Chile adventure travel tipsChile is considered one of the best holiday destinations in the world for adventure travel. This South American country boasts a dazzling choice of landscapes, geology and weather patterns, varying from the northern desert volcanoes of Atacama to the dramatic plains and granite peaks of Patagonia and the ski resorts of southern Chile. For adventure travel with skiing or snowboarding, Chile has various great snow resorts and slopes - the most challenging being the steep chutes of Portillo (great resort hotel!) where the speed-skiing record has been broken. If your adventure travel demands something more challenging than climbing a mountain or wearing skis, Chile even has plenty of volcanoes where you can conquer the summit. Several are active volcanoes with gaseous craters. |
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CLICK ON THE PICTURE above for more world travel photos with tips about cheap vacation spots and travel agency links for the cheapest tickets, hotel reservations and car rentals. What's on the next page? More Cheap Chile Travel Tips If you're looking for the cheapest tickets, discount hotel rooms, car rentals or adventure travel packages, visit our Travel Shop. Thumbnail Picture Index Last Minute Travel Tips Useful Chile Links Map of Chile |
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Chile travel tips Perhaps the most spectacular trekking holiday in the world can be enjoyed at Torres del Paine national park, a magnet for adventure travel backpackers because of its awesome mountain peaks above 3000 metres (picture above), forests, glaciers, glacier lakes, meadows and rivers. Note: In early September 2008, floodwaters have swamped the Araucania region about 700 kilometres south of Santiago. The towns of Carahue, Nueva Imperial, Puerto Saavedra and Teniente Schmidt were flooded after nearby rivers overflowed. Thousands of homes have been damaged, roads blocked, four people have died and helicopters have been used to rescue tens of thousands of people cut off by the floodwaters. Travellers in Chile should monitor news reports to determine when the region is safe to visit. Note: In May 2008, a volcano has begun erupting near the fishing town of Chaiten, some 1,280 kilometres south of Santiago. The 915m Chaiten volcano, about nine kilometres from the town, has been dormant for about 450 years but in early May has begun belching enormous clouds of thick ash and much of the population has been evacuated. The nearby town of Futaleufu has also been evacuated. Chile is one of the most volcanic countries on Earth, with more than 100 active volcanoes, and experts say about 20 are in danger of erupting at any time. Hundreds of kilometres of trails run through Torres del Paine, which has an efficient system of camping grounds as well as hotels for tourists. The Torres del Paine can either be walked as a fully-supported hike with lodge accommodation or as a more challenging wilderness adventure hike with food supplies. Among the most stunning of Chile's numerous tourist attractions is the Perito Moreno Glacier. You can drive right up to the glacier and use crampons to more intimately explore the turquoise ice walls and caves on its surface. Apart from glaciers, the Patagonia region boasts a surreal landscape of penguins, icefloes, ancient forests, Andean volcanos, wild rivers and rocky beaches. This is a land of extremes where mountains soar 3000 metres and then drop into the Pacific Ocean as thousands of islands and archipelagos. Patagonia's wildlife is unique. If you need some exercise to counter your holiday indulgence, you might enjoy bushwalking in the spectacular Paine national park, where huge granite towers rise from emerald-coloured lakes to create some of the best bushwalking adventures anywhere in the world. Rafting and kayaking adventure travel can easily be organised in Chile. The canyon rivers of Chile are among the most challenging and dangerous in the world (particularly the Futaleufu River). Another magnet for adventure travel is the town of Pucon, which is ideally located for numerous outdoor activities and which is near the shore of a lake with a nearby smoking volcano. If you travel through the Andes mountain range, make sure you ascend slowly so your body can adjust to the high altitude without nauseous side-effects. Take a strong sun screen as there's a greater risk of sunburn at such high altitudes. Incidentally, a great way to enjoy adventure travel through the Andes is on horseback, even if you only hire a saddle for a full or half day.
Northern regions such as San Pedro de Atacama have blistering heat at the height of summer while the southern Patagonian region suffers very strong winds in December, January and February. The driest desert in the world can be found in the north of Chile, where summer temperatures can exceed 38 degrees Celsius during the day but plunge to near-freezing at night. About 10,000 tourists a month visit the spectacular Atacama Desert in the north of Chile, one of the driest places on earth. Desert tours can be organised to see the 3000 year old ruins of Tulor, one of the oldest and best-preserved Neolithic villages in South America. Northern winters are sunny and pleasant, although nights are very cold. Along Chile's northern coastline, the temperatures are much more stable than inland but the weather is still dry. The central region including the capital city of Santiago is much more Mediterranean with winter temperatures from 0 to 13 degrees Celsius and summer temperatures from 16 to 35 degrees Celsius. The Carretera Austral and Lake District have very wet winters, and the southern Patagonia region has an unpredictable climate at any time of the year. Patagonian winters see occasional snowfall and temperatures well below freezing. Blistering winds are a major headache if you travel in southern Chile at the height of summer, particularly in the Magellanic region. The southern Lakes district is home to the Villarrica volcano, which usually has a cap of snow even at the height of summer but with a peak that glows red at night. Chile south of Peurto Monte and into Patagonia is breathtakingly beautiful but adventure travel can be rough and there are few luxuries. The skyline of Santiago is dominated by the Andes mountain range but the city itself reverberates to a European ambience. Many of Santiago's churches and other buildings look as though they were designed in Spain. The city, founded in 1541, has wide boulevards and plazas with plenty of parks and colonial buildings, and is enjoyable to explore on foot. Santiago's main square is Plaza de Armas, which is surrounded by colonial buildings including the Town Hall, Cathedral de Santiago and National Museum. Nearby is the Plaza Constitucion and the Palacio de La Moneda presidential palace where Salvador Allende was overthrown by General Augusto Pinochet in 1973. Worth visiting is the Parque Metropolitano de Santiago, which is a huge urban park with a zoo, gardens, fountains and a furnicular cable car that climbs the steep San Cristobel Hill to a 22 metre statue of the Virgin Mary overlooking the city. For music and salsa nightlife in Santiago, the hotspots are Providencia, Plaza Nunoa and Barrio Bellavista, and the city has an efficient and affordable underground Metro. Smog can be a problem in the Chilean capital, which also experiences intermittent earth tremors and occasional quakes as Chile sits on the Pacific Ocean's so-called Ring of Fire. Santiago has a population of six million and is a comparatively safe city. Critics claim it lacks the elegant, charming and flirtatious Latin vibe of other South American cities such as Buenos Aires and Rio. The Chilean economy was booming in the 20 years to 2008 and prices in shops and cafes are generally higher than you'll find elsewhere in South America. Worth visiting is Chile's main port and second city, Valparaiso, populated by 600,000 residents and 120 kilometres from Santiago. Valparaiso is built on a spectacular landscape of 48 hills and there are fantastic views in all directions. The old town of Valparaiso is a World Heritage site. Banks in Chile are open Monday to Friday from 9am to 2pm, and are closed on weekends. Chile's currency is the peso, which comes in bills of 500, 1,000, 2,000, 5,000, 10,000 and 20,000. Five coins are in circulation with denominations of 1, 5, 10, 50 and 100. You'll rarely see a 1 or 5 peso coin. Chile has become a sophisticated country and is no longer one of the cheapest holiday destinations in South America. However, the peso has been fairly weak against the American dollar in recent years, cutting the price of holidays in Chile. The Chilean Government imposes a whopping 18% value added tax on all goods and services, but this is often waived when paying in American dollars for travel services such as hotels and hire cars. Often but not always, so it's worth checking before you buy or book in. As usual, the best exchange rate can be found at a casa de cambio, or money exchanger, which can usually be found in the central area of all major Chilean cities but not necessarily in small towns. Bank and hotel exchange rates in Chile are usually miserable or loaded with fees. The best rates can normally be enjoyed at Automatic Teller Machines, which are called Redbancs, where networks such as Cirrus, Visa and MasterCard can be accessed. Most hotels, restaurants and other service industries in Chile accept the major credit card brands. Thanks to its long coastline, Chile has a rich variety of seafood you'll find on hotel menus during your travel. The legal drinking age is 18 and you can buy alcohol just about anywhere, anytime. Pickpockets can sometimes be a worry but Santiago generally has a low rate of violent crime compared to other South American cities and is probably safer for tourists than New York. Chile has an increasingly sophisticated public and private health system but medical travel insurance is nevertheless strongly recommended, particularly if you are planning adventure travel in a remote area. Additional travel insurance should be sought if you plan travel to Easter Island or the Antarctic, where emergency air evacuation costs a small fortune. Pharmacies in Chile are called "farmacia" and are generally reliable for drug quality. Most pharmacies open from 8am to 11pm Monday through Friday with an after-hours roster system. Prescription medicines require a doctor's script, as in most countries, although the regulations are not as strict. Beware that English is not widely spoken in Chile so you might have trouble communicating with pharmacy staff. Bring an anti-diarrheal medication only if you have a sensitive tummy as the quality of food and sanitation is generally pretty good for tourists in Chile. Nevertheless, you may find that because of poor plumbing you're asked to deposit your used toilet paper in a bin rather than flushing it away, although this won't happen in your hotel or in restaurants. Businesses generally operate from mid-morning till about 7pm, often with very long lunch breaks from 1pm. Making national or international phone calls from Chile can be a little confusing for tourists as you must use a number prefix dependent upon the private carrier you wish to use. Their rates are similar. Most telephone booths have a list of company prefixes on the wall. The country code for Chile is 56 and in 2006 a local telephone call cost 100 pesos. Tipping isn't generally widespread in Chile except in restaurants, where a tip of at least 10% is expected. Don't worry about a tip for taxi drivers and do so in hotels only if you wish to reward quality service. Being a stout Roman Catholic country, most Chilean domestic holidays follow the Christian calender which should be considered when planning your travel in Chile if you want to avoid large crowds of tourists. Independence Day on September 18 is usually a major excuse for Chileans to let their hair down. If you plan travel to Chile, it's worth packing a plug adapter because electrical sockets in Chile have two inserts for tubular rather than flat prongs. The electricity standard in Chile is 220 volts at 50hz. You can buy most types of camera film throughout Chile. National emergency numbers in Chile are 133 for police, 132 for fire and 131 for an ambulance. There's no guarantee the operator will speak English. Remember, it's worth learning at least a few dozen phrases in Spanish before you buy your plane tickets or start packing your bags for adventure travel in Chile. To book the cheapest tickets, hotels, car rentals, etc. for most South American cities, visit our Travel Shop.
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