travel to Chile

We have been to Chile three times, all in connection with a cruise. Best one was Around the Horn from Buenos Aires to Chile. Amazing.

For a tour, check out Gate 1 Travel, we love their inexpensive tours.

janeullmann,
In March 2012 we went to Chile for 2 1/2 weeks. I made all our plans and didn't use a travel company, although I did arrange some outings. Here's how it went:
Used miles to fly business class to and from Los Angeles to Santiago. Wish I could do that again!
After a few days there we flew to Easter Island for three nights and saw just about everything there, especially lots of moai. We stayed at Aukara BandB. Easter Island is small and compact. We walked around town and over to the museum, easily. One day we took a tour to circumnavigate the island, seeing the "nursery" of the moai and the local beach area.
We returned to Santiago and took an all day wine-tasting tour through the Colchagua Valley, with Uncorked Tours. It included a deluxe lunch and was spectular. There were only 7 people in a comfortable van and our guide was excellent.
We flew (with miles) to Punta Arenas (in Tierra del Fuego), stayed overnight and left next day for a scientific-type cruise of the area. The cruise was 3 days and 3 nights. We went through the Straits oif Gibralter, hiked around an island learning about the flora and fauna at that latitude, visited Penguin Island (lots of penguins...it's where they breed), and saw lots of icebergs. It was Australis Cruises. The ship carried about 150 passengers. No "shows", but tours of the engine area and the bridge, talks about what we would see and experience. We used Zodiacs to get to the islands, but after our hiking around the various islands, we had hot chocolate with a slug of Jack Daniels Black Label in it (to warm up!) before the boat ride back to the ship. The food was excellent with white tablecloth service for meals. All drinks were included also. Comfortable staterooms too. Afterward we stayed in Punta Arenas an extra night to look around, visit the fascinating cemetery, and have drinks in Shackleton's bar in Hotel Jose Nogueira.
Back to Santiago. We visited various sights in Santiago and our favorite was the Museum of PreColombian Art of Chile. We went twice! The list of sights is found on Trip Advisor and similar sites, so I won't go into them. The subway system worked great. Walking around parks was easy. (We strolled a lot.) Also enjoyed a few Pisco Sours at cocktail time. We found so much to do we didn't have time to go see Valparaiso, alas.
The people were friendly and nice, the city was clean and had less graffiti than other big cities we have visited. Everyone obeyed the traffic signals, both vehicles and pedestrians! Most unusual for such a big city! All in all, one of our best trips! I hope you go and have a wonderful time. Buen viaje!

I have not been to Chile yet, but we are going there this coming November for a short trip (about 10 days total); I'm currently planning this trip and have just started booking things.

I have our flights from Seattle to Santiago and back, booked a few weeks ago (paid with points - surprisingly cheap in business class, using United miles and flying on COPA, Panama's national airline, which I really liked on our last trip to South America).

Tonight I just finished booking our flights between Santiago and Easter Island (again, surprisingly cheap flights), flying on LATAM Airlines, booked with Alaska Airlines miles (note to the many folks here who have Alaska miles: LATAM flights within South America are a great use of Alaska miles!).

Since this is just going to be a short trip, I'm trying not to think of it as a trip to Chile per se (Chile is a large, fascinating-looking country that clearly requires way more time than we can give it on this trip). Instead, I'm thinking of this as a trip to Easter Island, with a couple bonus days on the Chilean mainland. We are going to spend those bonus days in Valparaiso (which looks lovely). I figure the next time we go to Chile, when we can dedicate enough time to do it justice, we will spend a few weeks there, drive some of that epic road trip, and we will check out Santiago then (we gotta fly in/out through Santiago anyway).

I'm excited and looking forward to this trip.

(Rick Steves would not help arrange guides for you, he doesn't do that and South America is not his bailiwick.)

David, Congrats on your upcoming trip to Chile! Easter Island will not disappoint you. By the way, we used our Alaska Air miles also for our business class flight to and from Chile, and our miles for the flight to and from Punta Arenas. We bought our tickets to Easter Island (as you say, they were very reasonable). Buen viaje!

Oops! Straits of Magellan, not Gibraltar. What a goof!