How we spent three days at Iguazú Falls

We spent three days in Iguazu Falls, with two days visiting the National Park on both the Argentinian and Brazilian sides. You can find out everything you need to know about planning a trip to Iguazu Falls here, but in this blog, I’ll give you a deeper dive into what to expect from a two-day Iguazu Falls National Park itinerary, including where to stay and which order to do things in.

How to get to Iguazu Falls

The best way to get to Iguazu Falls is to fly into Puerto Iguazu (IGR) in Argentina or Foz do Iguaçu (IGU) in Brazil. Which side you choose depends on where you’re coming from, as both airports generally serve domestic airports.

We landed in Puerto Iguazu, Argentina and spent one night there before driving over to the Brazilian side for a night.

To access the national park and waterfalls themselves, you can take public buses, taxis, or join a tour group.

You can find out the best order for one or two night stays in Iguazu, depending on where you start and where you end, in my blog about visiting Iguazu Fall here.

How to get to Iguazu Falls in Argentina

You can catch a public bus (Rio Uruguay) from Terminal de Buses De Puerto Iguazú. In 2026, this cost 10,000 pesos (~£5) per person each way. Buses run every 20 minutes.

You can also catch an Uber or taxi from the town and back, which cost us just under 20,000 pesos each way – so less than the bus between two people! This is more flexible and we had no issue with signal when ordering cabs.

If you are on a guided tour, most of these also provide transport to and from the park.

Once you arrive, you will get your park entrance ticket and there is a train station at the start of the park. You can catch a train from here to Cataratas for the senderos or stay on to Garganta del Diablo, or walk to Cataratas (about 15 mins easy walk) and get the train from there to Garganta del Diablo instead of waiting.

How to get to Cataratas do Iguaçu in Brazil

You can get a public bus from the Urban bus terminal in Foz do Iguaçu and take bus 120 to Iguaçu National Park. These also run approximately every 20 minutes and take about 30 minutes.

Instead, we found it quicker and easier to catch Ubers each way, which took about 25 minutes and cost about 38 Brazilian Real (~£5) each way.

Once you arrive at the park you will buy your entry ticket and join a queue for the bus into the park. This is included in the ticket price. Disembark at Path of the Falls unless you have accessibility issues in which case stay on until the final stop.

Where to stay in Iguazu Falls

In Argentina (Puerto Iguazu) there are a number of hotels for all budgets including those in town and those with a more remote jungle feel. We stayed at the Saint George Hotel which was perfectly located. We had restaurants and bars nearby but were a 5-10 minute walk from the loud main strip. It’s about 20-25 minutes to the national park and 30 minutes to the airport.

In Brazil (Foz do Iguaçu) we were meant to stay at the Del Rey Quality Hotel but they double-booked our room (although we had booked well in advance) and didn’t seem too bothered by the situation so I would not recommend that hotel!

Fortunately there was room at the Wyndham Golden Foz Suites, which had a rooftop pool, a very good gym, a bar, and lots of great places to eat nearby. Like Puerto Iguazú, Foz do Iguaçu is well set up for tourists so you won’t have an issue finding a hotel to suit your budget and location preference. This city is much bigger than the town on the Argentinian side and it’s safer to stay in the central area.

What I would recommend on both sides of the park is finding a hotel with a pool or other leisure space (if your budget allows) as we found we had a few hours to spare between getting back from the park and going to dinner on both days. So we really appreciated being able to relax by the pool since there’s not a lot else to do in either Puerto Iguazu or Fox do Iguaçu.

Iguazu Falls 2-day itinerary

Depending on where you land and where you spend your first night, you might do this in the opposite order to me. But since we flew in from Mendoza via Buenos Aires, we started in Puerto Iguazu then went over to Foz do Iguaçu.

This is how we spent two days in Iguazu Falls.

Day 1 - Puerto Iguazu, Argentina

We arrived in Puerto Iguazú, Argentina in the late afternoon meaning we didn’t have time to visit the falls the same day. But if you have an early morning flight then you could.

Instead we checked in at our hotel in the town and relaxed by the pool before wandering into town for dinner. Puerto Iguazú is small but it has plenty of bars and restaurants, especially along the main strip, Avenida Brasil.

Iguazu National Park opens at 8am and it’s advised to arrive before 10am to beat the crowds. We left the hotel at 8:30am and got a taxi which took a little under 30 minutes.

When you arrive at the park you buy or collect your tickets from the main office at the front. This includes access to the trains that take you around the park on this side. There is a station at the start of the park, and another (Cataratas) a 15-20 minute walk into the park which both take you to the main stop for Garganta del Diablo. There was a 30 minute wait for the train from the first station when we arrived, so we decided to do the easy walk to Cataratas where we were able to take the first train to Garganta del Diablo.

The train takes about 20 minutes and from the final stop, you’ll walk another 20 minutes or so along raised walkways over the water to the main lookout for Garganta del Diablo.

At about 10:15am this area was busy but not unbearably so, and we stayed about half an hour before walking back to Garganta del Diablo station and getting the train back to Cataratas. This is where the two circuit walkways start. First we did the Superior (longer) circuit which takes you over the top of the falls with a good view of the Brazilian side. This took us about 30-40 minutes. We then walked the Inferior (shorter) circuit which took us 20-30 minutes, and has views over San Martin Island.

There’s a couple of restaurants in this area and in the entrance to the park, but the food is expensive and didn’t look good (burgers and hotdogs, a buffet…). So since it was only 1pm when we were ready to leave, we went back into town and ate there.

You could definitely spend longer in the park than we did but since it wasn’t too busy we were able to move around the viewpoints and walkways fairly quickly.

At about 3pm we took a taxi from outside Hostel Saint George over to Brazil. Remises and other licensed cabs in this area have access to a fast lane to cross the border and we were lucky as there was no traffic. We passed through the crossing to leave Argentina in about 5 minutes and at the office to enter Brazil there was no queue and we were done in under 10 minutes. We arrived at our hotel in Foz do Iguaçu before 4pm… but you should allow 2 hours for this crossing as the border can get very busy.

This gave us plenty of time to chill at the pool before going out for dinner in Foz do Iguaçu, which is much larger than Puerto Iguazú.

If you only had one day to see both sides of the falls, you could have a much faster lunch than we did and aim to arrive at the Brazilian side for around 3pm as the park closes at 6pm.

Timings breakdown:

8:30am - Uber from hotel to National Park
9am - Arrived at the park, bought our entry ticket, and walked to Cataratas station
9:30am - Caught the train from Cataratas to Garganta del Diablo station
9:50am - Followed the walkway our to Garganta del Diablo
10:15am - Arrived at lookout, spent time at the falls, and walked back to station
11:20am - Arrived back at Cataratas station and began the Superior sendero
12:10pm - Completed the loop and began the Inferior sendero
1pm - Uber back to Puerto Iguazú for lunch and collecting luggage
3pm - Took a taxi to Brazil, with access to faster lanes for border crossings*
4pm - Check-in at hotel in Foz do Iguaçu

*Note: This timing was with no queues at the border crossing at 3pm, meaning our car journey took 50 minutes total. You should leave time for this to take up to 2 hours at busy times.

Day 2 - Foz do Iguaçu

The Brazilian side of Iguaçu Falls is smaller but more impressive as you get a view over the Argentinian side where most of the waterfalls are.

We took an Uber at 10am to the park entrance, which takes about the same amount of time as Puerto Iguazú to the Argentinian park entrance at about 10:30am. As we arrived later than at the Argentinian side the queues were much longer and our estimated time of entry was 12pm. I don’t usually pay extra for VIP tickets or add-one, but this time it seemed worth it…

We paid about £18 each to upgrade to a VIP pass to skip the queue which we thought might just be an upselling tactic but actually the queue was long so that had we waited, we would only just have been entering the park by the time we were leaving that afternoon!

In fact it later turned out to be even more worth it as you can also queue jump for the bus at the other end to get back to the park entrance. So if there’s a very long queue and you haven’t pre-booked your tickets I definitely recommend upgrading to VIP. You also get a discount on food and a few other things that we didn’t use.

Rather than a train there is a bus on this side of the falls. It makes a few stops but the one to get off at is Path of the Falls outside the Belmond Hotel. If you have accessibility issues you can go to the final stop where there is step-free access to the waterfall viewpoint.

It took us about 35 minutes to walk to the path to the main lookout, including stopping to take photos along the way. When you arrive at the main viewpoint, you are at a much lower point looking out onto the mouth of the falls, and it’s incredible to see the impact of the water and how it casts rainbows across the valley. It does get wet from the spray but it’s so warm there that you dry off quickly and we didn’t bother with rain coats or ponchos, although some people did.

From here we walked to the final bus stop to get the return ride the whole way to the park entrance. There was a long queue here but luckily we were able to skip it with our wristbands. We were back at the park entrance at 12:40pm and back in town for lunch at 1pm. We then relaxed by the pool at our hotel until it was time to catch our flight out of Foz do Iguaçu (IGU) to Rio.