100 Reasons to Visit Chile

Chile is a long, narrow country stretching along South America's western edge, with 4,300km of Pacific Ocean coastline. Santiago, its capital, sits in a valley surrounded by the Andes and Chilean Coast Range mountains. Here are 100 reasons to visit Chile.

  1. 1

    You can visit the driest place on earth, the Atacama Desert

  2. 2

    Tranquilty

    Chile’s southern Patagonia region is a land of mountains, fjords, lakes and forests offering relatively isolated and inspiring landscapes far from the crowds.

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    Reciprocity - Visa

    Source: wikimedia.org

    Chilean citizens will no longer be required to apply for a visa to visit the United States. This in turn means Chile’s government will no longer require U.S. citizens traveling to the country to pay a $160 reciprocity fee upon arrival in the country.

  4. 4

    The Greatest Biodiversity

    Source: flickr.com

    The Tropical Andes is officially considered the area of our planet with the greatest variety of lifeforms. It covers an area of 485,716 square miles, running from the northern mountains of Chile up through Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia and finishing in Venezuela.

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    Trek to glaciers in Torres del Paine

  6. 6

    Someone is waiting for you in Easter Island

  7. 7

    Everything comes with avocado and mayo.

    Source: www.flickr.com
  8. 8

    Even though the ground shakes very often, Chileans won’t tumble over.

  9. 9

    They love music and partying all year long

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    They have the pudú

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    You could go snowboarding - Just an hour away from the capital

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    And they even have their own little Niagara: El Salto del Laja.

    Source: www.flickr.com
  13. 13

    Magical Sky at night over Atacama Desert

  14. 14

    Communicating with people in Chile is alot easier than one would think

    The people are so friendly.

  15. 15

    The Chilean Hass is the most exported avocado in the world. Try it! It’s delicious!

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    In the central valleys in March and April, there are harvest festivals and wine tastings.

  17. 17

    The eighth wonder of the world

    Source: www.flickr.com

    Las Torres del Paine, in Patagonia

  18. 18

    Aysén

  19. 19

    Watching the sunset over the driest desert in the world

    Sunset over the Valle De La Luna

  20. 20

    Mountain biking through the vineyards of Casablanca

  21. 21

    Zodiac Boats

    Source: mstecker.com

    Zodiac boats are strong, inflatable, motor-powered boats, ideally suited to sailing through Chile’s Patagonian fjords, along the coast, or taking you right up to the snout of a glacier.

  22. 22

    You can eat seafood every day. The parmesan machas (mussels) are a speciality.

    Source: intoday.in
  23. 23

    Big breakfasts - Avocado or jam on bread, scrambled eggs or Chilean sweet pastries.

  24. 24

    Wild Geography

    Chile has wild geography. It lays like a noodle along South America’s southern Pacific coast spanning over 39 latitudes. If you were to fly from Arica to Punta Arenas, that’s akin to going from Boston to LA in the US.

  25. 25

    To try the Chile's version of hot dog

    Source: www.flickr.com
  26. 26

    They have Piscola

    Source: www.flickr.com
  27. 27

    Kayaking

    With 2580 miles of coastline and seemingly endless rivers and fjords, sea kayaking is a great way of exploring Chile and accessing unique places that most people never see!

  28. 28

    Fly Fishing

    The abundant rivers and fjords of Chile’s far south are teeming with salmon and trout.

  29. 29

    Don’t freak out if someone offers you an earthquake.

  30. 30

    Torres del Paine National Park

    Source: www.wexas.com

    Torres del Paine National Park, in Chile’s Patagonia region, is known for its soaring mountains, electric-blue icebergs that cleave from glaciers and golden pampas (lowlands) that shelter rare wildlife such as llama-like guanacos

  31. 31

    San Cristóbal Hill

    Source: travelblog.org

    Cerro San Cristóbal is a hill in northern Santiago. It rises 880 m AMSL and about 300 m above the rest of Santiago; the peak is the second highest point in the city, after Cerro Renca.

  32. 32

    Lauca National Park

    Lauca National Park is located in Chile's far north, in the Andean range. It encompasses an area of 1,379 km² of altiplano and mountains, the latter consisting mainly of enormous volcanoes. Las Vicuñas National Reserve is its neighbour to the south.

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    Valle de la Luna

    El Valle de la Luna is located 13 kilometres west of San Pedro de Atacama, to the north of Chile in the Cordillera de la Sal, in the Atacama desert of Chile. It has various stone and sand formations which have been carved by wind and water.

  34. 34

    Chiloé Island

    Chiloé Island, the main island in the archipelago of the same name, is in southern Chile. It’s home to pastoral landscapes and known for its iconic wooden churches, built by Jesuit missionaries in the 17th and 18th centuries.

  35. 35

    Santiago Metropolitan Park

    The Santiago Metropolitan Park is an urban park located within the city of Santiago.

  36. 36

    La Moneda Palace

    Palacio de La Moneda, or simply La Moneda, is the seat of the President of the Republic of Chile. It also houses the offices of three cabinet ministers: Interior, General Secretariat of the Presidency and General Secretariat of the Government.

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    Plaza de Armas

    It is the centerpiece of the initial layout of Santiago, which has a square grid pattern.

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    Los Pingüinos Natural Monument

    Los Pingüinos Natural Monument is located 35 km northeast of Punta Arenas. Magdalena Island and the Marta Island, situated in the middle of the Strait of Magellan, is the main part of this natural monument.

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    Magdalena Island, Magallanes Region

  40. 40

    Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino

    Source: tripadvisor.com

    The Museo Chileno de Arte Precolombino is an art museum dedicated to the study and display of pre-Columbian artworks and artifacts from Central and South America.

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    San Rafael Glacier

    The San Rafael Glacier is one of the major outlet glaciers of the Northern Patagonian Ice Field in southern Chile and is the tidewater glacier nearest the equator.

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    Santa Lucía Hill

    Santa Lucía Hill is a small hill in the centre of Santiago.

  43. 43

    Cajón del Maipo

    Source: luciasuites.com

    Cajón del Maipo is a canyon located in the Andean southeastern portion of the Santiago Metropolitan Region.

  44. 44

    Museum of Memory and Human Rights

    Source: architonic.com

    The Museum of Memory and Human Rights is a Chilean museum located in Santiago, dedicated to commemorate the victims of human rights violations during the civic-military regime led by Augusto Pinochet between 1973 and 1990.

  45. 45

    Valle Nevado

    Valle Nevado is a ski resort located on the El Plomo foothills in the Andes Mountains, at 46 km to the east of Santiago.

  46. 46

    Chilean National Museum of Fine Arts

  47. 47

    Villarrica

    Villarrica is one of Chile's most active volcanoes, rising above the lake and town of the same name, 750 km south of Santiago.

  48. 48

    Cordillera Paine

    Source: https

    The Cordillera Paine is a small mountain group in Torres del Paine National Park in Chilean Patagonia.

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    Parque Forestal

    The park was created on reclaimed land from the Mapocho River and is located in the historical downtown of Santiago, west of Plaza Baquedano and east of Estación Mapocho.

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    Costanera Center

    The Costanera Center is a business and commercial complex that includes a six-floor shopping mall, the Gran Torre Santiago and three other skyscrapers - two high-end hotels and an office building.

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    Osorno

    Source: hqworld.net

    Osorno Volcano is a 2,652-metre tall conical stratovolcano lying between Osorno Province and Llanquihue Province, in Los Lagos Region of Chile.

  52. 52

    Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works

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    Chungará Lake

    Chungará is a lake situated in the extreme north of Chile, in the Altiplano of Arica y Parinacota Region in the Lauca National Park. It is the 29th highest lake in the world. It is near the volcanos Parinacota and Pomerape.

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    Todos los Santos Lake

    Source: nytimes.com

    Lake Todos los Santos is a lake located in the Los Lagos Region of southern Chile, 96 km northeast of the regional capital Puerto Montt and 76 km east of Puerto Varas, within the boundaries of the Vicente Pérez Rosales National Park.

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    El Morado Natural Monument

    El Morado Natural Monument is a Chilean Natural Monument located in the Cajón del Maipo, Santiago Metropolitan Region. The monument is a glacial cirque and is part of the El Volcán River basin.

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    Fantasilandia

    Fantasilandia is a Chilean amusement park. The park opened in 1978 and is located in a corner of the O'Higgins Park in Santiago.

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    San Rafael Lake

    San Rafael Lake is an arc-shaped coastal lake located in the Aysén del General Carlos Ibáñez del Campo Region of Chile, within the national park that bears its name.

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    Centro Cultural Palacio de La Moneda

    Source: wikimedia.org
  59. 59

    Ojos del Salado

    Source: summitpost.org

    Nevado Ojos del Salado is a massive stratovolcano in the Andes on the Argentina–Chile border and the highest active volcano in the world at 6,893 m.

  60. 60

    Pomerape

    Source: summitpost.org

    Pomerape is a stratovolcano lying on the border of northern Chile and Bolivia. It is part of the Payachata complex of volcanoes, together with Parinacota Volcano to the south. It is of Pleistocene age.

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    Pumalín Park

    Pumalín Park is a 3,250 km² private nature reserve in the Palena Province of Chile, created by the United States environmental foundation The Conservation Land Trust, which is endowed and led by the American business magnate Douglas Tompkins.

  62. 62

    R. P. Gustavo Le Paige Archaeological Museum

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    Estadio Nacional Julio Martínez Prádanos

    Source: www.resinsa.com
  64. 64

    Conguillío National Park

    Source: panoramio.com
  65. 65

    Tulor

    Source: flickr.com

    Tulor is an archaeological site located in the Norte Grande natural region of the Antofagasta Region, Chile near San Pedro de Atacama. The site is a former village complex with an area of 5,200 m² and 22 outlying edifices.

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    Villarrica Lake

    Lake Villarrica, also known as Mallalafquén, is located about 700 kilometers south of Santiago in Chile’s Lake District in the southeast area of the Province of Cautín.

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    Chilean National Zoo

    Source: mnstatic.com

    The Chilean National Zoo is a 4.8-hectare zoo that was founded in 1925 in Santiago.

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    Bosque de Fray Jorge National Park

    Source: www.conaf.cl

    Bosque de Fray Jorge national park or Bosque Fray Jorge national park lies in the Limarí Province, Coquimbo Region.

  69. 69

    Beagle Channel

    Beagle Channel is a strait in Tierra del Fuego Archipelago on the extreme southern tip of South America partly in Chile and partly in Argentina.

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    Mamiña

    Source: www.wolpy.com

    Mamiña is a small village located 130 kilometres east from Iquique at 2800 metres above sea level in the foothills of Los Andes Mountain range in northern Chile.

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    Termas de Mamina

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    Atacama Giant

    Source: tqn.com

    The Atacama Giant is a large anthropomorphic geoglyph in the Atacama Desert.

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    Tolhuaca

    Source: panoramio.com

    Tolhuaca Volcano is a stratovolcano straddling the border between the regions of Bío Bío and Araucanía in southern Chile.

  74. 74

    Pukará de Quitor

    Source: wikimedia.org

    Pukará de Quitor is a pre-Columbian archaeological site in northern Chile. This stone fortress is located 3 km northwest of the town of San Pedro de Atacama, overlooking the valley of the river San Pedro.

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    Reñaca beach

    Reñaca is a popular area of beaches and balnearios in the Valparaíso .

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    Mano del Desierto

    The Mano de Desierto is a large-scale sculpture of a hand located in the Atacama Desert in Chile, 75 km to the south of the city of Antofagasta, on the Panamerican Highway. The nearest point of reference is the "Ciudad Empresarial La Negra".

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    Calbuco

    Source: www.abc.net.au

    Calbuco is a stratovolcano located southeast of Llanquihue Lake and northwest of Chapo Lake, in the Los Lagos Region, and close to the cities of Puerto Varas and Puerto Montt in southern Chile.

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    Tupungatito

    Source: panoramio.com

    Volcán Tupungatito is the northernmost historically active stratovolcano of the southern Andes.

  79. 79

    Chilean Central Valley

    Central Valley, home to Chile’s renowned wine regions, stretches from Santiago south to the Bío Bío River. Between the Andes and the Chilean Coastal Range, this fertile ribbon includes the well-known Cabernet Sauvignon vineyards in the Maipo Valley.

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    Northern Patagonian Ice Field

    Source: 4photos.net

    The Northern Patagonian Ice Field, located in southern Chile, is the smaller of two remnant parts in which the Patagonian Ice Sheet in the Andes Mountains of lower South America can be divided.

  81. 81

    Chile is produce paradise

    Everything grows here. We eat on a huge variety of foodstuffs from fava beans to asparagus, artichokes, wild mushrooms (several varieties), heirloom beans, pumpkin, squash, corn, tomatoes, organic lettuces, wild greens, quince, pomegranate, berries, chilies, twelve kinds of avocado, and much, much more.

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    The architecture

    Source: squarespace.com

    From the amazing Spanish inspired architecture, to the weird and quirky houses of poets and artists, to stilt houses, there are beauties to behold everywhere.

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    The contrast between past and present

    Chile is a highly developed country in South America.

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    Intriguing street art

    Valparaiso, the “Jewel of the Pacific” and a UNESCO World Heritage City, is full of narrow and winding streets.

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    Chill lifestyle

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    Find a piece of wilderness just for you

    For such a long country, Chile has a relatively small population, most of which is concentrated around the capital, so it’s easy to escape the hubbub and find a piece of wilderness just for you.

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    The Oldest Mummy

    Chile has a rich and extensive pre-Columbian culture of its own to appeal to fans of history.

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    The Longest Country

    One of the the features that makes Chile such a remarkable and record-breaking country is that it's just so very long and includes so many lanscapes. It’s hard to imagine a country on this scale, but if you were to lift Chile up and lay it down in the Northern Hemisphere, it would have its northern tip comfortably in frozen Norway whilst its tail would reach to the very heart of the Sahara Desert in the south of Algeria.

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    Robinson Crusoe Island

    Robinson Crusoe Island is a small wildlife haven in the wide Pacific Ocean, and the inspiration behind Daniel Defoe’s classic tale of shipwrecks and legends.

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    Uyuni Connections

    Source: tripadvisor.com

    From northern Chile, it’s easy to take a short trip over the border into Bolivia. The Uyuni Salt Flats are the biggest in the world, with an expanse so large and so white it plays tricks on your eyes.

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    The Longest Mountain Range

    The whole length of Chile is dominated by the Andean Cordillera, the longest continental mountain range in the world.

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    Valparaiso

    The old port area of Valparaiso is another of Chile’s UNESCO World Heritage Sites

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    The Southernmost Permanently Inhabited Place - Ushuaia

  94. 94

    Vicuñas

    Source: elcomercio.pe

    They live 4000m above sea level. They drink salt water from the Legunas.

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    Horse Riding

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    Nevado Valley Skiing

    Source: chileanski.com

    The Nevado Valley is a popular ski resort not far from Chile’s capital Santiago. Modelled on European ski resorts, it’s considered one of the most modern resorts in Latin America.

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    Magellan Strait

    The Magellan Strait is a narrow passage of water that separates Tierra del Fuego from the mainland.

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    Try the dobladita, marraqueta, hallulla and homemade bread.

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    "Pebre" is addictive

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    You’ll find plenty of spicy food

    Source: lushaven.com

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