Chile

Best time to visit

Best time to travel

October to April suits Patagonia; the Atacama is year-round with cold nights, while central Chile is especially pleasant in spring and autumn.

Travel tips

Travel by Ildy tips

• Respect Chile’s length: Santiago to Punta Arenas is over 2,000 km, a flight of roughly four hours, so link the Atacama, central Chile and Patagonia by domestic flight rather than by road, and split them into separate trips if time is short.
• In summer, cool down as Chileans do with mote con huesillo from a street cart: dried peaches in cinnamon syrup over husked wheat, the classic reward at the top of Santiago's Cerro San Cristóbal.
• Spend a day or two acclimatising in San Pedro before El Tatio, then arrive at dawn: the steam columns of this geyser field, above 4,000 metres, are tallest when frozen air meets the hot water.
• Look closely at Chiloé's churches: local carpenters, schooled in boatbuilding, joined alerce and cypress timbers with wooden pegs and joints instead of iron nails, a technique borrowed straight from the shipyards.