A global roundup of the best places to live out your cowboy holiday dreams. Photo / Tourism and Events Queensland
From Argentina’s gauchos to Italy’s butteri and America’s rodeo wranglers, cowboy culture is booming worldwide. Erika Ebsworth-Goold shares where to saddle up for an unforgettable experience.
Credit Beyoncé’s Cowboy Carter album and tour, or perhaps Kevin Costner’s star turn in the western saga Yellowstone, but curiosity about cowboy culture – from the gauchos of Argentina to American ranch hands – is sky-high. Some adventurous travellers are even planning epic holidays to capture a bit of that self-reliant, rough-riding spirit. Here’s a round-up of the best places around the world where you can channel your inner buckaroo.
Argentina’s gauchos drove cattle across the country’s grasslands – aka La Pampas – beginning in the early 1800s. Interest in these legends remains high, with tourists seeking out the traditional gaucho experience. Estancias across Argentina offer visitors the chance to live the culture firsthand. One of the best is Estancia Los Potreros, near Cordova. Here, you get customised trail rides and can help the onsite gauchos with daily tasks including cattle counting and vaccinating. The best part: they can also swap the gaucho’s traditional yerba mate and peasant picnics for incredible Argentinian wines and locally sourced gourmet meals.
Stockmen, also known as ringers, are part of Australia’s cultural fabric. For generations, they’ve worked the country’s craggy landscapes and vast outback. Stockmen first arrived on the scene in the early 19th century, when European settlers established cattle and sheep ranches. Their adept rustling skills were passed down through the generations and are still in use today. To see modern Australian cowboys put their roping techniques to the test, head to the Mount Isa Mines Rodeo in northwest Queensland. The Birdsville Races, held each September, also have a distinct stockman flair.
Italy’s cowboys, the butteri, have worked the land between southwestern Tuscany and northern Lazio since Etruscan times, tending long-horned Maremmana cattle. The butteri employ an elegant, quick riding style and carry the traditional mazzarella, a hand-carved wooden staff used to open gates, herd cattle and train horses.
While the butteri still ride the open land across central Italy, their numbers are dwindling, leading lawmakers to kick off training programmes to bring new wranglers into the fold. The six-room Tenuta Di Alberese, located in the Maremma region of Tuscany, offers visitors horseback tours with the butteri who live and work nearby.
When the Spanish first came to Mexico in 1519, they knew they’d need vaqueros, or cowboys, to wrangle the cattle they brought with them. They quickly trained indigenous men to ride horseback on the range.
Those Mexican vaqueros eventually took their skills with them throughout North America, developing the art of lasso (from the Spanish lazo, or rope) and later inspiring their American counterparts. Visitors to the popular tourist town of San Miguel de Allende can get an authentic vaquero experience with a full-day ride at Rancho Xotolar, a working ranch. Bonus: During the tour, you’ll also spy ancient Toltec pyramids.
Without Spanish vaqueros, there wouldn’t be “cowboy culture”. These original ranch hands worked the Iberian Peninsula’s haciendas during medieval times and were responsible for rounding up livestock and branding the animals to aid in identification. Their horseback skills proved so useful that conquistadors often brought them along as they expanded the Spanish empire around the world.
Today, you can get a modern-day vaquero fix during the annual El Rocío Saca de las Yeguas. During the event, held every June 26, hundreds of mares are brought to the shrine of the Virgin del Rocío for a special blessing. The animals are then driven to nearby Alamonte for a livestock fair and sale.
You might not consider Southeast Asia a hotspot for cowboy culture, but in the Philippines, rodeo reigns supreme. Each spring, hundreds of contestants flock to the Mastabe City Rodeo Festival to show off their lasso skills, ride bulls, and take part in the carambola, an attempt to restrain rowdy cows by hand. Many more come out to watch the spectacle, all dressed in their western best. As with many other cowboy hotspots, the Filipino tradition took shape when Spanish colonisers arrived on the scene and brought cattle and horses with them. Locals learned to manage and herd cows and steer by horseback, and that tradition still remains strong.
America’s cowboy culture is truly a melting pot. People of African, Mexican and indigenous descent all joined cattle drives moving steer throughout the western states after the country’s Civil War. Rodeos, roundups, and stampedes remain cherished parts of American tradition; there are many spots to partake in that cowboy spirit throughout the country’s southwest. One of the swankiest is Paws Up, located on Montana’s Blackfoot River. Guests at the luxe resort enjoy trail riding, authentic dude ranch cookouts and glamping accommodations. The global travel company Trafalgar also offers a family cowboy tour from Salt Lake City, Utah to Rapid City, South Dakota.