🇦🇷 Argentina · Patagonia
In the heart of the Chubut cordillera, ringed by mountains, forests and steppe, Esquel is one of the most appealing cities in Andean Patagonia. Quiet and human-scaled, it combines mountain-town life with first-rate tourism: from the legendary La Trochita steam train to the imposing Los Alerces National Park, with its forests of thousand-year-old alerces. It is the ideal base for exploring western Chubut and the nearby Welsh area of Trevelin.
Its most celebrated attraction is La Trochita, the Old Patagonian Express, one of the few narrow-gauge steam trains still running anywhere in the world. Immortalized by Paul Theroux in his travel book, this historic train crosses the steppe to Nahuel Pan station, where a Mapuche-Tehuelche community lives, in an experience that seems to stop time. The other unmissable one is Cerro La Hoya, one of the best ski resorts in Patagonia for the quality of its snow.
A few kilometers away lies Los Alerces National Park, a Unesco World Heritage Site, with clear-water lakes, rivers, forests and the giant alerces that can live for thousands of years. And barely 25 km away is Trevelin, the 'mill town', one of the prettiest corners of the Welsh settlement, famous for its tea houses, its cakes and its tulip fields. Nature, railway history and Welsh heritage make Esquel a complete and endearing destination.
The Esquel region was inhabited from remote times by indigenous peoples, especially Tehuelche communities and, later, Mapuche, who traveled and settled these Andean valleys; Mapuche-Tehuelche communities still live in the area today, such as the one at Nahuel Pan. The name 'Esquel' has an indigenous root, with several readings (linked to 'thicket of burrs', 'place of thorns' or 'bog', depending on the version). Modern settlement is tied to the Welsh expansion: at the end of the 19th century, Welsh colonists from the Chubut valley, looking for new land, reached the cordillera and founded settlements such as Trevelin ('mill town', in Welsh), giving rise to the so-called Colonia 16 de Octubre. Esquel took shape at the start of the 20th century as a service and trading point for the region, and its growth accelerated with the arrival of the narrow-gauge railway, La Trochita: construction of the Ingeniero Jacobacci–Esquel branch began in 1921 and the train reached Esquel station for the first time on 25 May 1945, completing a 402 km route that connected the area to the Patagonian rail network. For decades the train was a vital means of transport; after it closed as a public service in 1993, it was preserved as a tourist attraction and historic heritage. The 20th century also brought the creation of Los Alerces National Park (1937), which protects its forests and lakes, and the development of skiing at La Hoya. Today Esquel lives largely off nature tourism, the historic train, the snow and the region's Welsh heritage. The full story is on our history page.
Read the full history ↓The heart of Atlantic and Andean Patagonia: Tehuelche and Mapuche land, setting of the only large Welsh colony in the Americas, cradle of Argentine oil at Comodoro Rivadavia, home to the whales of Península Valdés and to the thousand-year-old forest of Los Alerces.
Read the history of Chubut →No exact prices: a scale from $ (budget) to $$$$$ (luxury), with 2-3 options per category.
Origins, formation and what the sources say.
Get on La Trochita at Esquel station and, barely 18 kilometers later, the steam whistle drops you at Nahuel Pan, where a Mapuche-Tehuelche community still lives and welcomes passengers with a museum of indigenous cultures and a craft market. That contrast — a European narrow-gauge train pulling into a territory that indigenous peoples had inhabited thousands of years earlier — sums up much of the deep history of Esquel, a city whose very name is neither Spanish nor Welsh, but an echo of the languages spoken here long before any official Argentine map existed.
The Esquel region, in the cordillera of northwestern Chubut, was inhabited from remote times by indigenous peoples. Tehuelche communities traveled these valleys and plateaus following the guanaco and the rhea, and over time Mapuche groups joined them, as part of the displacements and the araucanization that marked Patagonia between the 18th and 19th centuries, a process of cultural and commercial exchange between peoples on both sides of the cordillera, at times a conflictive one. Mapuche-Tehuelche communities still live in the area today, such as the one at Nahuel Pan, the end point of La Trochita's tourist run, which keeps alive traditions of weaving, silverwork and oral memory.
The name 'Esquel' itself comes from the indigenous languages, though its exact meaning is open to different readings: it is usually linked to ideas like 'thicket of burrs', 'place of thorns' or 'bog', depending on the version you consult, all of them descriptions of the low, waterlogged ground of the valley before the city was built. That indigenous root in the place name is a reminder that, long before the city, these landscapes already had names and owners: the same people who would later see the arrival of explorers first, then Welsh colonists and finally the railway that would change the region's fate.
The indigenous presence is a fundamental part of the region's identity, present in the place names (Esquel, Nahuel Pan, Futalaufquen and Currumahuida all have indigenous roots), in the communities that live here and in the memory of a territory that was, for centuries, home to peoples who knew the mountain, the forest and the steppe inside out, and who are still present in the everyday and tourist life of Esquel.
The modern settlement of the region is tied to the Welsh expansion. At the end of the 19th century, the Welsh colonists who had founded the colony in the Chubut river valley (Rawson, Trelew, Gaiman) from 1865 set out on expeditions westward in search of new fertile land, pushed by population growth and by the search for better soil than that of the lower valley. In 1885, an expedition led by the governor of what was then the National Territory of Chubut, Luis Jorge Fontana, explored the cordillera and reached a lush valley at the foot of the Andes that the colonists named Cwm Hyfryd, 'beautiful valley' in Welsh.
On reaching the Andean valleys, the Welsh found land suited to farming and livestock and decided to settle there. So the Colonia 16 de Octubre was born, officially founded on 25 November 1885 in the area of present-day Trevelin, a few kilometers from Esquel. Its name does not refer to the date the colonists arrived: it was chosen on Fontana's own initiative in tribute to 16 October 1884, the day Law 1532 on National Territories was passed, creating the National Territory of Chubut of which he was the first governor. Trevelin — 'mill town' in Welsh, from 'tref' (town) and 'melin' (mill) — grew around flour milling: the Welsh built mills such as the historic Molino Andes to process wheat, and also brought in sheep farming and wool production, leaving a cultural mark that endures today in the tea houses, the surnames, the chapel and the community's Protestant religious traditions.
Esquel, by contrast, emerged at the start of the 20th century as a point of services, trade and communications for the whole Andean region. Its strategic position, at the crossroads of the routes toward the valleys, the lakes and the steppe, gradually made it the main town of western Chubut, complementing the more rural, Welsh profile of neighboring Trevelin. Esquel's official founding as a town is placed in 1906, when its boundaries were drawn and the first shops and services began to set up, serving smallholders, ranchers and travelers from across the Andean district.
Esquel's growth is intimately tied to the narrow-gauge railway that connected it with the rest of Patagonia: La Trochita, known worldwide today as the Old Patagonian Express. Construction of the Ingeniero Jacobacci–Esquel branch got under way in the early 1920s — work started in 1922 — alongside the purchase of steam locomotives built by Baldwin (American) and Henschel (German), specially designed for track barely 75 centimeters wide.
The work advanced slowly over decades, crossing the hard Patagonian geography. On 25 May 1945, La Trochita pulled into Esquel station for the first time, completing a 402-kilometer route from Ingeniero Jacobacci and linking this Andean corner with the Línea Sur and the national rail network. For the region it was a milestone: the train became a vital means of transporting people, livestock and goods.
For decades, La Trochita was one of the last steam railway lines running regularly anywhere in the world. Its closure as a public passenger and freight service, in 1993, could have meant its end; yet its enormous historic and tourist value led to it being preserved. Today it runs as a tourist train and heritage line, leaving Esquel for Nahuel Pan station, on a ride that keeps the charm of another era alive.
Another decisive milestone for the region was the creation of Los Alerces National Park, in 1937, which brought under protection the forests of thousand-year-old alerces, the clear-water lakes and the rivers of western Chubut. The alerce, a conifer able to live for thousands of years, became the symbol of an exceptional natural heritage that Unesco would later recognize as World Heritage.
Through the 20th century, Esquel diversified: alongside farming and services came nature tourism, tied to the park and to sport fishing, and the development of skiing on Cerro La Hoya, prized for the quality of its snow. The city gradually established itself as the ideal base for exploring the whole Chubut cordillera.
Today Esquel combines its railway history, its Welsh heritage — through neighboring Trevelin — and its protected natural surroundings into a complete destination. La Trochita, Los Alerces Park, La Hoya, the lakes and the Welsh tea houses coexist in a region that has managed to keep its mountain-town scale and its Patagonian identity, drawing travelers from all over the world.