entry is still charged on top of that price everywhere on this page, but it buys a guide, a van between stops and a return time that does not depend on catching the last bus back. The gap between the two options is smaller than it looks once the entrance fee is added to both sides.

Side by Side

The same figures, laid out together.

Our Recommendation

If you already have a rental car and enjoy driving gravel roads at your own pace, do the trip independently and treat the bus fares above as your fallback if the car falls through. Everyone else, especially anyone on a single free day with a flight to catch, is better off with a day tour: the price difference over the bus is small once the park entrance fee is added to both, and you get a fixed return time instead of hoping the last bus is still running.