Chile: Itinerary Planning Guide

Chile is one of the world's most geographically extreme countries — a sliver of land averaging just 180 kilometers wide but stretching 4,300 kilometers from the Atacama Desert in the north to the subantarctic archipelago of Tierra del Fuego in the south. This unusual shape means Chile encompasses the world's driest non-polar desert, temperate wine valleys, the world's southernmost city, and some of South America's most demanding trekking terrain within a single national border. Most visitors enter through Santiago, a modern capital of seven million people set against the snow-capped backdrop of the Andes. The city functions as a hub rather than a destination in itself, with wine valleys half an hour to the west and east and a functioning metro system that connects visitors to neighborhoods ranging from colonial Bellavista to the glass-and-steel finance district of Las Condes. From Santiago, domestic flights reach the major Chilean destinations in two to four hours. The Atacama Desert in Chile's north and Patagonia in its south are the two flagship natural draws. The Atacama, centered on the town of San Pedro de Atacama, is the world's highest-altitude desert plateau and hosts the southern hemisphere's clearest skies for stargazing. Patagonia — shared with Argentina — encompasses Torres del Paine National Park, where granite towers, glaciers, and Patagonian condors make it one of the world's premier trekking destinations.