Subsecretaría de Turismo de Neuquén

Villa Traful

Villa Traful is located on the Andes Mountain Range, in the department of Los Lagos, in the southwest area of the province. It occupies a fraction of Nahuel Huapi National Park, and it lies on the southern bank of Traful Lake. This mountain village is situated within the tourist area Patagonia of Lakes, and it lies 336 miles from Neuquén Capital City.

Discovering the village

The untouched nature turns Traful into a special place that you can discover taking long walks and enjoying the landscape. An attraction you should not miss is the area called Cerro Negro (Black Hill) and Penitentes, that allows you to admire the lake and the majestic Lanín volcano (from the Argentine side) and Villarrica volcano (from the Chilean side) from the scenic overlooks; from Traful scenic overlook you get a wonderful view on the lake and its surrounding hills.

Another interesting option is to go trekking to visit the different cascades of the area. The tours around Lake Traful let you admire its incomparable beauty, and take you to visit the submerged forest, which consists of 60 cypress trees that stand on the bottom of the lake, some of them sticking out only their tips.

If you cross the lake you will find the Virgin grotto, located on a 23 feet high basalt rocky cliff, which has two galleries where stalactites mix with ferns and wild flowers.

Enchanted landscape

Villa Traful is known for its landscape beauty and its untouched nature, surrounded by coigue forests and the majestic shapes of the Andean Patagonian mountain range. It keeps a tourist style that favours the preservation of the landscape and the mountain spirit.

The creation of Nahuel Huapi National Park in 1937 helped preserve the environment and the population, and force the regional development.

In 1994, the national state donated 600 hectares of Hahuel Huapi National Park to the province of Neuquén. This gave life to the Development Commission of Villa Traful, created to activate tourism within a frame of environmental protection and preservation.

Warmth And Services

This village is a tourist centre with 500 inhabitants whose main economic resource is tourism. It holds cottages, inns, camping sites, restaurants, cafés and services to support the sportive activities like fishing, trekking, and horseback riding, among others, which are a proof of the quality of services lent to visitors.

Heaven on earth

The capricious shapes of the basalt rocks produced by the action of wind, the cypress forests, ferns, climbing plants and moss, cascades and streams that come down from the hillsides of the mountain range, constitute a natural paradise that, along with the warmth of the fireplaces and the peaceful silence, turns Villa Traful into an ideal tourist centre to rest and to discover nature in all its magnificence.

Anglers in action

Sport fishing is another attraction in Villa Traful, and the main fishing sites are Machónico and Pichi Traful rivers, Traful Lake, and Catarata stream, which make up an ideal habitat for species like landlocked salmon, and rainbow, brown and fontinalis trout.

Argentina