Salta sits in Argentina's far northwest, a colonial city of pink-stone churches and shaded plazas that travelers nickname Salta la Linda (Salta the Beautiful). It is the gateway to the Andean north, a region of red-rock canyons, high-altitude vineyards, surreal salt flats, and some of the most dramatic mountain roads in South America. The city itself is compact and walkable, but its real magic lies in using it as a base for the landscapes that radiate out in every direction.
The historic center is where you start. Almost everything worth seeing in the city clusters within a few blocks of Plaza 9 de Julio, one of Argentina's most beautiful main squares: the salmon-pink Catedral Basilica, the whitewashed colonial Cabildo, and the world-class MAAM, the Museo de Arqueologia de Alta Montana, home to three astonishingly preserved 500-year-old Inca mummies recovered from a 6,739m volcano. A short walk away, the terracotta Iglesia San Francisco is Salta's most photographed building, and the teleferico up Cerro San Bernardo lays the whole valley out beneath you.
Salta is also a food city. Argentines widely credit the northwest with inventing the empanada, and the empanada saltena is its own art form: diced (never ground) beef, potato, hard-boiled egg, and a hand-crimped repulgue. Pair them with a glass of crisp, floral Torrontes, the white wine that thrives in the high desert to the south, and you have the region on a plate. After dark, the penas folkloricas along Calle Balcarce fill with live zamba and chacarera music, dancing, and regional wine; Salta is the cultural capital of Argentine folklore.
Most visitors spend two or three days seeing the city, then strike out on the legendary drives. South lies the Calchaqui Valley, reached by the red-rock Quebrada de las Conchas on RN 68 or the epic Ruta 40 over the Cuesta del Obispo and through the cactus forests of Los Cardones National Park, ending in the wine town of Cafayate. North runs the UNESCO-listed Quebrada de Humahuaca toward the rainbow hills of Purmamarca and the blinding-white Salinas Grandes salt flats. And the seasonal Tren a las Nubes, the Train to the Clouds, climbs to 4,220m, one of the highest railways on earth.
Use this guide as a starting point: skim the day-by-day plan, open the things-to-do list, and read up on the day trips that define a Salta trip. Save the places that fit your travels, and drop them straight into a TripBox itinerary with dates, a map, and your travel companions.
