Montevideo
Uruguay’s capital and largest city, Montevideo is a favourite for many travellers: small enough to walk or cycle around, but big enough to have some great museums and nightlife, plus an impressive string of beaches along the Río de la Plata. Young montevideanos (people from Montevideo) take genuine pride in their city, and the arts and artisan scene is particularly strong.
Montevideo’s most interesting buildings and museums are in the Ciudad Vieja (Old Town), west of Plaza Independencia, the city’s largest square. Here, remnants of the colonial past such as Puerta de la Ciudadela, a vestigial stone gateway from Montevideo’s 18th-century citadel, rub shoulders with grand 19th-century legacies of the beef boom, including the beautifully restored, neoclassical Teatro Solís.
Hire a bicycle and go cruising along the riverfront Rambla, a 20km walking-jogging-cycling track that leads past Parque Rodó, one of Montevideo’s most popular parks, then follows the shoreline to the city’s eastern beaches: Punta Carretas, Pocitos, Buceo, Malvin and Carrasco.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "building", "marker-color": "#e32c31"}

Mercado del Puerto
No visitor should miss Montevideo’s old port market building, at the foot of Pérez Castellano; the building’s impressive wrought-iron superstructure shelters a gaggle of bustling parrillas (steak restaurants). On weekend afternoons in particular, it’s a lively, colorful place where the city’s artists, craftspeople and street musicians hang out.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "shop", "marker-color": "#f1ae29"}

Museo del Carnaval
This museum houses a wonderful collection of costumes, drums, masks, recordings and photos documenting the 100-plus-year history of Montevideo’s Carnaval. Behind the museum is a café and a courtyard where spectators can view performances during the summer months. Touch-screen displays offer limited English-language commentary.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "museum"}

Museo de los Andes
Opened in 2013, this unique museum documents the 1972 Andean plane crash (made famous in the book Alive!) that cost 29 Uruguayans their lives and profoundly impacted Uruguay’s national psyche. Using original objects and photos from the crash site, it tells the story of the 16 survivors, who battled harrowing conditions for 72 days before returning alive to a stunned nation. The museum is a labour of love for director Jörg Thomsen, a personal friend of many of the families affected.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "museum"}

Casa Rivera
Former home of Fructuoso Rivera (Uruguay’s first president and Colorado Party founder), this neoclassical 1802 building is the centrepiece of Montevideo’s National Historical Museum, with a collection of paintings, documents, furniture and artefacts that trace the history of Uruguay’s 19th-century path to independence. Several other historic Ciudad Vieja homes nearby, officially part of the museum, are rarely open to visitors.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "museum"}

Museos del Gaucho y de la Moneda
Housed in the ornate Palacio Heber, this museum eloquently conveys the deep attachments between the gauchos, their animals and the land. Its superb collection of historical artefacts includes horse gear, silverwork, and maté (a bitter ritual tea) and bombillas (metal straws with filters, used for drinking maté) in whimsical designs.

Museo Nacional de Artes Visuales
Uruguay’s largest collection of paintings is housed here in Parque Rodó. The spacious rooms are graced with works by Blanes, Cúneo, Figari, Gurvich, Torres García and other famous Uruguayans.

Museo del Fútbol
A must-see for any fútbol fan, this museum displays memorabilia from Uruguay’s 1930 and 1950 World Cup wins. Visitors can also tour the stands.

Feria de Tristán Narvaja
This colourful Sunday-morning outdoor market is a decades-long tradition begun by Italian immigrants. It sprawls from Av 18 de Julio northwards along Calle Tristán Narvaja, spilling over onto side streets. You can find used books, music, clothing, live animals, antiques and souvenirs in its many makeshift stalls.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "shop", "marker-color": "#f1ae29"}

Feria de Antigüedades
Every Saturday, vendors take over Ciudad Vieja’s central square, selling antique door knockers, saddles, household goods and just about anything else you can imagine. A smaller contingent of vendors appears on the plaza some weekdays.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "shop", "marker-color": "#f1ae29"}

Colonia del Sacramento
Take a step back in time as you explore the gracious 18th-century cobbled streets and fascinating history of former smugglers’ haven, Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay. Check out the great bar and restaurant scene and the gorgeous position on a peninsula of the Río de la Plata. All this and its super-accessible location a short hop away from both Montevideo and Buenos Aires make ‘Colonia’ a classic tourist town, but even on weekends it’s worth dodging the crowds and letting yourself get seduced by the town’s eternal charms.
Colonia’s Barrio Histórico is filled with visual delights. Picturesque spots for wandering include the roughly cobbled 18th-century Calle de los Suspiros (Street of Sighs), lined with tile-and-stucco colonial houses, the Paseo de San Gabriel, on the western riverfront, the Puerto Viejo (Old Port) and the historic center’s two main squares: sprawling Plaza Mayor 25 de Mayo and shady Plaza de Armas (the latter is also known as Plaza Manuel Lobo).
Faro is one of the town’s most prominent landmarks, Colonia’s 19th-century working lighthouse provides an excellent view of the old town and the Río de la Plata. It stands within the ruins of the 17th-century Convento de San Francisco, just off the southwest corner of Plaza Mayor 25 de Mayo.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "building", "marker-color": "#e32c31"}

Carmelo
Carmelo, dating from 1816, is a laid-back town of cobblestone streets and low old houses, a center for yachting, fishing and exploring the Paraná Delta. Surrounded by vineyards, it has also increasingly become a destination for wine tourism.
The town straddles the Arroyo de las Vacas, a stream that widens into a sheltered harbour just below the Río Uruguay’s confluence with the Río de la Plata. The town center, seven blocks north of the arroyo, is Plaza Independencia. South of the arroyo across the bridge lies the pleasant beach of Playa Seré, backed by a large park with open space, camping, swimming and a huge casino. Daily launches connect Carmelo to the Buenos Aires suburb of Tigre.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "building", "marker-color": "#e32c31"}

Mercedes
Capital of the department of Soriano, Mercedes is a livestock center with cobblestone streets and a small pedestrian zone around an 18th-century cathedral on central Plaza Independencia. The town’s most appealing feature is its leafy waterfront along the south bank of the Río Negro.

Museo de la Revolucion Industrial
Oxo cubes sustained WWI soldiers in the trenches, Jules Verne sang their praises in his book Around the Moon, Stanley brought them on his search for Livingstone, and Scott and Hillary took them to Antarctica and Everest. More than 25,000 people from more than 60 countries worked here, and at its peak the factory was exporting nearly 150 different products.
Enshrined as Uruguay’s newest Unesco World Heritage Site in July 2015, the former factory is now a museum – the Museo de la Revolución Industria. Dozens of colorful displays, ranging from the humorous to the poignant, bring the factory’s history vividly to life. Note that most signs are in Spanish only.
One- to two-hour guided tours (schedule varies) grant access to the intricate maze of passageways, corrals and abandoned slaughterhouses behind the museum. At 11am on Thursdays, Saturdays and Sundays visitors can also tour the Casa Grande, a mansion that once housed the factory’s manager.
The adjacent town of Fray Bentos, with its pretty riverfront promenade, is the southernmost overland crossing over the Río Uruguay into Argentina.

Paysandú
On the east bank of the Río Uruguay, connected to Colón, Argentina, by the Puente Internacional General Artigas, Uruguay’s third-largest city is mainly of interest as a stepping stone for travellers en route to or from Argentina. To see the city’s wilder side, visit during Easter Week for the annual beer festival, when there’s plenty of live music, open-air cinema and a ready supply of a certain carbonated alcoholic beverage.

Salto
Built near the falls where the Río Uruguay makes its ‘big jump’ (‘salto grande’ in Spanish), Salto is Uruguay’s second-largest city and the most northerly crossing point to Argentina. It’s a relaxed place with some 19th-century architecture and a pretty riverfront. People come here for the nearby hot springs and the recreation area above the enormous Salto Grande hydroelectric dam.

Tacuarembó
In the rolling hills along the Cuchilla de Haedo, Tacuarembó is gaucho country. It’s also the alleged birthplace of tango legend Carlos Gardel.

Piriápolis
With its grand old hotel and beachfront promenade backed by small mountains, Piriápolis is vaguely reminiscent of a Mediterranean beach town and exudes a certain old-school coastal-resort charm. It was developed for tourism in the early 20th century by Uruguayan entrepreneur Francisco Piria, who built the imposing landmark Argentino Hotel and an eccentric hillside residence known as Castillo de Piria.
Almost all the action happens in the 10-block stretch of beachfront between Av Artigas (the access road from Ruta 9) and Av Piria (where the coastline makes a broad curve southwards). Streets back from the beach quickly become residential.
The surrounding countryside holds many interesting features, including two of Uruguay’s highest summits.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "building_small", "marker-color": "#e32c31"}

Cerro Pan de Azúcar
About 5km north of Piriápolis, hikers can climb Uruguay’s fourth-highest ‘peak,’ Cerro Pan de Azúcar (389m). The trail (2½ hours round trip) starts from the parking lot of the Reserva de Fauna Autóctona, narrowing from a gradual dirt road into a steep path marked with red arrows.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "trail", "marker-color": "#3cc954"}

Punta del Este
Punta’s an international beach resort, packed with celebrities and swarming with Brazilian and Argentine tourists from Christmas through Carnaval. Out of season it’s a bit of a ghost town, although the surrounding beaches are still nice.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "building_small", "marker-color": "#e32c31"}

Isla Gorriti
Boats leave every half hour or so (daily from December through Carnaval, weekends rest of year) from Punta del Este’s yacht harbour for the 15-minute trip to this nearby island, which has excellent sandy beaches, a couple of restaurants and the ruins of Baterías de Santa Ana, an 18th-century fortification.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "swimming", "marker-color": "#ffcc00"}

Isla de Lobos
About 10km offshore, this small island is home to the world’s second-largest southern sea-lion colony (200,000 at last count), along with colonies of southern fur seals and South America’s tallest lighthouse. The island is protected and can only be visited on an organized tour.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "park", "marker-color": "#3cc954"}

La Mano
Punta’s most famous landmark is this monster-sized sculpted hand protruding from the sands of Playa Brava. Constructed in iron and cement by Chilean artist Mario Irarrázabal, it won first prize in a monumental art contest in 1982 and has been a Punta fixture ever since. The hand exerts a magnetic attraction over thousands of visitors every year, who climb and jump off its digits and pose for photos with it. Look for it just southeast of the bus station. IMAGE: Coolcaesar, CC BY-SA 3.0 , via Wikimedia Commons maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "star", "marker-color": "#ffcc00"}

Cabo Polonio
Northeast of La Paloma at Km 264.5 on Ruta 10 lies the turnoff to Cabo Polonio, one of the country’s wildest areas and home to its second-biggest sea-lion colony, near a tiny fishing village on a windswept point crowned by a lonely lighthouse. In 2009 the region was declared a national park, under the protective jurisdiction of Uruguay’s SNAP program.
Despite a growing influx of tourists (and a spiffy entrance portal), Cabo Polonio remains one of Uruguay’s most rustic coastal villages. There are no banking services, and the town’s limited electricity is derived from generators, and solar and wind power.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "park", "marker-color": "#3cc954"}

La Paloma
The coastal towns of La Paloma and La Pedrera offer some of Uruguay’s best surfing. La Paloma owes its remarkably dependable waves to its tip-of-the-peninsula location: if there’s no swell on the left, it’ll be coming in on the right. La Pedrera, set atop a bluff with magnificent beach views, is also famous for its lively Carnaval festivities. Both towns fill up with young Uruguayans in summertime but get downright sleepy in the off-season, with many businesses shutting down completely from April through November.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "building_small"}

Punta del Diablo
Once a sleepy fishing village, Punta del Diablo has long since become a prime summer getaway for Uruguayans and Argentines, and the epicenter of Uruguay’s backpacker beach scene. Uncontrolled development has pushed further inland and along the coast in recent years, but the stunning shoreline and laid-back lifestyle still exert their appeal. To avoid the crowds, come outside the Christmas-to-February peak season; in particular, avoid the first half of January, when as many as 30,000 visitors inundate the town.
From the town’s traditional center, a sandy ‘plaza’ 200m inland from the ocean, small dirt streets fan out in all directions.
During the day you can rent surfboards or horses along the town’s main beach, or trek an hour north to Parque Nacional Santa Teresa. In the evening there are sunsets to watch, spontaneous bonfires and drum sessions to drop in on.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "building_small"}

Parque Nacional Santa Teresa
This army-administered national park, 35km south of the Brazilian border, attracts many Uruguayan and Brazilian visitors to its relatively uncrowded beaches, including Playa Grande, Playa del Barco and Playa de las Achiras.
The Capatacía (park headquarters), 1km east of Ruta 9, has an Antel phone office, a post office, a market, a bakery and a restaurant, along with a very small zoo and a plant conservatory.
The park’s star attraction, 4km north of park headquarters on Ruta 9, is the impressive hilltop Fortaleza de Santa Teresa, a fortress begun by the Portuguese in 1762 and finished by the Spaniards after they captured the site in 1793.
At the park’s north-eastern corner is Cerro Verde, a coastal bluff providing important sea-turtle habitat. Directly opposite the park entrance, on the west side of Ruta 9, a 5km dead-end dirt road leads to Laguna Negra, a vast lagoon where flamingos, capybaras and other wildlife can be spotted.
The park offers 2000 dispersed campsites in eucalyptus and pine groves, along with a simple hostel and a variety of 4 to 10-person cabañas for rent.
Buses from Punta del Diablo (US$1.50, 15 minutes) will drop you off at Km 302 on Ruta 9; from here, it’s a flat 1km walk east to the Capatacía (park headquarters).
Or, walk north along the beach a couple of kilometres from Punta del Diablo to reach the park’s southern edge at Playa Grande.
maphub-meta:{"marker-symbol": "park", "marker-color": "#3cc954"}