The full length of a country that is 4,300 km long and never more than 350 wide: the driest desert on earth and its observatories, the port-city colour of Valparaíso, the wine valleys, and the volcano-and-lake country of the south.
Santiago
Arrive and stay low. Cerro Santa Lucía or San Cristóbal for the layout of the city against the cordillera, the Mercado Central for lunch, and the Museo de la Memoria — an unflinching account of the dictatorship years that explains a great deal about modern Chile.
North to the desert
Fly to Calama and transfer an hour to San Pedro de Atacama at 2,400 m. Do nothing else today — the altitude days ahead depend on it. Valle de la Luna at sunset if you must, walked rather than driven.
Salar and lagoons
The Salar de Atacama for flamingos at Chaxa, then the altiplanic lagoons of Miscanti and Miñiques above 4,000 m — deep blue water under volcanoes, and the point where you find out how the acclimatisation is going.
El Tatio before dawn
Leave at four for the geyser field at 4,300 m, where the fumaroles perform in the cold just after sunrise and stop being impressive by nine. Back in San Pedro by early afternoon; sleep. Evening: an astronomy tour, booked for the dark of the moon if the calendar allows.
Fly south to Valparaíso
Calama to Santiago, then a bus or transfer west to the coast. Valparaíso is a working port stacked up forty-two hills in corrugated iron and paint, and the historic quarter is UNESCO-listed for exactly the disorder that makes it hard to navigate.
The hills and the lifts
Ride the surviving ascensores — funiculars from the 1880s, several restored and running — between Cerros Alegre, Concepción and Bellavista. La Sebastiana, one of Pablo Neruda’s three houses, is the best of them and the least crowded.
Casablanca valley
The cool coastal valley between Valparaíso and Santiago makes Chile’s best sauvignon blanc and chardonnay, on soils moderated by the Humboldt fog. Two tastings is plenty; the third is bravado.
South to the lake district
Fly or take the overnight bus to Temuco or Pucón — nine hours of central valley farmland by road, or ninety minutes by air. Pucón sits on Lago Villarrica beneath a live volcano that steams visibly on a clear day.
Villarrica volcano
A guided ascent of a permanently active 2,847 m volcano with crampons, ice axe and a gas mask for the crater rim — a hard but non-technical day, weather-dependent and cancelled without argument when the mountain is unsettled. The alternative is the Huerquehue park’s araucaria lakes, which is no consolation prize.
Hot springs and forest
The valleys east of Pucón are full of thermal springs fed by the same geology that built the volcano — Termas Geométricas, a series of red-boardwalked pools in a mossy gorge, is the one worth the drive. Afternoon in the Cañi forest reserve.
Valdivia
Two hours south to a river city founded in 1552, flattened by the largest earthquake ever recorded in 1960, and rebuilt with a German-descended brewing culture. Sea lions occupy the fish market. The Spanish coastal forts at Niebla and Corral are an easy afternoon by boat.
Chiloé, or the coast
Continue to Puerto Montt and cross to Chiloé for the wooden churches — sixteen of them UNESCO-listed, built by Jesuit missionaries in native timber with shipwright joinery — and the palafito stilt houses of Castro. An island with its own weather and its own mythology.
Back north
Return to Puerto Montt and fly to Santiago. Last afternoon for the Barrio Italia furniture and design workshops, or a final pisco sour somewhere with a view of the mountains.
Out
Morning free, then the airport. If the flight is late, the Precolombino museum near the Plaza de Armas is the best two hours in the city and holds the collections that put the whole trip in order.
Dobré vedieť
Chile is long. Two internal flights are what make this route work in fourteen days; doing it by bus is possible and adds roughly four days of transit.
San Pedro sits at 2,400 m and the excursions climb to 4,300 m. Do not schedule El Tatio for your first morning.
The lake district is a summer destination — December to March. Chiloé is worth a raincoat in any month.
Kratšie či dlhšie?
Atacama and Valparaíso only, with three days in Santiago and the wine valleys.
Add five days at the far south via Punta Arenas and Puerto Natales for the W trek.
Five hours by air from Santiago; three days is the minimum that justifies the flight.