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One of our must-do activities in Patagonia was seeing penguins.
We weren’t going to make it to Antarctica this trip, but it was my mission to see these adorable waddling birds somewhere on the mainland of South America.
After much research and price comparison, we decided the best place to see penguins was Magdalena Island in Punta Arenas, Chile.
We were lucky to sneak in on the last day of the season, and we had an incredible morning wandering alongside thousands of Magellanic penguins.
Here’s everything you need to know about seeing penguins in Punta Arenas at Magdalena Island.
🐧 Book the exact tour we did to walk with penguins at Magdalena Island
Where to see penguins in Patagonia
I think a lot of people incorrectly assume that the only place you can see penguins near South America is Antarctica.
For most travellers, especially budget-conscious backpackers, a pricey multi-week cruise just isn’t on the cards.
The good news is that you don’t have to travel to Antarctica to see penguins if you’re in South America!
There are a handful of places you can see penguins on the mainland, and most of these are in Patagonia. This region, which is shared by Chile and Argentina, hosts five of the world’s 18 penguin species (Magellanic, Humboldt, Gentoo, Southern Rockhopper, and King penguin).
One of the most popular and well-known places to see penguins outside Antarctica is Ushuaia in Argentina. There is a large colony of Magellanic penguins at nearby Isla Martillo, and tourists can join a tour to walk alongside them.
Sadly, due to Argentina’s rampant inflation and economic issues, the prices of these tours have soared in recent years, and are more than the equivalent of $300 USD per person. No thanks.
Another great option is the Valdes Peninsula in northern Argentine Patagonia. This was our original plan to see penguins, but after having our flight to the region cancelled at the gate, with no alternatives for days, we had to make other arrangements.
We were already visiting Ushuaia, but the above-mentioned prices ruled this out for us, so after some fancy footwork on our itinerary, we squeezed in a few days at Punta Arenas in Chile.
We were already planning to visit Punta Arenas briefly to collect our camper from Camper Travel Chile and start our Carretera Austral road trip, but we tacked on a few extra days to see the penguins.
Similar to Ushuaia, Punta Arenas also has a nearby island, Isla Magdalena, that is home to a large population of Magellanic penguins. You can take the same kind of tour to walk alongside the penguins for less than half the price.
This suited us perfectly and is becoming a more popular option for travellers to Patagonia.
Penguins in Punta Arenas
Magdalena Island is not the only place to see penguins in Punta Arenas. There are actually two places you can see penguins near Punta Arenas, with two different species:
- 🐧 King penguins at Reserva Natural Pingüino Rey on Isla Tierra del Fuego
- 🐧 Magellanic penguins at Monumento Natural Los Pingüinos on Isla Magdalena
🐧 Although we only visited the Magellanic penguins at Magdalena Island (I will explain why we chose this option below), for completeness, I wanted to let you know about the option to see King penguins in Punta Arenas, too.
King penguins
Seeing penguins on the South American continent is not unusual, but seeing King penguins is! These beautiful, orange-hued penguins are the second largest of the world’s 18 penguin species and quite possibly the most striking!
This species of penguin is found almost exclusively on sub-Antarctic islands (e.g. South Georgia), so it was quite a surprise to scientists in 2010 to discover a colony on Isla Tierra del Fuego, an island in the southernmost part of Patagonia, shared by Chile and Argentina.
Specifically, the colony has settled at Bahia Inútil near the town of Porvenir on the Chilean side of the island, just across the Magellan Strait from Punta Arenas.
Historically, there is evidence of King penguins in Tierra del Fuego, but it had been quite some time since the penguins were observed here, and there was not a lot of scientific evidence of successful reproduction in the area. This has changed since the creation of the Reserva Natural Pingüino Rey.
The King penguins spend longer in Patagonia than their Magellanic counterparts, and can be visited at the reserve from November to May.
It is only open from Thursday to Sunday, to give the penguins plenty of time without human interaction each week.
The reserve offers guided tours where visitors walk along boardwalks to a covered viewing platform to look at the penguins.
Depending on where the penguins are hanging out, you will be viewing them from up to 50 metres (164 ft) away. The way the viewing deck is constructed, there is no chance of having closer interactions with the penguins.
This is designed to protect the penguins and minimise disturbance (fantastic!), but it is important to note that this is a much more distant viewing than the Magellanic penguins on Magdalena Island.
The reserve can be visited from many different destinations around Southern Patagonia, but Punta Arenas is the most popular jump-off point.
There are two ways to visit the reserve:
- 🚌 Join an inclusive tour from Punta Arenas that travels overland by bus to the reserve with a short ferry crossing over the Strait of Magellan (~4 hours each way)
- ⛴️ Rent a car and take the TABSA car ferry from Punta Arenas to Porvenir (~2 hours), and drive yourself to the reserve (~2 hours) OR drive the entire way via the overland route (~4 hours) and book a tour directly with the reserve
Either option is a LONG way, and it would be at least a 12 – 14 hour day. Unless you are planning to spend more time on the Chilean side of Isla Tierra del Fuego and can work the reserve into a broader route in the area, it’s a huge day trip from Punta Arenas.
However, if you don’t see a visit to Antarctica or the surrounding islands in your future, this is an excellent, and comparatively cheap and easy, way to see King penguins.
🐧 The best tour to see the King penguins from Punta Arenas
Magellanic penguins
The more common penguins to see in Punta Arenas, and Patagonia more broadly, are the Magellanic penguins.
These medium-sized black and white penguins have various colonies around the region, where they come in the summer months to breed and raise their chicks.
Like all penguin species, Magellanic penguins are monogamous and mate for life (although our guide told us there is about a 10% divorce rate – it doesn’t always work out!).
There is a large colony on Magdalena Island near Punta Arenas.
A tour to Magdalena Island was our choice for seeing penguins in Punta Arenas, so read on for more information about the island and the Magellanic penguins found here!
🐧 The tour we took to Magdalena Island
When can you see penguins in Punta Arenas?
- 🐧 King penguins at Reserva Natural Pingüino Rey: 1 November – 31 May
- 🐧 Magellanic penguins at Magdalena Island: 1 October – 31 March
Note that these dates are approximate, and the penguins are wild species that follow their own schedule. If you’re thinking of visiting at the start or end of the season, it’s best to contact the tour operators and/or reserves directly to confirm if there are penguins to see.
Why we chose Magdalena Island
Seeing a King penguin on the mainland of South America would be a very special experience, considering how rare this species is outside the Antarctic islands.
However, the cost, time and visitor experience dissuaded us from visiting the King penguins.
Whether you join a tour or drive yourself, it’s a LONG day from Punta Arenas (12 – 14 hours), and you only get about an hour at the reserve. That, coupled with the fact that you can only see the penguins from up to 50 metres away, we decided to save the King penguins for a one-day trip to Antarctica!
If we had a few extra days up our sleeve, I would have loved to drive around the Chilean side of Isla Tierra del Fuego and include the King penguins as one stop on a broader route through the area.
But to go for just one day from Punta Arenas? It wasn’t worth it for us, and Magdalena Island was a much better choice.
About Magdalena Island
Magdalena Island is a small island approximately 35 km from Punta Arenas in the Strait of Magellan. It hosts a population of over 100,000 Magellanic penguins during the Austral summer.
The island is protected as part of the Monumento Natural Los Pingüinos, which also includes neighbouring Isla Marta. This nature reserve is managed by CONAF, Chile’s national park authority and is staffed by rangers year-round.
Every year from October – March, as many as 60,000 Magellanic penguin pairs come to Magdalena Island to breed and raise their chicks.
Their rough schedule is:
- 🗓️ September – October: arrival on the island and breeding
- 🗓️ October – December: laying and incubating eggs
- 🗓️ November – February: chick hatching and raising
- 🗓️ March – April: moulting season
- 🗓️ April: departure from the island to migrate north to warmer waters
Magdalena Island penguin tour
Visiting the penguins at Magdalena Island is one of the most popular tours in Punta Arenas.
Although you’ll see many different tours online, as far as we understand, there is only one company that is permitted to offer tours to the island, Solo Expediciones. The others are just intermediary agencies.
The tour costs $140 USD for the 2025/2026 season. This is quite expensive, especially given it’s only a half-day experience, but it’s less than half of what you’d pay in Ushuaia in Argentina!
Tours run from 1 October – 31 March each year, pending the number of penguins on the island and their schedule that season.
The tour is a half-day experience, lasting around 5 – 6 hours. It includes:
- 🚌 Return bus ride from Punta Arenas to a nearby dock (~30 minutes)
- 🚢 Return boat ride to Magdalena Island (~ 45 minutes)
- 🐧 A guided walk around Magdalena Island to see the penguins (~1 hour)
- 🦭 Viewing of sea lions at Marta Island (no disembarking) (~30 minutes)
- 🚶🏻♂️ Bilingual guide
- ☕️ Tea, coffee or hot chocolate and cookies
You’ll get to walk around a dedicated path on the island, with hundreds, if not thousands, of Magellanic penguins waddling all around you!
The experience is highly regulated to avoid stressing or disturbing the penguins, and you are briefed on how to behave on the island.
Penguins have the right of way on the paths, and you must keep a minimum distance of 2 metres between you and the penguins at all times. It’s on you to enforce this, as the penguins often don’t!
The experience is about as close as you can get to a penguin in the wild, while still being entirely on the penguin’s terms. There is no evidence to suggest that the presence of tourists affects the penguins, and there are only humans on the island for 1 – 2 hours per day.
The Magdalena Island penguin tour runs at least once per day, most commonly in the mornings. The meeting time is 6:30 am at the Solo Expediciones office in central Punta Arenas. I know this sounds very early, but the mornings are generally the calmest time on the water.
In the peak summer months (mid-December – February), there is sometimes a second afternoon departure, but this is often cancelled due to the weather. I’d recommend booking a morning tour if you have the choice.
Regardless of the time, the Magdalena Island tour is very dependent on the weather. The crossing to the island can be very rough and is impacted heavily by wind and swell forecasts.
In some situations, time on Magdalena Island can be reduced if the weather changes, and the visit to Marta Island to see the sea lions is never guaranteed.
Tours are cancelled quite regularly, so I’d highly recommend booking it for your first day in Punta Arenas so you’ve got time to reschedule if need be.
Unfortunately, the tour company’s policy seems to be that they cancel the morning of the tour, rather than the night before, which is quite frustrating and difficult to plan for, but you’ve been warned!
Hope for the best, but prepare for a cancellation and keep your plans in Punta Arenas tentative.
Our experience walking with penguins at Magdalena Island
🌞 MEETING AT THE TOUR OFFICE
We had an early wake-up to meet at the Solo Expediciones office at 6:30 am. Punta Arenas is a pretty small city, so we didn’t need to worry about an Uber or a taxi, and we walked directly to the office.
🛳️ GETTING TO THE ISLAND
After checking in and waiting around at the office for a while, a coach bus arrived and everyone piled in. We had a short 30-minute drive to a pier outside of town.
It was still pitch black as we carefully walked along the rickety wooden pier onto the boat, but we could see a fiery orange glow lighting up the horizon.
The boat was bigger than I expected and toasty warm on a very cold morning!
We found a quiet booth seat on the upper level and got comfortable for the ride.
It took about 45 minutes to reach the island, and despite pretty strong winds forecast, it was smoother than I expected. The large boat is built for these conditions, and our captain navigated the swell expertly.
We were lucky enough to pop out onto the back deck for a glimpse at the rising sun, dodging the ocean spray flying up from the boat.
Throughout the trip, our guide Sebastian shared some information about the island and the penguins, as well as a safety briefing on how we should behave on the island to avoid disturbing the penguins.
As we slowed on approach to the island, we got our first glimpse of the small black and white birds splashing on the shoreline! A few of them were zooming around in the water, much more graceful and athletic than their awkward waddling on land.
We were visiting in late March, right at the end of the season, and Sebastian had told us that all the penguins were getting ready to depart the island. They meet down at the water’s edge in groups, gathering until they decide it’s the right time to set off into the ocean!
🐧 WALKING WITH PENGUINS
We disembarked the boat and immediately saw (and heard!) dozens of penguins all around us. Their honks are so distinctive, and watching them waddle along was absolutely adorable.
There is a defined route all visitors must follow on the island. The path is just under a kilometre and is a circular loop, up to the lighthouse and back to the dock.
It’s roped on either side to prevent anyone from straying too far and disturbing the penguins.
You should not approach the penguins, but that doesn’t mean the penguins won’t approach you! In their travels between their burrows and the ocean, they were constantly waddling across the path in front of us.
We were instructed to leave at least two metres between us and a penguin, and if one crossed in front of us, we had to take a big step back and give them space.
It was so nice to see them up close, without having deliberately approached them or encroached on their space. They didn’t seem phased by our presence at all.
You can very easily see and hear them, both waddling around and in their burrows, which are right alongside the path.
We had about 1 hour to spend on the island to walk the path. It sounds like a long time, but Sebastian warned us not to go too slow at the beginning. Apparently we didn’t listen too well!
He had to come and round us up and keep us moving along the path. We were so captivated by the sweet penguins and were constantly stopping to watch them waddle across the path, bicker with each other in their burrows, or call out their funny honk, and of course, take photos! They were such a delight to photograph, and I loved testing out my new zoom lens.
The end of the season meant a lot of the penguins were making their way from their burrows to the ocean across the paths, but also that they had just completed their moulting. There was fluff and feathers strewn everywhere, and a few of the birds had the last of their fluff sticking out in odd-looking patches, ready to fall off at any second.
Unfortunately, we were a few months too late to see the fluffy chicks, and by now they were more independent and looked more like adult penguins.
But I was just so happy to see so many penguins! We knew we were cutting it fine visiting right at the end of March (we originally planned to be in the Peninsula Valdes in Argentina two weeks before this, but our plans were cancelled last minute), but luckily, there were still plenty of penguins to see.
The penguins are the star of the show, but Magdalena Island is also a haven and nesting ground for lots of other bird species. Including a huge population of Imperial Cormorants, which actually look very similar to penguins, but they can fly!
In the peak summer months, a few species of gulls also raise their chicks here. Their approach to parenting isn’t quite as kind as the penguins, and adult gulls are known to kill other parents’ chicks if there is competition for food or they feel their own young are threatened. The island was littered with bodies of dead baby gulls, a harsh reminder of the cruelty of nature.
Because the tour departs so early in the morning, the temperatures were still very low when we were on the island. It was late in the season, so I’m sure it’s nicer in summer, but boy oh boy, it was freezing. I was wearing all my layers, but the wind was bitterly cold and my fingers were frozen!
The warm, toasty boat was a good incentive to drag ourselves away from the penguins, and there was hot tea, coffee and hot chocolate waiting for us inside with cookies.
🦭 MARTA ISLAND
The second part of the tour to Isla Marta is entirely dependent on the weather and sea conditions, and much more likely to be cancelled than Isla Magdalena.
We were very lucky to be able to visit Marta Island too. The wind was picking up and it was very grey, but we snuck in a stop here before it started raining.
It took about 20 minutes to sail to Isla Marta. You’re not allowed to disembark here (when you see the geography of the island, you’ll understand why), but all the guests gather on the outer top deck of the boat, and the captain slowly approaches the shoreline of the island.
It’s not the best view, and the sea is quite rough here, so it was a little crammed with everyone trying to get a look as you bobbed around. But we could quite easily see a sea of sea lions – how’s that for a tongue twister!
There were dozens of South American sea lions piled up along the shore, most lolling around like big, lazy blobs. They’re hardly graceful on land!
Sea lions are hilarious, constantly bickering with each other, barking and snapping, and it was funny to watch such a big group of them coexisting together.
There were a handful of them swimming around towards the boat, and just like the penguins, they looked so much more at home in the water than on land!
Sebastian pointed out an especially big sea lion and explained that somehow one random elephant seal had infiltrated the group, and happily lives on Isla Marta surrounded by South American sea lions. I was able to zoom in quite well on my camera, and man, this was a big seal!
We had planned to see a lot more seals and sea lions in Peninsula Valdes in Argentina, but given that it was cancelled last minute, this was a nice consolation.
🛳️ RETURNING TO PUNTA ARENAS
We didn’t spend too long at Isla Marta, and everyone made it back inside the boat just before the heavens opened. We were feeling incredibly lucky at this point, that the tour had even departed in the first place, that we got a full hour on Magdalena Island with the penguins, and we got to visit Marta Island too.
I hung around on the back deck for the journey back, keeping an eye out for whales and dolphins. We got lucky with a small pod of common dolphins swimming alongside the boat.
We made it back to the dock, ran straight to the bus and drove back to Punta Arenas in the pouring rain. Perfect timing!
What to wear and bring to Magdalena Island
- 🧣 Warm layers: it can get VERY cold and windy on the island.
- ☔️ Rain protection: like everywhere in Patagonia, rain is possible at any time. A good raincoat also doubles as wind protection.
- 🥪 Snacks: there is tea, coffee, hot chocolate and cookies included with the tour, but if you think you’ll be hungry outside of this, bring some snacks. We didn’t want to eat breakfast so early before we left, so we packed some medialunas to have on the boat.
- 🤢 Sea sick tablets: if you get seasick, you’ll definitely want to take some tablets. We didn’t find the ride too bumpy, but it is known for being rough.
- 📷 Camera: or phone, or whatever you use to take photos and videos. Fully charged!
Planning a trip to Punta Arenas
Planning a trip to Punta Arenas? Don’t forget to read our Punta Arenas travel guide too (coming soon). It covers all the important info you need to know about Punta Arenas, like getting there and getting around, the best places to eat, where to stay, and other handy tips to get your bearings.
🐧 Everything you need to know about Punta Arenas (coming soon)
Final thoughts: Penguins in Punta Arenas
I am so glad we got to see penguins in Punta Arenas!
I had already prepared myself for the possibility that our tour would be cancelled, and given we were so close to the end of the season, that we wouldn’t be able to re-book.
Turns out I was catastrophising for nothing and we had such a special morning wandering alongside penguins at Magdalena Island.
With the perfect balance of affordability and accessibility, I believe Magdalena Island in Punta Arenas is the best place to see penguins in Patagonia.
MORE PUNTA ARENAS POSTS
- Punta Arenas, Chile Travel Guide (coming soon)
