ARGENTINA
Playa la Vicera, Puerto Madryn
Good For: Scenery / Wildlife
A bouncy ten-minute drive from El Pedral Lodge (the nearest accommodation) deposits you at the eastern end of this epic Patagonian strand, where a thick carpet of polished pebbles and amethyst-purple abalone shells gives way to a sprawl of sand the color of well-steeped tea. The shallow waters are green and red with seaweed, but past the breakers the ocean shades into royal blue. Here, you'll see backstroking penguins and cormorants dive-bombing for sea bass. Reaching the opposite end of the beach—where a colony of penguins, their feathers glossy with seawater, make tentative, waddling trips to and from the water's edge—requires a 40-minute ATV ride over a plain strewn with stones and bones bleached white by the ceaseless Patagonian sun. There are sea elephant vertebrae the size of a child's pelvic bone, penguin rib cages dangling strips of skin and tufts of feathers, and beaks and crab claws and leathery scraps of cormorant feet. It's an astonishing landscape, an inverted graveyard, the bright-white bones making for thousands of memento mori. The beach is backstopped by a modest mountain, and it's here that you might witness the heartbreaking sight of a solitary sick penguin, tottering into the hills to die alone amid this harsh and beautiful terrain.
The 411: Reaching the charming eight-room El Pedral Lodge is an adventure in itself: A two-hour flight from Buenos Aires delivers you to the one-horse town of Trelew; from there, it's a one-hour drive down a lunar, unpaved road to a stretch of ranchland that feels, truly, like the ends of the earth. The inn itself, an improbable white-and-red Victorian, is where you'll eat four scrumptious fresh-cooked meals a day; between gorgings, guests ride horses, go on guided hikes, and fish—all included in the room rate (54-11-4311-1919 in Buenos Aires; elpedrallodge.com; doubles, $104—$138).
When to go: Although penguins and sea lions can be seen year-round, different months bring different species to northern Patagonia's shores: Right whales breed from June to December, and orcas approach from October to April.

Punta Ninfas, Trelew
Good For: Scenery / Wildlife
It's a 20-minute scrabble down a 300-foot cliff to reach Punta Ninfas, one of the most spectacular stretches of Patagonia's wildlife-rich shores. In the spring (Sept.—Oct.), the beach is home to as many as 36,000 elephant seals, which spend the season mating in its cold, navy waters, and linger through the summer and fall, lolling in blubbery pods. (From October through April, the beach also serves as a pit stop for orcas, which swallow the newborn seals in a single gulp.) The main draw is the seals themselves (sixteenth-century Spanish sailors mistook them for sea nymphs, hence the point's name); however, the area is also a bird-lover's paradise. There are penguins, cormorants, terns, and even flamingos, which skim the water in flame-pink boomerang formations. Equally affecting, however, is the pebbled beach, a testament to this singular landscape's harsh beauty and the transience of life itself: The ground is littered with the carcasses of penguins and cormorants, sad and perfectly preserved, their wings spread as if in flight.
The 411: At El Pedral Lodge (see Playa la Vicera, above) guided tours of the area are included in the room rate.
When to go: There's good animal-spotting year-round, although climate change has altered some migratory patterns; flamingos, for example, which used to pass through in May or June, have lately been appearing a month earlier.