The morning after returning from Torres del Paine, we headed to the airport for the hopper flight to Puerto Williams, the Chilean gateway to Tierra del Fuego and the world’s southernmost city. (This is subject to debate, as the title was traditionally bestowed on Ushuaia, Argentina, population 80,000; rather than Puerto Williams, population 3,000.)
We weren’t spending much time in Puerto Williams, an empty port city which largely felt like a ghost town. There are hardly any services there – residents even have to go to Punta Arenas to give birth.
But it was the best way to get to our next destination: a commuter ferry through the Beagle Channel back to Punta Arenas.
Getting There
Puerto Williams is only accessible by boat and plane. The tiny airport is serviced by DAP Airlines once daily except on Sunday; one-way tickets are CLP 100,000-160,000 (USD $107-170). Tickets can supposedly be booked directly through the DAP website a couple months in advance, but I had issues with the online booking and had to do some back-and-forth emailing to reserve tickets – Spanish helped a lot. The flights often sell out since the planes are so small.
If traveling by boat, there are several options that dock at Puerto Williams. The majority of these are wildlife-viewing cruises or Antarctic sailing expeditions, some of which start in Puerto Williams and others which dock there on the way from Punta Arenas or Ushuaia. These typically cost thousands of dollars (as is standard for any Antarctic tourism) and would probably be an unforgettable experience. There are also ferry services between Puerto Williams and Ushuaia.
We opted for a more basic accommodation, which was the commuter Ferry Yaghan, offered by TABSA. As of 2025 the twice-weekly, 28-hour ferry ride between Puerto Williams and Punta Arenas starts at CLP 149,480 (~$160) for foreigners or just CLP 7,680 (~$8) for Chileans. Adults over 60 and children under 10 are half price. The ticket includes food, although the offerings are somewhat spartan – more on that later. As with the flight, I arranged ferry tickets by email since the online portal was a bit challenging.
The Flight
DAP Airlines operates only a handful of scheduled routes, primarily island-hopping between remote Patagonian locations. They also operate charters and Antarctic tourism (2025-26 rate: USD $6,660 for a full day).
The airplane was a 16-passenger propeller plane – loud, bumpy, cramped. Flight time is about 45 minutes, with astonishing window views of the Straits of Magellan surrounded by mountains and rugged island terrain.
We landed at the airport, which is on a small peninsula just outside town. We walked from there to the ferry terminal, which was about 2.5 miles along the side of a road; it didn’t look like there were taxis at the airport but I’m sure it would be easy enough to arrange car transport if needed.
Our flight had been delayed – DAP needed the plane for an emergency medical airlift – so we had to rush a bit. We passed a couple small plazas at the convergence of residential streets, and I was struck by the number of murals plastered around the town, but we didn’t have time for much else. At 3 p.m., we boarded the Ferry Kawéskar for our 4 p.m. departure to Punta Arenas.
Ferry Accomodations
The 30-hour ferry from Puerto Williams to Punta Arenas is primarily a commuter route, as reflected in the ticket prices. For tourists, the point of traveling on this boat is to see some of the Americas’ most remote and pristine landscapes for a reasonable cost, not to have a luxury sea voyage by any means.
The accommodations were adequate (although I wish I’d brought more sandwiches/snacks with me) and it’s worth detailing that side of the experience, but I’ll never forget seeing glaciers cascading down into the Beagle Channel.
Chilean passengers have priority for the limited lie-flat seating on the boat; the rest of the seating is wide Amtrak-style chairs with plenty of legroom – roomy enough compared to an airplane, but not the most comfortable for sleeping. The boat’s interior area has passenger seating to both sides, while the central area houses a cafeteria-style dining setup where the crew serves meals.
There are outdoor decks on both bow and stern of the lower level, as well as an upper deck which provides the best sightseeing opportunities. Bathroom facilities are basic and good enough, although a couple of the women’s restroom stalls were reportedly out of commission by noon on the second travel day.
Meals are included, and the crew served four – dinner the first night, and all three meals the second day. The food was forgettable, at best: a main dish such as pasta with meat sauce, a thin vegetable soup, and a side of pudding or ice cream. There was tea and instant coffee available for free, as well as additional coffee drinks and snacks for purchase outside of meal times. There was ambiguously sourced water available, although I opted for the boiling water and let it cool – I figured better safe than sorry, as it would have been nightmarish to deal with any stomach issues on the ferry. I recommend being more prepared than we were and bringing sandwiches and energy bars to sustain yourself (especially for anyone with dietary restrictions).
There was WiFi, but it only worked for about an hour total of the trip, and incredibly slowly when it did. In our experience, cell service was nonexistent for virtually the entire time until the final approach to Punta Arenas. There was an additional seating area behind the dining section, with movies showing throughout the daytime hours. Some passengers had come prepared with dominos or cards.
As a first-time passenger, I spent every minute I could fighting rain and wind on the upper deck, watching albatrosses plummet into frigid waters fed by blue-white glaciers tucked between rugged mountain peaks.
The Journey
We travelled in early January, when the sun is up at 5 a.m. and doesn’t set until 10 p.m., and the sky never gets fully dark. As is characteristic of Chile’s far south, the sky was cloudy for nearly the entire trip, with intermittent rain and fierce winds.
The ferry set sail right on time, heading west through the Beagle Channel and occasionally crossing the maritime border with Argentina. We made a single brief stop, around 8 p.m. in Yendegaia Bay, the gateway to the new and highly inaccessible Yendegaia National Park (private landowners ceded the land to the government in 2013; an extension of highway Y-85 south from Porvenir is currently under construction, which will allow for overland access).
The truly jaw-dropping landscapes started shortly after the Yendegaia stop, when the ferry took the right fork to bypass Isla Gordon to the north. The islands surrounding this part of the Beagle Channel are inaccessible and uninhabited. The sky slowly darkened as we sailed through the aptly-named Glacier Avenue, home to a series of glaciers named after various European countries.
I stood on the upper deck, marveling at the jagged ice fields to starboard. To port was Isla Gordon, glacier-free but equally desolate, with small waterfalls fed by patches of snow on the upper reaches of the cliffs. A pair of snow-white kelp geese nested at the foot of the island, while huge petrels and albatrosses circled the Ferry Kawéskar and rode on the wind. We saw a whale tail briefly crest above the water, far in the distance.
A little past 11 p.m., it was getting hard to see so I headed back below deck to sleep a bit. When I woke up the next morning, we were nearing the open Pacific Ocean, offering endless views out across the water. Time seemed to pause the entire second day on the boat, as we cycled between eating meals, playing cards, and staring out across the expanse of islands ringing the Straits of Magellan. It was no longer the dramatic cliffs and glaciers, but the landscape continued to be mostly free of humans.
We made the final approach into Punta Arenas around 10 p.m., about two hours ahead of schedule, right as the sun was setting behind the mountains that ring the city. We disembarked and caught a taxi from the port to our AirBNB.
There was something unsettling about spending so much time away from any signs of human life. The landscapes were astonishing, yet eerie and silent. Standing on the ferry’s upper deck as it rained sideways, heading out of the Beagle Channel into the open Pacific – it was a singular feeling of near-total isolation.
Would I take the ferry again? Maybe, although it was a lot of work to get there and a long time to spend in a chair. But maybe that’s the point. The southernmost part of the continent is characterized by its remoteness, very much living up to the billing of the “end of the world.” I would love to return by a different route, maybe overland to Ushuaia or via the new road to Yendegaia. Or, ideally, en route further south to Antarctica.
