Multi-Day Tours in Chile

Multi-day tours in Chile are built around one region and one flight. Arica, the country's northernmost city, lies 18 km south of Peru and gets almost no rain. The Chinchorro people lived on this coast from about 7000 to 1500 BCE and practised artificial mummification before the Egyptians did; UNESCO listed their sites in 2021. The San Pedro de Atacama discovery programme works in height: it stays mostly above 4,000 metres and reaches 4,300 on one day. Easter Island counts 887 moai, and a national park of 6,800 hectares covers much of the island. Orongo, about 250 metres up on the ridge between the ocean and the Rano Kau crater, was the centre of the Birdman cult that replaced the moai.

Chile multi-day tours mostly run four days, with hotels, transfers and tours fixed. Atacama adds Moon Valley, the salt caves and the Piedras Rojas lagoons. Puerto Natales sends a day to Torres del Paine and the Milodón cave. The high plateau from Arica adds the Azapa mummies, and a small-group La Serena programme chases dark skies. The Torres del Paine trek is four days and three nights. Easter Island comes in three to five days, as private half- and full-day combinations or a stay with a dinner show, and an eight-day trip joins it to Patagonia. Santiago offers a city programme with a winery over three or four days, a culinary one, and a week that continues by air to Mendoza.

Practical. Distances decide the order. From San Pedro de Atacama, at about 2,400 metres, the airport at Calama is 101 km and an hour and a half away, and winter nights there fall below freezing. In the far south the bus from Punta Arenas to Puerto Natales takes three hours, and Patagonia works from October to April; Torres del Paine averages 11C in February, with wind strongest from November to January. Easter Island lies 3,500 km out, five hours by air from Santiago, and runs 27C in January and 21C in July.