--- title: "Chile travel guides, city by city | Wimup" description: "Chile on Wimup: city guides for the central valley, the Atacama and Patagonia, what to know before you go, and the food worth planning around." url: https://wimup.com/country/chile type: Country guide updated: 2026-10-23 publisher: Wimup (https://wimup.com) --- # Top 10s across Chile A country shaped like a coastline: the **driest desert on earth** at one end, **glaciers and fjords** at the other, and a Pacific shore running the whole length of it. Chile is best taken in one or two regions rather than end to end. ## Quick answer Land in **Santiago**, then pick one end. North means **San Pedro de Atacama**: salt flats, geysers at dawn and the clearest night sky most people will ever see. South means **Patagonia**: fly to Punta Arenas and drive to **Torres del Paine** through Puerto Natales. In between, **Valparaíso** is ninety minutes from the capital, and the **Lake District** around Pucón and Puerto Varas runs volcanoes, forest and hot springs. Patagonia is a summer trip, December to February. The desert works all year. ## Quick facts - **Best months:** Mar · Oct · Nov - **Ideal length:** 12–16 days - **Budget per day:** $70–140 - **Language:** Spanish - **Getting around:** Domestic flights & buses - **4** City guides - **18,480,432** People - **1** Video guide Chile travels north to south and rarely across, because the Andes close the eastern side and the ocean the western one. Santiago is the hinge: the international airport, the domestic flights and the road over the coast range to Valparaíso and Viña del Mar, which is the shortest worthwhile trip in the country at around an hour and a half. North of the capital the land dries out through the Elqui Valley into the Atacama, where San Pedro de Atacama holds the salt flats, the geysers and the observatories. South of it the Lake District runs volcanoes, forest and German-founded towns around Puerto Varas, and beyond that Patagonia takes over: Torres del Paine, the fjords and the ferry routes that are the only way through much of it. Distances are the constraint, so most itineraries fly one leg and drive the rest. ## 4 Chile city guides 1. [Valparaíso](https://wimup.com/city/valparaiso.md): South America · 10 picks 2. [Santiago](https://wimup.com/city/santiago.md): South America · 10 picks 3. [Punta Arenas](https://wimup.com/city/punta-arenas.md): South America · 10 picks 4. [Hanga Roa](https://wimup.com/city/hanga-roa.md): South America · 10 picks ## Know before you go - **Population:** 18,480,432 - **Area:** 756,102 km² - **Density:** 24.4 / km² - **Capital:** Santiago - **Major cities:** Santiago, Puente Alto, Antofagasta, Viña del Mar, Valparaíso - **Tourism board:** Official site - **Currency:** Chilean peso (CLP) Cards work in cities, hotels and chain restaurants. Notes run from 1,000 to 20,000 pesos, and the small ones are what you want for buses, markets and anything bought from a cart. - **Language:** Spanish Chilean Spanish is famously fast, drops the final s and carries a vocabulary of its own. English is common in Santiago hotels and tour offices and rare outside them. - **Calling code:** +56 - **Power:** 220V · Type C & L 220 volts at 50 Hz, with round-pin sockets. A European plug fits most outlets; anything from North America needs an adapter and, unless it is dual voltage, a converter. - **Emergency:** 131 · 132 · 133 131 for an ambulance, 132 for the fire service (bomberos) and 133 for the police (carabineros). Public hospitals treat anyone in an emergency, and a visitor without local cover is billed afterwards. - **Entry:** Visa-free for many Most European, North American and Australasian passports get a Permanencia Transitoria stamp for up to 90 days, extendable once. There is no airport reciprocity fee. Check your nationality first. - **Getting around:** Domestic flights & buses Flying between regions buys back whole days, and nobody drives Santiago to Punta Arenas. Long-distance buses are comfortable, cheap and reach almost everything the planes skip. - **City transport:** Bip! card in Santiago One contactless card covers the Santiago metro and the city buses, topped up at any station, and it is the only sensible way to move around the capital at rush hour. - **Tipping:** 10% suggested Restaurants add a propina sugerida of 10% to the bill. It is a suggestion, and paying it is the norm when the service was good. - **Earthquakes:** Built for them Chile sits on one of the planet's most active subduction zones and builds to a strict seismic code. Tremors are ordinary. Read the evacuation notice on the hotel door once. ## When to visit - **Jan** (peak) - **Feb** (peak) - **Mar** (best) - **Apr** (best) - **May** - **Jun** (good) - **Jul** (good) - **Aug** (good) - **Sep** (good) - **Oct** (best) - **Nov** (best) - **Dec** (peak) ## Fun fact Chile's parliament does not sit in its capital. The National Congress has met in Valparaíso since 11 March 1990, in a purpose-built complex in the El Almendral district, about 110 kilometres from the government palace in Santiago. ## Stereotypes, sorted out - **Myth:** Chile is one long strip of desert **Reality:** The desert is the top third. Below it come vineyards, a Mediterranean central valley, temperate rainforest, an archipelago and the ice fields of Patagonia. Few countries change climate this often between one flight and the next. - **Myth:** You can see it end to end in a week **Reality:** Santiago to Punta Arenas is a flight of over three hours, and the road south runs out well before the end. Pick one region and give it the time, or fly one leg and drive the other. - **Myth:** It is as cheap as the rest of South America **Reality:** It is not. Chile is the most expensive country in the region, and Patagonia in high season is priced like a European ski resort. Set lunches, buses and local wine are where the value hides. - **Myth:** Chilean Spanish is a different language **Reality:** This one is half true. The final s disappears, the pace is quick and the slang is dense. Ask people to slow down and they will, and a phrasebook will still not prepare you for cachai. - **Myth:** Patagonia is the only reason to come **Reality:** It is the headline, not the country. The Atacama has the clearest skies on earth, Chiloé has its own architecture and mythology, and Valparaíso is one of the great port cities of the Pacific. - Greetings are physical. A kiss on the right cheek between women, and between a woman and a man, is standard even on a first meeting. - Lunch is the main meal and runs long. Dinner is late and often light, and once, the evening bread-and-tea sitting, replaces it entirely in many homes. - Punctuality is elastic socially and strict professionally. Arrive on time for a meeting and slightly late for a dinner invitation. - September 18 and the days around it stop the country. Fondas, barbecues and cueca fill the week, and offices, banks and many restaurants close. - Tremors are part of life and nobody panics. Follow whoever is in the room, and note the evacuation route once when you check in. - Do not open with a comparison to Peru or Argentina, on pisco, on wine or on football. It is not a conversation, it is a position. - Bargaining is not a thing in shops or restaurants. Craft markets and the odd taxi are the only places to try it. ## Famous Chilean faces - **Pablo Neruda**: Poet and diplomat, awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1971 - **Gabriela Mistral**: Poet and teacher, the first Latin American Nobel laureate in Literature, in 1945 - **Isabel Allende**: Novelist whose The House of the Spirits made her the most widely read Chilean writer alive - **Violeta Parra**: Folklorist who collected the country's rural music and wrote Gracias a la vida - **Víctor Jara**: Singer and theatre director of the nueva canción movement, killed days after the 1973 coup - **Michelle Bachelet**: Paediatrician, first woman president, later UN High Commissioner for Human Rights - **Claudio Arrau**: Pianist from Chillán, a defining twentieth-century interpreter of Beethoven and Liszt - **Alexis Sánchez**: Forward from Tocopilla and the national team's all-time leading scorer - **Salvador Allende**: President from 1970 until the 1973 coup, Latin America's first elected Marxist leader - **Gabriel Boric**: Student leader from Punta Arenas, the youngest president, sworn in in March 2022 - **Bernardo O'Higgins**: Independence commander and first head of state of the republic, from 1817 to 1823 - **Roberto Bolaño**: Novelist behind The Savage Detectives and 2666, born in Santiago and read everywhere - **Nicanor Parra**: Physicist and inventor of the antipoem, who kept writing until he was 103 - **Mon Laferte**: Singer and songwriter from Viña del Mar, the most streamed Chilean artist working today - **Ana Tijoux**: Rapper born to Chilean exiles in France, whose track 1977 carried Chilean hip-hop abroad - **Sebastián Lelio**: Director of A Fantastic Woman, Chile's first foreign language Oscar winner, in 2018 - **Pablo Larraín**: Director of No, Neruda, Jackie and Spencer, and producer of Chile's Oscar-winning wave - **Pedro Pascal**: Actor born in Santiago, known worldwide for The Mandalorian and The Last of Us - **Alejandro Jodorowsky**: Filmmaker and writer from Tocopilla, whose El Topo defined the midnight movie - **Marcelo Ríos**: The first Latin American to reach world number one in men's tennis, in 1998 - **Elías Figueroa**: Defender named South American Footballer of the Year three years running in the 1970s - **Roberto Matta**: Surrealist painter who worked with Le Corbusier and shaped abstract expressionism - **Humberto Maturana**: Biologist and philosopher who coined autopoiesis with Francisco Varela ## Must-try Chilean food - **Empanada de pino**: The national baked empanada: beef, onion, hard-boiled egg, an olive and often a raisin. - **Pastel de choclo**: Beef and onion pino under puréed sweetcorn, baked in clay through the summer. - **Cazuela**: Clear broth with beef or chicken, potato, pumpkin and a length of corn on the cob. - **Charquicán**: Squash, potato and dried meat mashed into a soft stew, topped with a fried egg. - **Porotos granados**: Fresh cranberry beans stewed with corn, squash and basil. A summer plate. - **Humitas**: Ground fresh corn steamed in its own husks, eaten with sugar or with salt. - **Pebre**: The table salsa of coriander, onion, tomato and chilli, spooned onto bread. - **Caldillo de congrio**: Conger eel simmered with potato, tomato and wine. Neruda wrote an ode to it. - **Machas a la parmesana**: Razor clams baked in their shells with white wine and parmesan, by the dozen. - **Chupe de jaiba**: Crab, bread and cheese baked in clay until browned. A meal in itself. - **Erizos**: Raw sea urchin with chopped onion and lemon. Strong, iodine-heavy, a rite of passage. - **Curanto**: Chiloé's pit feast of shellfish, meat, potato and dumplings steamed under hot stones. - **Milcao**: A Chiloé potato cake, half grated and half mashed, fried or cooked in the curanto pit. - **Cordero al palo**: Whole Patagonian lamb splayed on an iron cross over embers. The Magallanes centrepiece. - **Merkén**: Mapuche blend of smoked cacho de cabra chilli and coriander seed. More smoke than heat. - **Kuchen**: Lake District fruit tarts of German origin, with murta, raspberry or rhubarb. - **Completo**: A hot dog under tomato, avocado and a heroic amount of mayonnaise. Order it italiano. - **Chorrillana**: Chips under beef, onion and fried eggs, shared over beer. Valparaíso claims it, rightly. - **Barros Luco**: Grilled beef and melted cheese in a bun, named after the president who kept ordering it. - **Chacarero**: Sliced beef with tomato, green beans and chilli. A sandwich that holds a vegetable. - **Sopaipillas**: Fried pumpkin-dough discs, eaten with pebre or in spiced chancaca syrup on wet days. - **Pisco sour**: Pisco, lemon and sugar. Sharper than the Peruvian version, and the argument never ends. - **Terremoto**: Young white wine with pineapple ice cream and grenadine, at September fondas. - **Mote con huesillo**: Wheat berries in a cold dried-peach and cinnamon syrup, sold from summer carts. - **Carménère**: Bordeaux grape thought extinct until found in Chile in 1994. Now the signature red. ## By theme - [Hidden gems of South America](https://wimup.com/hidden-gems-south-america.md) - [Hidden gems](https://wimup.com/hidden-gems.md) - [Skiing & snowboard](https://wimup.com/skiing.md) ## Films - [Santiago Travel Guide](https://wimup.com/watch/santiago.md), 5:33 ## FAQs ### How many days do you need in Chile? Two weeks is the honest minimum for two regions: a few days around Santiago and Valparaíso, then either the Atacama or Patagonia. Ten days works if you pick one end and stay there. Trying for both ends in a week means spending most of it in the air. ### When is the best time to visit Chile? March, October and November are the sweet spot: open roads, milder wind in the south and none of the January crush. December to February is Patagonian summer and the only reliable window for the far south, at peak prices. June to August is ski season in the Andes above Santiago. ### Do you need a visa for Chile? Most European, North American and Australasian passports do not. You are stamped in on a Permanencia Transitoria permit for up to 90 days, extendable once, and the old reciprocity fee at the airport is gone. Confirm your own nationality on the Servicio Nacional de Migraciones site before booking. ### Is Chile expensive? It is the priciest country in South America, closer to southern Europe than to its neighbours. Set lunches, buses and supermarket wine keep a day cheap. Patagonia is the exception at any budget: park fees, lodges and the flights south are what the money goes on. ### How do you get around Chile? Fly the long legs and drive or bus the rest. Santiago connects by air to Calama for the Atacama and to Punta Arenas for Patagonia in a few hours each, against days on the road. Long-distance buses are comfortable, and a rental car earns its keep in the Lake District and around Torres del Paine. ## Related countries - [Argentina](https://wimup.com/country/argentina.md) - [Bolivia](https://wimup.com/country/bolivia.md) - [All of South America](https://wimup.com/south-america) Part of [South America](https://wimup.com/south-america.md) ## Sources - [Tourism board](https://www.chile.travel/en/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - [Entry](https://serviciomigraciones.cl/en/permanencia-transitoria-permit/?utm_source=wimup.com&utm_medium=referral) - Rankings are Wimup editorial picks. Prices, durations and budgets are editorial estimates, not live quotes; check the official site before you go.