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Highway signs in Patagonia point south towards “Fin du Mundo,” which translates to “End of the World.” They aren’t joking.

Patagonia is in the southernmost part of South America, spanning both Chile and Argentina. It is one of the most remote and undeveloped places on earth. The southern tip of Patagonia is an archipelago called “Tierra del Fuego” (Land of Fire), not because it is hot but rather because it is cold! When Europeans first explored this area in the sixteenth century, they noted that local people lit lots of fires for warmth and signaling. Hence the name, Land of Fire.

Patagonia is defined by soaring peaks, glaciers and lakes of the Andes Mountains on its Western flank, and remote high plains and deserts to the East.

South of the Tierra del Fuego Archipelago lies Cape Horn, the southern tip of South America. Further south is the Drake Passage, where the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans meet. The combination of active tectonic plates and the ocean currents funneled through a narrow sea makes the Drake Passage the roughest stretch of ocean in the world. This unforgiving landscape has stymied explorers and adventurers for centuries.

The great appeal of Patagonia lies in its unspoiled natural beauty combined with world-class hiking. Cruise ships stop in Punta Arenas (on the Magellan Channel in Chile) or in Ushuaia (on the Beagle Channel in Argentina) and offload passengers for half- or full-day adventure hikes.

Local hostels and hotels offer guides for longer hikes, camping and even mountaineering. These remote southern cities are awash with climbers and backpackers planning their next foray into the wilderness. December through February is summer and peak season for hiking in this part of the world.

Patagonian wildlife is also exotic and unique. Bird species like Magellanic penguins and marine mammals like orcas (killer whales), sea lions and elephant seals are abundant.

The apex land predator is the puma, an elusive, solitary mountain lion. These creatures are really difficult to see or photograph without the help of professional guides and high-tech camera equipment.

Their principal prey, however, is everywhere, especially in Torres del Paine National Park. Guanaco is a wild relative of the domesticated llama. Guanaco has an extraordinary strategy for guarding against predators. One animal is designated as a sentinel and stationed at an elevated position to keep an eye out for predators. The herd can then be alerted to danger by an audible warning call.

When the sentinel strategy fails, the puma feast and one of the largest bird species in the world, the Andean condor, circles above with an eye on leftovers. These magnificent creatures, with 10-foot wing spans, soar on thermal air currents as high as 18,000 feet. This allows them to scan vast areas of the Patagonian steppes for their next meal.

Guanaco bone piles are scattered seemingly everywhere. But Patagonia is also rich in fossil evidence of animals that no longer exist, and when they did, they could be found nowhere else on earth.

Titanosaur bones (from the largest dinosaur species that ever lived) were found in Northern Patagonia. Now-extinct giant ground sloths roamed across Patagonia as recently as a few thousand years ago.

The best place to see fossils from these unusual specimens is at the Museo Paleontológico Egidio Feruglio in Argentina. Traveling exhibits occasionally reach major museums (such as Chicago’s Field Museum) in the United States and around the world.

If you love wilderness hiking, you owe it to yourself to explore this end of the Earth. You can tell your friends and family you are going south, where it is warmer in the winter — all the way south, to the end of the earth and the Land of Fire.