I have mentioned in other posts how much my husband and I enjoy visiting Latin America. Today I want to discuss Chile–an incredibly diverse country that I believe will need numerous visits to fully appreciate. We visited in September, when Chile is in transition between winter to spring. We loved it and appreciated the weather -warmish days and coolish nights! Definitely take a few sweaters and a light jacket but nothing heavier.
Most of our trip was spent in Santiago, the capital and largest city. Surrounded by the Andes Mountains, it features a multitude of activities. Santiago is a fairly safe destination- at least during the day and early evening. We were not out late at night on this visit, but I would suggest you exercise the same caution that you would in any large city. Per our usual, we walked nearly everywhere, visiting shops, restaurants, and generally nosing through everything! Our hotel was located near the Santiago Metropolitan Park aka San Cristobal Hill. This is a huge park, over 1800 acres, much of it heavily forested. It is often referred to as the “green lung of Santiago”. We stumbled onto all types of the new and interesting here-it rather reminded me of walking through Golden Gate Park in San Francisco – something different at every turn.
While in Chile we took a day tour of Valparaiso and Vina Del Mar. Our driver took us 70 miles NW of Santiago to Valparaiso, the country’s main port. Visually, this was a stunning town- hilly, colorful, narrow streets. It’s also fun to wander about -the fishermen are friendly and appreciated our halting attempts to speak Spanish! This city is also a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Located seventeen miles away is the beach town of Vina Del Mar (the Garden City) which has a very different vibe indeed! Much more laid back and relaxed, this is a great place to hang out on the beach and relax. This resort town would be a wonderful place to spend a lazy week soaking in the rays! We, on the other hand, returned to Santiago at the end of the day.
We will be back in Chile in March ‘26 as part of a Latin American cruise and hope to see more of this awesome country! Eventually we would like to explore the Lake District and Patagonia-if not in March than sometime in the not too distant future. Have you been to Patagonia and/or the Lake District (in either Chile or Argentina?) If so, drop me a line and let me know your thoughts!
Never been anywhere in South America but a cruise there sounds like fun. We did a family reunion cruise to the Caribbean and it was a lot of fun. We are thinking about another cruise next summer. Should we do the planning for that now?