Patagonia - Tierra del Fuego

The city at the end of the world, the town of Ushuaia, lies on the shores of the Beagle Channel, a community which depends variously on fishing, heavy industry and tourism for its livelihood. Founded in the late 1800s, it is the capital of the desolate, sparsely-populated, mountainous and windswept triangular island of Tierra del Fuego which lies to the south of the Magellan Straits.

Ushuaia was one of later regions to be settled by immigrants, originally home to the kayak-paddling Ona and Patagon Indians who hunted seal and fish and daubed themselves in seal-fat during winter to ward off the sub-zero temperatures. The first settlers were missionaries who built simple wooden dwellings on the water's edge to house their families, not so different from the wooden Scandinavian-style houses which line the main street of Ushuaia today.

The city is an excellent base from which to explore the Martial Glacier which overlooks the town, the Lapataia National Park or from which to take one of the many boat excursions along the Beagle Channel to sight the wildlife of sea-lions, penguins and cormorants in their natural habitat of spectacular and remote beauty.