Chile Bucket List: 25 Experiences Worth Travelling For

Chile is one of those countries that takes a while to get your head around. It is the longest country in the world, stretching from the driest desert on Earth in the north to glaciers and fjords in the south, with volcanoes, lakes, wine valleys, Pacific beaches and some of the most dramatic landscapes anywhere in between. I lived there for nearly four years and still feel like I only scratched the surface.

What follows is a Chile bucket list built from real experience — things I have done, things I chased obsessively and finally found, and a few things still on the list. All of them are worth your time.

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1. Explore the Atacama Desert

Where to even start with the Atacama. It is the driest desert on Earth — barely any rain in an average year — and yet it is one of the most varied, surprising landscapes I have ever lived in. White sand beaches appearing out of nowhere. High altitude lagoons full of flamingos. A night sky so clear it genuinely changes how you think about the universe.

I spent four years based in Antofagasta exploring it on weekends and I still found new corners every time. Chile is very diverse, but Atacama is very unique.

👉 Read my complete guide to things to do in Atacama Desert here

2. Watch the Geysers of El Tatio at Sunrise

The 4am alarm is non-negotiable. El Tatio sits at over 4,200 metres above sea level and the geysers are most active at sunrise when the temperature difference between the steam and the frozen air is at its greatest. Arrive in the dark, stand in the cold, and watch the whole field come alive as the sun appears over the mountains. Then get in the hot spring on site, which feels completely surreal at that altitude and that hour. Worth every bit of the early start.

3. See the Penguins

I have a well-documented penguin problem. I chased them across Chile for years with very mixed results. Humboldt penguins live along the central and northern coast, Magellanic penguins in Patagonia, and king penguins — the tall, impeccably dressed ones — in small numbers in Tierra del Fuego. I eventually saw all three species, though not without a significant number of failed attempts, missed boats and fishermen who preferred to sell crafts on a Saturday afternoon. Chiloé island turned out to be the place where everything finally came together, in a single boat trip that also included a whale. More on that below.

👉 Read my guide on where to see penguins in Chile here

4. Go Whale Watching in Chiloé

Pingüinera Puñihuil on the northern coast of Chiloé island is one of the few places in the world where Humboldt and Magellanic penguins nest together, and the boat tours from the beach also pass through active whale feeding grounds. On a small wooden boat with salty water splashing over the sides, we watched a whale surface a few metres away and stayed close enough that the scale of it was startling. I put the camera down and just watched. It remains one of my happiest mornings in Chile.

5. Stand at Muelle de las Almas

A wooden dock perched on a cliff above the wild Pacific on the western coast of Chiloé, built as a homage to an indigenous Mapuche legend about souls crossing to the afterlife. The hike through native forest to get there takes about 40 minutes and you arrive without warning — the trees open up and suddenly you are standing at the edge of something that feels like the end of the world. We stood there in silence for a long time, with the wind and the waves and the occasional sheep in the distance. One of the most atmospheric places I have visited anywhere.

👉 Read the full guide to Muelle de las Almas here

6. Drive the Road Trip to Lago Chungara

From Arica near the Peruvian border, a road climbs up through the Lauca National Park to a lake sitting at 4,600 metres above sea level with Parinacota volcano reflected in it. I can assure you that not many people took this road trip, so if you have any thirst for adventure, this is it.

We drove it over a weekend from Antofagasta, eight hours north on the Friday, up to the lake on Saturday, back on Sunday. The locals called us crazy. They always do. The southern road up to the lake is one of the most frightening drives I have ever done, with pieces of road crumbling away beneath the wheels and a valley several hundred metres straight down on one side. Take the northern road on the way up. The lake itself, with flamingos picking along the edges and vicuñas grazing nearby, is worth every kilometre.

7. See La Mano del Desierto

Seventy-five kilometres south of Antofagasta along the Pan-American Highway, a giant human hand rises eleven metres out of the desert floor with no explanation and no context. The sculptor Mario Irarrazabal designed it to express loneliness, vulnerability and the fragility of human life. Standing next to it in the middle of the Atacama with nothing else around for kilometres in any direction, you feel all of those things acutely. Bring water and sunscreen as there is no shelter out here.

👉 Read my guide to La Mano del Desierto here

8. Visit Pablo Neruda’s House

Pablo Neruda’s houses are as fascinating as the poet himself. He designed each of them personally, filling them with objects from his travels and his obsessions: ship figureheads, coloured glass, maps, nautical instruments. La Chascona in Santiago, the house he built for the love of his life Matilde, is the most visited and a good starting point. The name he gave the house translates roughly as “tangled-haired woman”, a reference to Matilde’s hair. It is one of those places that gives you the person behind the work in a way that reading the poems alone does not.

9. Watch the Sunset in Valle de la Luna

Moon Valley just outside San Pedro de Atacama really does look like another planet. The salt formations, eroded rock and sand dunes produce a landscape that scientists say closely resembles the surface of the Moon. Go in the late afternoon and stay for sunset, the desert shifts through extraordinary shades of pink, purple and dusty blue as the light drops. Going at midday in full desert sun, as most people do, is a mistake. Go late, go slow, and give yourself at least two hours.

10. Float in Laguna Cejar

A lagoon so salty that you cannot sink in it. You float effortlessly in the middle of the Atacama Desert with the sky above you and nothing around for miles. It sounds like a gimmick and it is one of the genuinely strangest and most peaceful things I have done on any trip in South America. Use the showers on site before you leave. Dried salt on skin is deeply uncomfortable and the drive back to San Pedro is long.

11. Watch Flamingos at the Altiplanic Lagoons

The flamingos of the Atacama are shy. Get too close and they are gone. But watching them from a respectful distance, wading through pink mineral water on salt flats at high altitude with volcanoes behind them, is one of the more surreal wildlife experiences available in South America. Laguna Chaxa in the Salar de Atacama is the most accessible, but the Miscanti and Miñiques lagoons at over 4,200 metres are the most visually striking. I walked out into the mud at Lago Chungara to get closer to the ones there and they retreated anyway. I do not regret the mud.

12. Stargaze in the Atacama

The Atacama has some of the clearest, darkest skies on Earth, which is why the world’s most powerful observatories are built here. On a clear night in the desert you can see the Milky Way with a clarity that feels almost violent, and from the southern hemisphere you can observe parts of the sky that simply do not exist from Europe or North America.

Book a guided telescope session at one of the observatories in San Pedro (they are genuinely excellent) and then spend the rest of your evenings lying on your back outside just looking up. The second part costs nothing and is equally extraordinary.

13. Visit Paranal Observatory

One of the most powerful astronomical observatories in the world, operated by the European Southern Observatory about 120 km south of Antofagasta.

Visits are open on weekends and free of charge but must be booked in advance. The telescopes are enormous in a way that makes you feel extraordinarily small, and watching the scientists work during a guided tour gives you a different perspective on what the Atacama’s extraordinary skies are actually being used for. One of my favourite things I did during my years living in the region.

14. Discover the Hidden Beaches of Pan de Azúcar

Wide, clean, white-sand beaches in the middle of the Atacama Desert, with sea lions, pelicans, dramatic rock formations and almost nobody else around. Pan de Azúcar National Park sits about five hours south of Antofagasta and most people simply do not know it exists. I went three times, mostly chasing the Humboldt penguins that live on a small island just offshore. The beach made every trip worthwhile regardless of the penguins.

👉 Read my complete guide to Pan de Azúcar National Park here

15. See the Desierto Florido

From time to time (not every year, and only after sufficient autumn rain) the grey-brown desert around Copiapó transforms into fields of pink, yellow and purple wildflowers. Seeds that have been lying dormant in the soil for years, sometimes decades, all germinate at once and the air smells of them. It happens mainly in October. I was there for one of the years it occurred and I still struggle to describe it accurately. A desert in bloom is something your brain genuinely cannot prepare for.

👉Read my complete guide to Pan de Azúcar National Park here

16. Road Trip Around Chiloé Island

Chiloé is the largest island in Chilean Patagonia and one of the most culturally rich places in South America. It has its own mythology, its own architecture, and a pace of life that feels entirely separate from the rest of Chile. Sixteen wooden churches built in the 18th and 19th centuries are UNESCO World Heritage listed, the palafito stilt houses along the waterfront in Castro are unlike anything else in the country, and the roads connecting the island’s villages pass through landscapes that are green and misty and quietly magical. Give it at least two days. Three is better.

👉 Read my complete Chiloé island road trip guide here

17. See Colourful Valparaiso

Valparaiso is built across forty-two hills above a working Pacific port and every surface of it is covered in street art. It is chaotic, beautiful, slightly difficult to navigate, and completely unlike anywhere else in Chile.

The antique funiculars, ascensores, that connect the hilltop neighbourhoods to the lower city have been running since the late 19th century and riding them is one of those small travel experiences that gives you an immediate sense of how a city lives. Go on a clear day for the views over the port. We went there for the New Year’s Eve as Valparaiso is knows for some of the best fireworks in South America.

18. Trek the W Circuit in Torres del Paine

A four-day, 55-kilometre trail through one of the most dramatically beautiful national parks in the world. Torres del Paine in Chilean Patagonia is the kind of place that features on every list of great trekking routes on Earth, and the people who have done it suggest those lists are right. I have not yet done it myself — it is still firmly on the list — but I have spoken to enough people who have that I feel comfortable saying: book early, go in the shoulder season, and bring proper gear.

19. Visit Easter Island

Easter Island is one of the most remote inhabited places on Earth, sitting in the Pacific nearly 4,000 km from the Chilean coast. The moai (the massive stone figures that line the coastline) were built by the Rapa Nui people between roughly the 13th and 16th centuries, and the question of how and why has fascinated researchers for decades. The island itself is small, volcanic and extraordinarily atmospheric.

This is one of the most extraordinary places I have ever been to. You won’t believe it, but Eastern Island is so remote, that you can actually hear the silence. It is a very odd sensation.

20. Dance the Cueca

The Cueca, Chile’s national dance, embodies the country’s history and cultural essence. With its origins tracing back to the colonial era, this lively dance symbolizes courtship, displaying intricate footwork, flirtatious gestures, and vibrant costumes adorned with flowing skirts and traditional attire. Accompanied by guitar, accordion, and other instruments, couples whirl and twirl in a spirited display, evoking the essence of Chilean pride and celebration, keeping alive a cherished tradition passed down through generations.

21. Eat Mote con Huesillo on a Hot Day

This is a Chilean summer institution. Boiled wheat grains and reconstituted dried peaches in a sweet cinnamon-scented syrup, served cold from street stalls across the country. It is refreshing, slightly strange if you are not used to it, and exactly what you want in 30 degree heat in Santiago. Non-alcoholic, cheap, and one of those things that is very specifically Chilean in a way that makes it worth seeking out.

22. Eat a Completo Without Getting Mayonnaise Everywhere

A completo is a Chilean hot dog served with avocado, tomatoes and a frankly alarming quantity of mayonnaise. The correct technique for eating one without covering yourself entirely is something I attempted multiple times during my years in Chile and never fully mastered. I include it here partly as a genuine food recommendation, hey are good, and partly as a warning. Wear something you do not mind staining.

23. Try Pisco Sour

Both Chile and Peru claim pisco sour as their national drink and the argument has been running for years with no resolution in sight. The Chilean version tends to be slightly different from the Peruvian one — less frothy, sometimes simpler — but both are worth trying for the sake of forming an opinion. Pisco, citrus juice, sweetener and egg whites. Two is a good number. Three requires a different kind of planning for the following morning.

24. Visit San Miguel de Azapa and its Mummies

Just outside Arica in the Azapa Valley, a small archaeological museum houses artefacts spanning over 10,000 years of human history in northern Chile. The highlight is a collection of mummies that predate the Egyptian ones — some of the oldest artificially mummified human remains ever found. It is the kind of discovery that appears from nowhere on a road trip and stays with you for a long time. We stumbled across it on the way back from Lago Chungara and it was one of the genuine surprises of that trip.

25. Cross to Tierra del Fuego: The End of the World

There is something about reaching the end of the world that does not get old no matter how many times you think about it before you arrive.

Tierra del Fuego sits at the very southern tip of South America, split between Chile and Argentina, and getting there is as much the experience as being there. The drive through Chilean and Argentine Patagonia is one of the great road trips on the continent: vast open steppe, snow-capped mountains, glaciers appearing between the hills, and a landscape that gets more dramatic and more desolate the further south you go.

The ferry crossings at the Strait of Magellan are part of the journey rather than an interruption to it. Ushuaia on the Argentine side calls itself the southernmost city in the world and wears that title with considerable pride. I spotted king penguins in Tierra del Fuego on a cold afternoon that I had not planned around them at all, one of those travel moments that arrives without warning and stays with you permanently. The feeling of standing at the end of the Earth with the Southern Ocean in front of you and nothing beyond it is genuinely difficult to describe. Go and find out for yourself.

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