Argentina · Chubut Province
Where to Stay in Trelew, Chubut Province
Trelew stands in the lower valley of the Chubut River in eastern Patagonia, a city founded by settlers from Wales some 20 km inland from the Atlantic.
Find your area →
Where to stay in Trelew
Each area has its own feel; here's who each one suits.
Rooms in Trelew gather in the old centre, in the blocks around the Trelew train station. The Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio stands close enough to walk to from most of that grid, and the Municipal Museum of Visual Arts sits in the same few streets, so a base here puts the fossil galleries, the shops and the departure points together. Lodging is plain and practical.
You should take a room in this core if the stop is a night or two between the Atlantic coast and the farming country upstream along the Chubut River, because everything worth an hour in the city is inside a short walk. The centre also keeps the eating places within reach. The outward streets trade that compactness for room to park.
Where the grid gives way to the road toward Puerto Madryn, lodging comes with space for a vehicle and a quick exit from the valley, which suits anyone driving to the coast early or covering long distances across Chubut Province in a day. The Centro Cultural por la Memoria de Trelew marks that outer ground, on the site of the old airport, and the Almirante Zar Naval Air Base lies beyond the built-up streets. No part of Trelew sits far off.
Trelew is small enough that the choice between the two sides turns on parking and the road rather than on distance, and a driver loses little by staying out where the town thins toward the open valley of Patagonia.
About Trelew
What is Trelew known for?
Dinosaur fossils give Trelew its main claim, and the Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio holds the collections that pull travellers off the road through Patagonia. Welsh settlement is the second thread. The Pueblo de Luis Regional Museum keeps that record, while the Municipal Museum of Visual Arts shows painting and sculpture from Chubut Province.
Another museum, the Centro Cultural por la Memoria de Trelew, fills the buildings of the old airport. Many arrive on the way to Puerto Madryn.
What are the main landmarks in Trelew?
The Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio is the building most visitors come for, its galleries given over to the fossil record of Patagonia. Four smaller collections fill out the rest of the city. The Pueblo de Luis Regional Museum and the Museo Pueblo De Luis hold the settler record of the lower Chubut River, and the Municipal Museum of Visual Arts shows work of a different kind.
Elsewhere in the city, the Centro Cultural por la Memoria de Trelew occupies the ground of the old airport. The Trelew train station still stands. Outside the streets lies the Almirante Zar Naval Air Base.
What is the history of Trelew?
Settlers from Wales founded Trelew in 1886, in the lower valley of the Chubut River. That origin still runs through the town's own collections, the Pueblo de Luis Regional Museum and the Museo Pueblo De Luis among them, and it separates the place from the rest of Patagonia, which was thinly held when the colony arrived. The valley gave the newcomers their footing.
Water along the river made farming possible on ground that had carried none, and the settlement that grew beside it became the largest in the low valley of the Chubut River, a market for the farms and a meeting point for the tracks that crossed the open country. Administration went elsewhere. The municipality falls inside the Rawson Department, whose capital, Rawson, is also the capital of Chubut Province, so Trelew grew as the department's biggest town without becoming its seat.
Later the railway left the Trelew train station in the centre, and the museums that came afterwards gathered near the same few streets: the Museum of Paleontology Egidio Feruglio for the fossils of the region, and the Municipal Museum of Visual Arts for work made since. The old airport closed. Its buildings now carry the Centro Cultural por la Memoria de Trelew, while the Almirante Zar Naval Air Base holds the other airfield in the city.
Where is Trelew?
The city occupies the lower valley of the Chubut River in eastern Patagonia, about 20 km from the Atlantic coast and southwest of Puerto Madryn. Flat valley ground carries the street grid. Trelew is the largest place in the low valley of the Chubut River, and its municipality belongs to the Rawson Department of Chubut Province, whose capital, Rawson, holds the provincial government as well.
The river is the line everything else follows.
What is the climate of Trelew?
The Atlantic sets the terms in the lower valley of the Chubut River, reaching Trelew from about 20 km off. Ocean exposure rather than height keeps the year temperate, so the swing between the warm months and the cool ones stays narrower here than in the interior of Patagonia, and cold air arriving off the open water moderates the summer as readily as it sharpens the winter. The wind rarely lets up.
The valley of the Chubut River stays greener than the ground beyond it.
How do you get to Trelew?
Arrival here is by road. Trelew sits on the run between Puerto Madryn and the farming valley of the Chubut River, which puts the coast and the interior within a single day's driving for anyone crossing Chubut Province. The Trelew train station stands in the old centre from the days when the railway served the valley.
Air traffic left the old airport ground, which now carries the Centro Cultural por la Memoria de Trelew, and the Almirante Zar Naval Air Base holds the other airfield. Roads also tie the city to Rawson, the capital of both the department and Chubut Province.
Good for
More cities in Chubut Province
Updated August 2026