Thinking of heading to Chile next year on holiday (non biking) and was wondering if anyone had been?
Current thinking is to fly into Santiago and have a few days there, visit some vinyards around that area and then head down to the Lake District and then down to Patagonia.
Will be a 3 week break end of April/early May. Just wondering how easy it is to travel around, would I need to sort accomodation before going or is it easy just to rock up and find somewhere etc.
Thanks
I was there about 18 months ago but it was an orgainsed tour rather than solo travelling. Basically it's a 1st world country so don't go thinking that it will be cheap because it won't be. On the plus side it is perfectly safe. Think of it like travelling in Spain and you'll be fine.
You can see much of Santiago itself in just a couple of days really, but then there are some day trips too you can do.
I was there a few weeks ago, and it was nice to see plenty of people cycling. There are a few places you can hire bikes to do a city cycle tour, but you may not want to mid-week with the traffic.
I also did a day trip up into the Andes and am sure I saw a jump that someone had built. On the trip back down there was a group of roadies climbing to 3000m and some of them looked shattered, which given the altitude wasn't surprising.
I can't really comment about the rest of Chile or accommodation, as I was over partly on business. Overall in Santiago restaurants are high quality and extremely good value. Much of the rest of the country looks amazing too, and I will definitely be going back next year as my fiance goes there quite a bit for work.
Can't be bothered to re-type everything, so have a look here - http://singletrackworld.com/forum/topic/considering-mooching-around-samerica-for-3-weeks-in-jan-where-would-you-go
We were on an organised trip, so all travel and hotels were sorted before we went. I think that in the far South you may want to book ahead unless you are camping, we found that in Patagonia everywhere was full, though it was Christmas/New year when we were there.
Going at the end of April may mean some interesting weather in Patagonia. We were there pretty much at the height of summer, and while it was shorts and t shirts in Santiago, it was full waterproofs and down jackets in the blizzardy snow in Patagonia.
If you are travelling alone in Santiago (rather than on a tour) just be a little bit wary. My brother moved over there about 15 years ago, so my parents visit regularly. I admit that they stand out as gringo tourists, but my mum has had her bag snatched on at least 3 occasions (you think she'd learn 
) and lost her passport once.
It's an amazing and beautiful country, but there are a lot of people less fortunate than us out there so be aware of it and don't take any silly risks.(Not quite sure how to phrase it, but in some areas of the city the crime rate against tourists is quite high, in my brothers opinion this is partly due to tourists not fully realising the extent of the poverty, and the 'easy pickings' that they offer. Although a country that is very much making its way in the 'first world' it still has a very divided society, the rich are rich and well educated, but the poor are very, very poor by our standards)
That said, I have been out a few times and never had any trouble, I happily stayed on my own in various 'refuges' (like catered hostels) and travelled as a lone female. The overnight buses are an easy and cheap way to travel and if you don't plan to camp, try the mountain refuges in the wine growing valleys to the south of the city.
Thanks for the info. I'll have a read of the blogs etc.
Yeah, we were wondering about the time of year and the weather not being great. It'd be for a honeymoon and whilst we don't mind it not being hot we wouldn't want to be cold and wet for 3 weeks.
I'll do some more digging on the weather then.
We'd also be doing stuff on our own I think...not a fan of organised tours on the whole but will have a read of some I guess.
We'd also be doing stuff on our own I think...not a fan of organised tours on the whole but will have a read of some I guess.
Neither me or my missus are fans of package tours either, but with sorting out the wedding, we just felt it would be easier to let someone else do all the planning and organising. We looked at all the high street travel agents' tours, but there was always a few days we didn't really care for, and as we were spending a lot more on this holiday than we ever had before, we wanted every day to count, as it were. Hence we went with travel agent, their "standard" tours looked pretty good, but they will arrange custom itineries as well. We went with that, and in hindsight could have done without a lot of the transfers they organised for us, but it was nice being so well looked after, yet basically travelling as just the two of us. (Though we did meet one other couple in 3 different places)!
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