Boat and ferry services in Argentina fall into two broad categories: those that serve as merely a functional form of transport; and (with some overlap), those that you take to enjoy tourist sights. The two ferry services you are most likely to use are the comfortable ones from Buenos Aires to Colonia del Sacramento in Uruguay, which provide plenty of space for day-trippers to sunbathe and may entertain you with a game of bingo; and the much more spartan, functional Chilean ones that transport foot passengers and vehicles across the Magellan Straits into Tierra del Fuego at Punta Delgada and Porvenir. There are also several practical river crossings throughout the Litoral region, connecting towns such as Concordia with Salto in Uruguay; Rosario with Victoria in Entre Ríos; Goya in Corrientes with Reconquista in Santa Fe; as well as numerous crossings from Misiones to neighbouring Paraguay and Brazil. Tigre, just to the northwest of the capital, tends towards the pleasure-trips end of the market, and offers boat trips around the Delta, to the Isla Martín García, and up to Villa Paranacito in Entre Ríos.

In Patagonia, most lacustrine boat trips are designed purely for their scenic value. Chief among these are the different options to behold the polar scenery of the Parque Nacional Los Glaciares near El Calafate at close quarters, especially the world-famous Perito Moreno Glacier. As popular is the Three Lakes Crossing from Bariloche through to Chile, a trip that can be truncated so as to access the Pampa Linda area of Parque Nacional Nahuel Huapi. Of other notable launches, one crosses San Martín de los Andes' Lago Lolog to access the interior of Parque Nacional Lanín; and a tourist passenger launch crosses the western end of Lago Viedma, linking Estancia Helsingfors with El Chaltén. Further south, there's also a new catamaran service that crosses the Beagle Channel from Ushuaia to Puerto Williams in Chile, a popular day-trip from Argentine Tierra del Fuego's provincial capital.