Chile is a coastline with a desert on top and ice at the bottom.
Which Atacama day actually gets you to the geysers before the steam drops. What the boat to Grey Glacier costs. Whether Cajón del Maipo beats the Casablanca vineyards on a single free Saturday. Reviews of every tour you can book in Chile.
An Andean valley, the Pacific hills, a geyser field, the towers.
Four bookings that between them cover most of Chile. What each costs, and what the travellers who took it came back saying.
01The Saturday out of townCajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with PicnicTwo hours into the Andes to a reservoir the colour of antifreeze, with lunch laid out on the tailgate.
02The Pacific dayVina Del Mar, Valparaiso, Casablanca & Reñaca TourValparaíso hills, the Viña beachfront and a Casablanca cellar on the way home. One long, easy loop.
03The 4am oneEl Tatio Geysers TourEl Tatio steams hardest at first light and flattens once the sun is up. There is no late version of this.
04The Patagonia dayBase of the Towers Day HikeUp to the foot of the granite towers and back before dark. The hardest walk most people do on the trip.
Six Chilean towns, and the best day out of each one.
A capital pinned against the Andes, an oasis in the driest desert on earth, a port painted up its own cliffs, a gateway to the towers, a strait full of penguins, and an island five hours out into the Pacific.
From Santiago: mountains, vines, the coast or the snow, all in a day.
Santiago sits close enough to four completely different landscapes that the only real question is which one you spend the Saturday on. Here is what each costs to board.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · Cajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with Picnic
Up the Cajón del MaipoA glacial reservoir, a picnic and thin mountain air, two hours from the plaza.
Into the vineyardsMaipo cabernet or Casablanca whites, tasted where the grapes are grown.
Down to the coastPainted hills, a funicular, and the sea air after the city smog.
Straight up to the snowValle Nevado and Farellones are ninety minutes of switchbacks from town.
All 197 days out of Santiago →
San Pedro is a dusty grid of adobe. Everything happens outside it.
Everything in the Atacama →
The town is a base and nothing more. Days run out of it in three directions: north to the geyser field before dawn, south to the altiplano lagoons at four thousand metres, west into the salt and clay of the Valle de la Luna for the last hour of light.
El Tatio, and why the bus leaves at four
The field steams hardest in the cold, so the whole point is arriving before sunrise. It is close to freezing when you get out, well above twenty by the time you leave, and the altitude is genuinely felt.
Altiplano lagoons and Piedras Rojas
A long climb east past salt pans and flamingo lagoons to red rock above four thousand metres. Long day, thin air, and the single best run of colour in the country.
The clearest sky on the planet, explained
No rain, no cloud, no light for hundreds of kilometres. Tours run on the lunar calendar, so the dark fortnight either side of new moon is the one to aim at.
Patagonia does not do half measures.
Granite towers with weather of their own, a glacier calving into milk-blue water, penguin colonies on an island in the Strait of Magellan. Everything down here is a full day and most of it is weather-dependent, which is exactly why people keep going.
Three Chilean things with no substitute anywhere.
Mountains and wine countries are everywhere. Fifteen carved ancestors facing inland on a Polynesian headland, a geyser field at the height of a small aeroplane, and a sky with nothing in the way of it are not.
The Moai of Ahu Tongariki
Fifteen of them stand in a row on the eastern shore, backs to the Pacific, looking inland at the village they were carved to watch over. A tsunami knocked the whole platform flat in 1960 and a Japanese crane company put it back up thirty years later. Sunrise comes up directly behind them, which is why nobody on the island sleeps in.
- 1Journey from Orongo to Ana Te Pahu★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 75 reviews
- 2Two days of Full Day Tour of Rapa Nui + Sunrise in Tongariki★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 55 reviews
- 3Sunrise Tongariki: Sunrise at Tongariki Park Private Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 47 reviews
The El Tatio Geyser Field
Eighty-odd active geysers sit in a basin high in the Andes, the largest field in the southern hemisphere. The columns only stand up properly while the air is still freezing, so buses leave San Pedro at four in the morning and everyone stands around in the dark waiting for the light. By nine it looks like a wet gravel pit.
- 1El Tatio Geysers Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 943 reviews
- 2El Tatio Geyser Field & Wetlands★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 141 reviews
- 3Full Day Tour to Geyser del Tatio, Vado Putana and Machuca★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 134 reviews
Atacama Nights
Parts of this desert have no recorded rainfall. Add altitude, a coastal inversion that traps the haze far below, and hundreds of kilometres with nobody living in them, and you get the observing conditions every major telescope on earth is queuing for. Small operators run their own instruments out of town on moonless nights.
- 1Etno-Stargazing Tour with Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 629 reviews
- 2Stargazing Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 489 reviews
- 3Sky Costanera Observatory Admission Ticket★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 208 reviews
Chilean day trips, sorted by what they cost.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. Chile is not a cheap country, but plenty of its best days come in under the cost of dinner in Santiago.
City walks, funicular routes, cellar visits in Maipo and the short runs out of San Pedro.
The full-day standards: El Tatio, the altiplano lagoons, Valparaíso and the coast, a day on the snow.
- 1Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, & Casablanca Valley Tourfrom $72
- 2El Tatio Geysers Tourfrom $70
- 3Farellones Park Tourfrom $54
Torres del Paine, the glacier boats, private guides and the multi-day crossings.
Valparaíso is painted on the inside of a bowl.
Forty-two hills, a fleet of century-old funiculars still hauling people up them, and murals on every retaining wall. The flat part by the water is a working cargo port and largely uninteresting. Go up.
Every Valparaíso day out →
July in Chile is midwinter, and half the country shuts.
Patagonia closes down from May, the ferries thin out and the southern day is barely eight hours long. The same months are the only ones with snow above Santiago, the quietest weeks in the vineyards, and the warmest possible reason to sit in a thermal pool in an Andean valley. The desert, having no seasons worth the name, carries on regardless.
Maipo, Casablanca, Colchagua: ninety minutes apart, all arguing.
Maipo makes the cabernet the country exports, Casablanca the cold-coast whites, Colchagua the big reds people cellar. All three are inside a morning of Santiago, and most tastings end with lunch under a pergola and somebody offering to drive.
The days out more Chile travellers take than any other.
The whole Chilean catalogue →Demand across the whole catalogue, and the reason each of these earns its place at the top of it.
1
Cajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with Picnic
Spend a full day leaving Santiago for Cajón del Maipo and Embalse del Yeso. Ride in an air-conditioned van through mountain towns, hear local folklore, walk beside the reservoir, and finish with a picnic of cheese, salami, olives, juice, and Chilean wine. Guides such as Edison, Francisco, Diego, and Gonzalo are praised for clear explanations and careful driving.
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
Cajon del Maipo & Embalse El Yeso Trip with Picnic
from $38
5
Valparaiso -Casablanca -Reñaca-Oceanic Rock-Concon
from $40
6
Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, & Casablanca Valley Tour
from $72
7
El Tatio Geysers Tour
from $70
8
Farellones Park Tour
from $54
Four Chilean bookings that do not wait for you.
Most of this country can be arranged over breakfast. These four run on seasons, sunrise and a lift company calendar, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Base of the Towers Day HikeThe park is at its best from November to March and the day hike turns back in bad weather. Beds in Puerto Natales go months ahead over Christmas.
- 02El Tatio Geysers TourPickup is around four in the morning and the field flattens once the sun is on it. Miss the bus and there is no second run that day.
- 03Walk with Penguins on Magdalena & Marta IslandThe Magellanic colonies in the strait are a summer address. The birds are ashore roughly November to March and the boats stop when they leave.
- 04Valle Nevado and Farellones Small Group TourThe Andean season runs June to September and nothing above Santiago opens outside it. Weekend lift tickets sell out from the city first.
Santiago, the coast, the desert, the lakes, the ice. North to south, the way most people do it.
San Pedro de Atacama
Pucón
Puerto Natales
Punta ArenasBy place - desert, capital, lakes, ice
By kind of day - altitude, water, vines or road
Chilean tours written up in the last few weeks.
More recent Chilean write-ups →
Walking City Tour with Funicular, Cable Car and Tasting
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Volcanic Refuges: Excursion to Underground Civilization
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Ascent to Villarrica volcano 2,847masl, from Pucón
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Viña del Mar and Reñaca 4-Hour Pacific Coast Tour
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Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and Casablanca Full Day Experience
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Valparaiso 4-Hour City Tour by Van and Funicular
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Valparaíso to Casablanca: wine tour with premium tasting and transportation
Read our review →
