"Chile - very diverse scenery" Chile by vtveen

Chile Travel Guide: 4,891 reviews and 13,536 photos

Maggalanes, Santiago and Easter Island

Chile was the second country on our around the world trip. Because we had to make our choices we ‘only’ could visit three regions ( Maggalanes, Santiago and Easter Island) and some more destinations. These parts are so completely different from each other, so it does not make sense to compare them.

Chile was a lot more expensive than Argentina, especially lodging, dining and travelling - mostly by plane because of the huge distances between the destinations.

We reached Chile by bus from El Calafate in Argentina and the first impression of the country was the town of Puerto Natales. A small town, located on the Fiordo Ultima Esperanza with the Andes Mountains in the background. But Puerto Natales is particularly well known as gateway to Torres del Paine National Park. This park offers fantastic scenery and we really regret not having spent more time IN the park. Although we just made one day trip by car, it was still possible to get a good (first) impression of the natural beauty.

Punta Arenas, also in Magallanes, is more a real town without offering too much to tourists. A lot of them will use the town as a transport hub, because its airport with connections to Santiago and also Ushuaia in Argentina.
In the Chilean summer it is possible to visit penguin colonies around Punta Arenas.

Santiago, capital of Chile, is a real metropolis with all the discomforts like overcrowded shopping streets, crazy traffic and pollution. We really found the city itself didn’t have too much to offer for tourists, besides some ‘must see’s’ in the centre. But it is rather easy to escape the hustle and bustle and to make interesting side trips to Valparaiso or the Andes Mountains.

Easter Island, although part of Chile, is a completely different world. So remote, fascinating, mysterious, mystic and impressive. Almost unbelievable and that is why I do have (also) a separate Easter Island page.

Tips: are clustered around the destinations we visited with also a couple of general tips.
Picture - clockwise: guanaco in Torres del Paine National Park; gaucho’s in Cajon del Maipo; penguin chick in Seno Otway; wild horses on Easter Island.

Pros and Cons

Pros:diverse scenery, safe, not too many tourists
Cons:rather expensive (for South America), far away
In a nutshell:I can not catch Chile in ONE sentence.

Last visit to Chile: Dec 2005
Intro Updated May 18, 2010
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Comments (4)

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Faiza-Ifrah Jul 23, 2007 at 8:02 PM

this was an adventure trip i would say. xclent tips and xclent pictures. chili soccer team and its toronto fiasco led me to read about this gr8 country :-)
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condorito Mar 9, 2007 at 10:56 PM

Thanks for the great tips.
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sprdak11 Jan 16, 2007 at 10:16 AM

Great page with beautiful pictures. Greetings.
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madamx Jan 16, 2007 at 9:23 AM

Jaap, this will be one of the top 5 Chile pages for sure, it's fantastic. We hope to go to Chile one day soon, thanks for the great tips and beautiful pics ~ Helen