Chile is 4,300 kilometres long. Pick your latitude first.
The driest desert on earth at one end, granite towers and glaciers at the other, and Santiago with the Andes at its back in the middle. Reviews of the tours you can actually book in each.
The AtacamaGeysers at dawn, salt flats, the clearest sky anyone has measuredfrom $32
Santiago and the coastAndes reservoirs, Maipo cellars, the painted hills of Valparaisofrom $11
PatagoniaTorres del Paine, Grey Glacier and the penguin islandsfrom $80
Easter IslandFive hours out into the Pacific, and the moai still standingfrom $69
Four days out that decide the shape of a Chilean trip.
One from each end of the country and two from the middle. What each costs, and what the people who took it say.
01The Santiago dayCajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with PicnicUp the Maipo canyon to a turquoise reservoir under the glaciers, with lunch laid out at the top. The cheapest big landscape near the capital.
02The desert dawnEl Tatio Geysers TourPickup around four in the morning to reach the geyser field at sunrise, when the steam columns are at their tallest and the ground is frozen.
03The coast dayValparaiso, Viña del Mar, & Casablanca Valley TourPainted hillsides and funiculars in Valparaiso, seafront in Vina del Mar, a Casablanca cellar on the way back.
04The Patagonia dayBase of the Towers Day HikeTwenty two kilometres up the moraine to the lake under the three towers. The photograph everyone comes for, earned on foot.
San Pedro sells four completely different days. Pick the ones you can take back to back.
Everything runs out of the same dusty grid of streets, and the operators stagger them so a four night stay can take all of them. Altitude is the real constraint: the geysers sit at 4,300 metres and the lagoons not much lower.
★★★★★★★★★★ 4.7 · El Tatio Geysers Tour
Geysers at sunriseOut at four in the morning, back for a late breakfast.
Altiplano lagoonsPiedras Rojas, flamingos on the salt, a full day above 4,000m.
Valle de la LunaLate afternoon in the salt canyons, then the sunset off the ridge.
The night skyTelescopes after dark, two hours from your bed.
All 112 days out of San Pedro →
Patagonia runs on a short season and a long drive.
Puerto Natales is the door to Torres del Paine, Punta Arenas the door to the penguin colonies and the strait. Almost everything here leaves early, comes back late and gets cancelled by wind rather than rain.
Six towns worth a few nights, and the best day out from each.
A capital in the lap of the Andes, a desert village at 2,400 metres, two Patagonian ports, a hillside of painted houses on the Pacific, and an island most of the way to Polynesia.
The days out more travellers take than anything else in Chile.
Every Chilean tour we have reviewed →Two Andean canyons, a coast run, a geyser field and a hike under the towers. What each one costs and what earns it the slot.
1
Cajon del Maipo/Embalse del Yeso Tour with Picnic
Leave Santiago Centro in an air-conditioned van for an eight-hour trip through Cajón del Maipo. Visit mountain towns, the Tinoco Tunnel, Embalse del Yeso, local food stops, and a picnic with cheese, salami, olives, juice, and wine. Guides may speak English, Spanish, or Portuguese.
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
Valparaiso -Casablanca -Reñaca-Oceanic Rock-Concon
from $40
5
Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, & Casablanca Valley Tour
from $72
6
El Tatio Geysers Tour
from $70
7
Farellones Park Tour
from $54
8
Viña del Mar, Valparaiso & Casablanca Valley Tour
from $63
Santiago is a base, not a stop. The good days are all outside it.
Everything from Santiago →
An hour east and you are in a glacial canyon; an hour and a half west and you are on the Pacific. Between them sit the Maipo vineyards, the ski road and a compact old town you can walk in a morning.
Cajon del Maipo and Embalse El Yeso
Up the canyon on a rough road to a reservoir the colour of antifreeze, with the San Jose volcano behind it. Take the small group version if you want to stop where the light is good rather than where the schedule says.
Valparaiso, Vina del Mar and a Casablanca cellar
Fifteen funiculars, a hillside painted end to end, then seafront and sea lions at Vina. Most versions stop at a Casablanca winery on the way home, which is the difference between a long day and a good one.
Farellones and Valle Nevado above the city
Sixty hairpins up to 3,000 metres. In winter it is a ski resort, the rest of the year it is a viewpoint over the whole Maipo basin with the city under the smog line below.
Chilean wine is an afternoon, not a bottle.
Maipo starts twenty minutes from the Santiago ring road, Casablanca sits on the coast road with the fog that makes its whites work. Old vines, a cellar dug into the hillside, and someone who will tell you exactly why carmenere spent a century being called merlot.
Every tasting in Chile →
What a day out in Chile actually costs.
Every tour on the site, grouped by price. The gap between a city walk and a Patagonian full day is wider here than almost anywhere.
City walks, bike mornings, the Moon Valley run and the shared canyon trips out of Santiago.
The full days: geysers, altiplano lagoons, the coast run, the Base of the Towers hike.
- 1Tourist bus around Santiago for a dayfrom $50
- 2Valparaiso, Viña del Mar, & Casablanca Valley Tourfrom $72
- 3El Tatio Geysers Tourfrom $70
Volcano ascents, whale and glacier days out of Punta Arenas, private guides and multi-day Rapa Nui packs.
Three things Chile has and nowhere else does.
Deserts, mountains and coastline are everywhere. A geyser field at 4,300 metres, a thousand-year-old quarry of stone giants and three granite towers over a milk-blue lake are not.
El Tatio
The third largest geyser field on earth sits on the Bolivian border, and it only performs in the first hour of light, when the cold air makes the steam columns visible. That is why every van leaves San Pedro around four in the morning and why it is minus five when you get out. The pools are scalding and unfenced, the ground crusts over between them, and the drive back stops at Machuca for llama skewers.
- 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
The Moai of Rapa Nui
Nearly nine hundred figures were carved at Rano Raraku and dragged across the island, some of them ten metres tall. Most never left the quarry, which is the strangest place on Rapa Nui: heads at every angle, half cut from the rock. The fifteen standing shoulder to shoulder at Tongariki face inland, not out to sea, and the sunrise behind them is the reason guides start before five.
- 1Rapa Nui Culture Sightseeing Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 307 reviews
- 2Journey from Orongo to Ana Te Pahu★★★★★★★★★★ 4.3 · 75 reviews
- 3Rapa Nui Stargazing★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 62 reviews
Torres del Paine
Three granite towers stand over a glacial lake at the top of a valley that takes eleven hours on foot to visit and return from. The park runs on weather rather than timetable: the wind on the Grey Glacier crossing regularly stops the boats, and the last hour of the Base of the Towers hike is a boulder field that hides the view until the final step.
- 1Torres del Paine Full Day Tour★★★★★★★★★★ 4.6 · 434 reviews
- 2Torres del Paine: 3-Hour Scenic Boat Tour to Grey Glacier★★★★★★★★★★ 4.5 · 283 reviews
- 3Full Day Torres del Paine + Milodon Cave★★★★★★★★★★ 4.8 · 250 reviews
Four Chilean bookings that will not wait for you.
Most of this country can be sorted from a hostel desk the night before. These four run on park caps, sunrise, a migration and a snow line, none of which care when your flight lands.
- 01Torres del Paine Full Day TourBeds in Puerto Natales and seats on the Base of the Towers day sell out from December onwards, and the park caps how many people enter each day.
- 02El Tatio Geysers TourThe geysers only work at sunrise, so every operator in San Pedro leaves inside the same half hour and the vans fill days ahead in high season.
- 03Walk with Penguins on Magdalena & Marta IslandThe Magdalena Island colony is only ashore from roughly November to March, and the crossing is called off outright when the strait gets up.
- 04Valle Nevado and Farellones Small Group TourThe road above Santiago runs on snow and chains, not on a calendar. The ski season here is the northern summer, and it closes when the cover goes.
When Patagonia shuts, the mountains above Santiago open.
The seasons run the other way round and the country is long enough to hold two of them at once. June to September the southern parks are dark, cold and half closed, and that is exactly when the Andes an hour from the capital carry snow, the thermal pools are worth the drive, and the cellars have the afternoon to themselves.
By place, north to south
The newest Chilean tour reviews.
The rest of the new ones →
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
Read our review →
Valparaíso, Viña del Mar and Casablanca Full Day Experience
Read our review →
Valparaiso 4-Hour City Tour by Van and Funicular
Read our review →
Valparaíso to Casablanca: wine tour with premium tasting and transportation
Read our review →
