Curated Itinerary
Jesuit Missions of the Guaraní: Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay
The Guaraní mission circuit across three borders: San Ignacio Miní, São Miguel das Missões, Trinidad and Jesús de Tavarangue — Guaraní Baroque in red sandstone.
Take this route into Google Maps
From San Ignacio Miní to Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue – Virtual Tour 360°, in the order we curated them.
➤ Turn on the navigator in Google MapsIt opens in the Google Maps app with every stop already loaded, in the order we put them in. From there the route is yours: pick how you travel — on foot, by bike, by public transport or by car — change where you start and where you end, drag the stops into a different order, and add places of your own along the way.
This itinerary crosses three borders through the Jesuit missions of the Guaraní, the mission-town network founded from 1609 in the forests where Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay meet. Four stops cover the UNESCO listings of all three countries: San Ignacio Miní’s readable town plan, the monumental hilltop church of São Miguel das Missões, and Paraguay’s pair — Trinidad, the largest mission, and Jesús de Tavarangue, abandoned mid-construction with its arches carrying no roof.
The order forms a triangle around the upper Paraná, and the network is the point: thirty towns shared an economy, a printed language and an architectural style — Guaraní Baroque — until the 1767 expulsion of the Jesuits ended the experiment in a single decree.
Base yourself in Posadas and Encarnación on either side of the river, add the Brazilian leg via Santo Ângelo, and travel between April and October. Carry your passport everywhere: the route treats three countries as the single region it once was.
Read the full story of this route in the CHO Magazine →
Get this route — explore at your own pace
The walk and the notes are open to everyone, right here. To take the route with you — the GPX and KML tracks for your phone — you need a CHO account, and a free one is enough. We do not sell these routes: we build them ourselves and give them to the people who read us.
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This route was built with the tools we give operators.
Guides, associations and cultural operators build their own routes here: pick the stops from the archive, add your notes, and the map, the GPX and the printable version come out on their own. Your programme gets a permanent page, your events go on the city pages people read while planning — and if you sell your route as a road-book or a virtual tour, you receive 80% of the price net of tax.
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A word from your host
These are the emptiest great ruins in South America — you will often have a whole mission town to yourself. Give Trinidad the late afternoon: the carved angel-musicians in low sun are the image you will keep.
Getting around
Posadas (AR) and Encarnación (PY) face each other across a bridge and cover three of the four stops; São Miguel needs a Brazilian detour via Santo Ângelo. Roads are good, distances short, borders real — passport always in pocket.
Step by step
San Ignacio Miní
A Jesuit mission founded in 1610 in northern Argentina, San Ignacio Miní represents the colonial encounter between Spanish Christianity and indigenous…
Ruins of São Miguel das Missões
A 1687 Jesuit mission in Brazil whose baroque church and ruins document the synthesis of European evangelisation and indigenous Guaraní culture…
Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue – Virtual Tour 360°
Two 17th-century Jesuit missions in eastern Paraguay, founded in 1609 and designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1993 for their architectural…
Jesuit Missions of La Santísima Trinidad de Paraná and Jesús de Tavarangue – Virtual Tour 360°
Two 17th-century Jesuit missions in eastern Paraguay, founded in 1609 and designated UNESCO World Heritage Sites in 1993 for their architectural…
Download for tour navigation
🔒 The walk and the notes are open to everyone on this page. The files to take with you — the stop list as a PDF, and the GPX and KML tracks for your phone — come with a CHO account, and the free one includes them.
Walk it with the navigator on
It opens in the Google Maps app with every stop already loaded, in the order we put them in. From there the route is yours: pick how you travel — on foot, by bike, by public transport or by car — change where you start and where you end, drag the stops into a different order, and add places of your own along the way.