Four Chiles, 4,300 km apart. Pick two.
Geysers at 4,300 metres in the north, granite and ice in the south, an island five hours offshore, and a capital in the middle with the Andes at the end of the street. Reviews of every tour you can book in all four.
One day in each Chile.
The busiest day out of San Pedro, Santiago, Puerto Natales and Hanga Roa, and what each one asks of you.
01The 4 a.m. dayEl Tatio Geysers TourThe Tatio field only steams properly in the cold, so the minibus leaves San Pedro at four and climbs to 4,300 metres. Bring the warmest thing you packed.
02Half a tank from SantiagoCajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with PicnicA canyon road out of Santiago, a reservoir the colour of antifreeze at 2,500 metres, and lunch laid out on the grass.
03The eight-hour dayPuerto Natales: Base of the Towers Day HikeEight hours up the moraine from Puerto Natales and back down again, for twenty minutes at the foot of the towers. Everything else in Patagonia is easier than this.
04Five hours offshoreRapa Nui Culture Sightseeing TourTongariki at first light, the quarry where the moai were cut and abandoned, and the crater the island grew out of.
The six towns a Chilean itinerary actually starts from.
A desert base at 2,400 metres, a capital under the Andes, a port stacked up forty-two hills, two Patagonian gateways and an island in the middle of the Pacific. Where to begin, and the best day out of each.
Patagonia is the part of Chile you have to plan around.
Everything down here runs on weather and daylight: the walk up to the towers, the boat that noses into the Grey glacier, the crossing to the penguin islands off Punta Arenas. It is two flights and a long bus ride from the capital, and it is worth every leg.
The Atacama sells four different days, and you want three of them.
Geysers at dawn, the Moon Valley at dusk, altiplano lagoons with flamingos standing in them at 4,200 metres, and a sky so dry the observatories moved here for it. San Pedro is the base for all of it, and almost nothing needs more than a day.
- 1El Tatio Geysers Tourfrom $70
- 2Piedras Rojas, Altiplanics Lagoons & Salar Full-Day Tourfrom $85
- 3Valle de la Luna Guided Tourfrom $63
The days more travellers take than anything else in Chile.
Every one of them →What fills up first across the whole country, from the canyon runs out of Santiago to the flights-and-all week in the far south.
1
Cajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with Picnic
Escape Santiago for Cajón del Maipo and Embalse del Yeso, with Andes views, village stops, a picnic, wine, and hotel pickup.
From · $37
Read our review →
2
Vina Del Mar, Valparaiso, Casablanca & Reñaca Tour
from $39
3
Small-Group Cajón del Maipo Full-Day Tour and Picnic
from $41
4
Valparaiso -Casablanca -Reñaca-Oceanic Rock-Concon
from $40
5
Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, & Casablanca Valley Tour
from $72
6
El Tatio Geysers Tour
from $70
7
Farellones Park Tour
from $54
8
Puerto Natales: Base of the Towers Day Hike
from $90
Three directions out of Santiago, and what each one costs.
The capital is ninety minutes from a cellar, two hours from snow at 3,000 metres and ninety minutes from the sea. Pick a direction. They are all day trips, and you sleep in the same bed.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · Cajon del Maipo & Embalse El Yeso Trip with Picnic
South, to the vineyardsConcha y Toro and the Maipo cellars, tasting from mid-morning, back for dinner.
Up, into the AndesFarellones and Valle Nevado at 3,000 metres. Snow in July, an empty mountain road in January.
West, to the coastThe Valparaíso hills and the Viña seafront, both in one run.
All 82 days you can do from Santiago →
What a day out in Chile actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The desert and the far south cost real money. The capital and the coast do not have to.
City walks, the Moon Valley run, museum entries and the small-group days out of Santiago.
The full-day standards: the Tatio geysers, the altiplano lagoons, the coast at Valparaíso, a day among the vines.
Torres del Paine from either end, the penguin crossings, private drivers and the multi-day desert routes.
Valparaíso is a port that climbed its own hills.
Forty-two cerros of painted houses stacked above a working container port, joined by Victorian funiculars that still creak up the slope for small change. The murals are on every stairway, and nobody is charging for those.
Every Valparaíso day →
Three things this country has that nowhere else does.
Desert, mountains and coastline are everywhere. A thousand carved ancestors on a volcanic island, the driest sky on the planet and a granite massif at 51 degrees south are not.
The Moai
Close to a thousand figures were cut from the crater wall at Rano Raraku and moved across the island, some of them more than ten miles, by a method nobody has fully settled. Around four hundred never left the quarry: they stand half-carved in the slope, a few face down, exactly as the work stopped. The island is 3,700 km from the mainland and the plane goes once a day.
- 1Rapa Nui Culture Sightseeing Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 307 reviews
- 2Easter Island Highlights 2-Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 205 reviews
- 3Easter Island Sightseeing Full Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 189 reviews
The Clearest Sky on Earth
Parts of this desert get under 15 mm of rain a year and sit above most of the water vapour in the atmosphere, which is why the world put its big telescopes here. Tours out of San Pedro run on the lunar calendar rather than the clock: a full moon washes the sky out, so the nights worth paying for are the dark ones, and a decent operator tells you that before you book.
- 1San Pedro de Atacama: Etno-Stargazing Tour with Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 629 reviews
- 2San Pedro de Atacama: Stargazing Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 489 reviews
- 3Astronomical Tour with Guide and Pick Up San Pedro de Atacama★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 145 reviews
Magdalena Island
An hour out of Punta Arenas by boat there is a treeless island where roughly sixty thousand pairs of Magellanic penguins nest between October and March. A roped path runs from the beach up to the lighthouse and the birds cross it whenever they feel like it. Outside the season the colony is at sea and the sailings simply stop.
- 1Walk with Penguins on Magdalena & Marta Island★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 611 reviews
- 2Punta Arenas: Full-Day Whales, Penguins, and Glaciers Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 325 reviews
- 3Full Day Tierra del Fuego & King Penguins★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 179 reviews
Four Chilean bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged from a hostel desk the night before. These four run on park quotas, boat timetables, a lunar calendar and a plane that leaves once a day.
- 01Puerto Natales: Base of the Towers Day HikeThe park meters entry and the shuttle up to the trailhead runs to a fixed timetable. Miss the last one down and you finish the walk in the dark.
- 02El Tatio Geysers TourThe field sits at 4,300 metres and the pick-up is at four in the morning. In high season the minibuses are full days ahead.
- 03Rapa Nui Culture Sightseeing TourOne flight a day from Santiago, and the national park ticket is checked at every site on the island. Neither is a same-day arrangement.
- 04Walk with Penguins on Magdalena & Marta IslandThe colony is only ashore from October to March, and the crossing is called off outright when the strait gets up.
Chile runs on the southern calendar, and it decides the trip.
January and February are high summer: Patagonia is open, the desert is busy and the capital empties to the coast. June to September flips all of it. The Andes above Santiago turn into a ski resort, the far south shuts down to a handful of boats, and the Atacama carries on exactly as before, because it always does.
- 1Farellones Park Tourfrom $54
- 2Walk with Penguins on Magdalena & Marta Islandfrom $150
- 33-Hour Scenic Boat Tour to Grey Glacierfrom $120
By place, desert down to ice
By kind of day: desert, water, snow or table
Santiago, the coast, the desert, the ice: the order most people take it in.
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