Chile is 4,300 km long. Plan it properly.
Which Atacama geyser run leaves early enough. Whether the Torres day hike fits your legs. What a Casablanca tasting actually costs. Every tour in Chile, reviewed.
One country, thirty-eight degrees of latitude.
The full catalogue →Chile runs from the driest desert on earth to the ice at the bottom of the map, and almost every traveller flies into the middle of it. These are the bases worth building days around, in the order you would meet them coming down the country.
San Pedro de Atacamathe driest desert
La Serenapisco and dark skies
Valparaísothe painted port
Santiagothe base camp
Pucóna volcano you can climb
Puerto Varaslakes and waterfalls
Chiloéwooden churches
Punta Arenasthe Strait of Magellan
Puerto Natalesgateway to the towers Easter Island sits 3,500 km off that line, five and a half hours west of Santiago.
The six days people fly to Chile for.
The salt flats and the geysers, the towers, the moai, the coastal wine valleys, the painted hills of the port and the penguin islands in the Strait. Each one is a full day, and each books differently.
The Atacama does not do half days.
Pickups at four in the morning for the geyser field, red lagoons at 4,000 metres, salt crust cracking under the boots, and a sky so dry the observatories moved here. San Pedro is a two-street town that runs the best desert days on the continent.
The tours most travellers to Chile take.
Every review →Coastal day trips out of Santiago dominate, and there is a reason: one day buys you a port city, a beach town and a wine valley. Here is where everyone starts.
1
Valparaiso Port and Viña del Mar with Casablanca Wine Tasting
Review of a 10-hour Santiago day trip to Viña del Mar, Valparaíso, and Casablanca Valley, with street art, funicular rides, wine, and hotel pickup.
From · $75
Read our review →
2
Cajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with Picnic
from $37
3
Vina Del Mar, Valparaiso, Casablanca & Reñaca Tour
from $39
4
Cable Car, Funicular and Sightseeing Bus in Santiago one day
from $60
5
Small-Group Cajón del Maipo Full-Day Tour and Picnic
from $41
6
Tour to Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, Pablo Neruda Museum and Vineyard
from $111
7
Maipo Valley Wine Tour with 4 vineyards from Santiago.
from $135
8
Inca Lagoon in Andes Mountain Range – Visit Local Vineyard with Tasting included
from $79
Santiago has the Andes at the end of the street.
The capital is a base, not a stopover. Ski fields ninety minutes up the mountain, a wine valley the same distance south, a reservoir the colour of antifreeze in Cajón del Maipo, and a funicular up San Cristóbal for the view that explains the whole city.
- 1Valparaiso Port and Viña del Mar with Casablanca Wine Tastingfrom $75
- 2Cajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with Picnicfrom $37
- 3Vina Del Mar, Valparaiso, Casablanca & Reñaca Tourfrom $39
Valparaíso is painted onto forty-two hills.
Cargo cranes below, murals up every staircase, century-old funiculars still grinding between levels. Most people come from Santiago and pair the port with Viña del Mar and a Casablanca vineyard on the way back, which is the right call on a first visit.
Chilean wine grows between the ocean and the Andes.
Maipo makes the cabernet, Casablanca the cool-coast sauvignon and chardonnay, Colchagua the carmenère that exists almost nowhere else. All three are inside a day of Santiago, and most tastings include lunch and a driver, which matters more than the tasting notes.
- 1Valparaiso Port and Viña del Mar with Casablanca Wine Tastingfrom $75
- 2Vina Del Mar, Valparaiso, Casablanca & Reñaca Tourfrom $39
- 3Tour to Valparaíso, Viña del Mar, Pablo Neruda Museum and Vineyardfrom $111
What a day in Chile costs.
Every tour on the site, sorted by price. The coastal classics sit at the bottom of the range; the ones that need a guide, a permit or a flight sit at the top.
Hill walks in the port, city days in Santiago, half-day desert runs and reservoir picnics.
The full-day standards: the coast and a vineyard, the geyser field, the towers, the penguin islands.
Private drivers, multi-day island trips, volcano ascents and the days that include a flight or a boat.
Three things Chile has and nowhere else does.
Vineyards and mountains are everywhere on this continent. Fifteen moai on a stone platform, a desert sky that observatories were built for, and penguin colonies you walk through are Chilean and nothing else.
The Moai at Tongariki
Fifteen statues stand in a row at Ahu Tongariki, backs to the sea, facing the villages they were carved to watch over. A tsunami knocked them flat in 1960 and a Japanese crane company put them back up in the 1990s. Sunrise behind them is the reason people book the 06:00 pickup, and the quarry at Rano Raraku up the road still holds nearly four hundred more, half-finished in the rock.
- 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 Atacama Sky
The desert sits above 2,400 metres with almost no water vapour in the air, which is why the world put its largest telescopes here. Small operators in San Pedro run their own scopes on the edge of town: Saturn as a disc with a gap in the rings, the Magellanic Clouds overhead, and the Milky Way bright enough to cast a shadow. Sessions pause around the full moon, so check the calendar before you book.
- 1Etno-Stargazing Tour with Transfer★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 629 reviews
- 2The Roofless Experience San Pedro de Atacama Stargazing Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 5.0 · 522 reviews
- 3Stargazing Experience★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · 489 reviews
The Penguin Islands
Magdalena Island is a bare hump of grass in the Strait of Magellan with roughly 120,000 Magellanic penguins nesting on it, and a roped path that runs straight through the middle of the colony. The season is short, roughly November to March, and the crossing from Punta Arenas is often cancelled for wind. Neighbouring Marta Island adds sea lions on the way back.
- 1Walk with Penguins on Magdalena & Marta Island★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 611 reviews
- 2Full-Day Whales, Penguins, and Glaciers Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.9 · 325 reviews
- 3Full Day Tierra del Fuego & King Penguins★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 179 reviews
Below Puerto Montt, Chile stops being a road.
All Puerto Natales tours →The mainland breaks into fjords, ice and islands, and everything from there down is reached by boat, by plane or by one long bus. Two towns run it: Puerto Natales for the towers, Punta Arenas for the Strait.
Walk with Penguins on Magdalena & Marta Island
Read our review →
Book these before you fly to Chile.
Most of Chile can be arranged from your hotel the night before. These four cannot: they run on flight seats, park gates, volcano alert levels and a pre-dawn convoy that leaves whether you are on it or not.
- 01Easter Island Highlights 2-Day TourOne route serves the island, five and a half hours west of Santiago. Seats over the January and February window go months ahead, and the island caps how many visitors it takes.
- 02Base of the Towers Day HikeThe day hike to the towers leaves Puerto Natales before dawn and needs a park entry that is bought in advance. In high summer the guided places are gone weeks out.
- 03Villarrica Volcano ascentThe ascent only runs when the volcano’s alert level allows it, and guides work to a daily cap on climbers. A closed mountain refunds you; it does not reschedule your trip.
- 04El Tatio Geysers TourThe geyser field performs before sunrise and pickups leave San Pedro around four in the morning, in convoy. Group sizes are fixed and same-day seats are rare.
Chile’s seasons run upside down, and the country is long enough to have all of them at once.
December to March is Patagonia’s only dependable window: long light, open passes, penguins ashore. That same stretch is high summer in the capital, when locals leave for the coast. Come in July and Patagonia has mostly shut, but there is skiing ninety minutes above Santiago. The Atacama ignores all of it and works every month of the year.
Open every month of the year
- 1El Tatio Geysers Tourfrom $70
- 2Tour to the Hidden Lagoons of Baltinachefrom $60
- 3Etno-Stargazing Tour with Transferfrom $41
By base — where you sleep
- Santiago713 tours
- San Pedro de Atacama282 tours
Easter Island119 tours- Puerto Natales102 tours
- Valparaíso222 tours
- Puerto Varas80 tours
- Punta Arenas71 tours
- Pucón34 tours
- La Serena25 tours
- Chiloé19 tours
- Every tour in Chile →
By the kind of day you want out of it
The newest Chile reviews.
All recent →
Walking City Tour with Funicular, Cable Car and Tasting
Read our review →
Volcanic Refuges: Excursion to Underground Civilization
Read our review →
Ascent to Villarrica volcano 2,847masl, from Pucón
Read our review →
Viña del Mar and Reñaca 4-Hour Pacific Coast Tour
Read our review →
Tour VIÑA CONCHA Y TORO + CASA MARQUES – Chile, from Santiago.
Read our review →
Valparaíso to Casablanca: wine tour with premium tasting and transportation
Read our review →