Chile highlights tour, 10 days
Includes breakfast every day, all entrance fees and permits, private transfers, tours, and domestic flights.
Description of Chile highlights tour, 10 days
A 10-day completely customisable tailor-made holiday to Chile, exploring the highlights of the capital city, the Atacama Desert, and Torres del Paine National Park in Patagonia. Includes accommodation in superb locally-owned hotels, guided tours throughout, internal flights and private transfers, and 24-hour assistance throughout your holiday.
HOLIDAY OVERVIEW
Your Chile holiday will start in the capital city of Santiago, where you’ll enjoy some free time to explore. We’ll then fly you to the north of the country to the Atacama Desert. You’ll be staying in the lovely town of San Pedro, and we’ll take you for tours of nearby towns, the Salt Lake, and the fascinating Tatio Geysers. Your holiday will then continue with a flight south to Patagonia, where you’ll have the chance to explore Punta Arenas, Puerto Natales and the breathtakingly beautiful Torres del Paine National Park. There you can enjoy some hiking or birdwatching, before returning to Santiago for your international flight.
NOTE
This is a completely tailor-made holiday which can be customised or amended in any way to suit your requirements and budget. No fixed departure dates or minimum numbers, and we can include private services throughout if desired. Can begin and end on any date to suit you.
INCLUDED
. 9 nights accommodation
. Breakfast every day
. Private airport transfers
. Guided tours & entrance fees
. Domestic flights
NOT INCLUDED
. Meals not specified
. Travel insurance
. International flights* & airport taxes
*We can also compare and book international flights from any destination on dates to suit you.
Price information
Includes breakfast every day, all entrance fees and permits, private transfers, tours, and domestic flights.
Departure information
Travel guides
Reviews
2 Reviews of Chile highlights tour, 10 days
Reviewed on 13 Nov 2019 by Andrew Scott
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?
Torres del Paine park with its magnificent vistas.
2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?
South America has some 'interesting' quirks including frequent changes of departure times and cancellations by airlines, toilet paper goes in the bin not the
toilet (yuk!), limited services in many hotels (eg no tea/coffee other than with meals, poor maintenance) and a manana attitude (no hurry). But also friendly
people, good local food and excellent wine (in Chile and Argentina anyway). Learn some Spanish especially in more remote areas - even if they speak some
English, the effort to speak their language will be very well received. Tips not essential but warmly welcomed.
3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Lots of local people get jobs with tourism and the level of environmental awareness was surprising. Real effort made to reduce rubbish, keep visitors to
marked paths, reduce impacts on local wildlife.
4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?
Challenging in parts eg the extreme cold in Patagonia, but really interesting if you keep an open mind and go with the flow.
Reviewed on 18 Feb 2019 by Diana Soysa
1. What was the most memorable or exciting part of your holiday?
Epic scenery throughout.
2. What tips would you give other travellers booking this holiday?
Double check weather forecasts for when you are travelling. We were unfortunately affected badly by the “Bolivian winter.”
3. Did you feel that your holiday benefited local people, reduced environmental impacts or supported conservation?
Hotels seem very environmentally minded.
4. Finally, how would you rate your holiday overall?
Really enjoyable time.
Responsible Travel
Planet
We work hard to protect the environment and minimise our ecological footprint, and we use overland travel using local transportation as opposed to domestic flights wherever this is possible. Chile is a very long, thin country, however, and so some internal flights are included in this itinerary. To put things into perspective, the bus journey from Santiago to San Pedro takes nearly 2 days. For this reason this holiday focuses on spending more time in just two areas of Chile, rather than many internal flights and short stops in numerous destinations.We work with locally-owned and run hotels within the Torres del Paine National Park which have a focus on sustainability, such as the Las Torres hotel, which has its own vegetable garden to cut down on imported produce. In all of our trips we include national park entrance fees in all of our holidays. This money goes directly towards protecting and sustaining the relevant parks for future generations.
In our UK office we have an active recycling policy and also use recycled ink cartridges and paper. We also minimise our waste by limiting the number of holiday brochures we print. Instead, we refer potential customers to our online resources and send most of our holiday information via email.
People
In order to ensure we have a positive impact on local economies and provide socially responsible holidays we always recommend locally-owned restaurants and hotels where possible, aiming to support local communities and give customers the opportunity to ‘travel like a local’. On this trip we particularly recommend El Cormoran de las Rocas in Puerto Natales, which serves fantastic fresh seafood, straight from the town's harbour that morning.We only use local suppliers and guides within Patagonia, Santiago and Atacama for all transfers and tours, which helps keep the money generated through tourism within local communities through employment of local guides, drivers and reps.
We also choose to work with hotels who run local community projects and support local cultures, for example, Las Torres is located on an old Gaucho ranch, and traditional customs are at the heart of the hotel’s ethos. In Atacama, we only do small group tours to villages in the Atacama Desert in order to avoid causing disruption to local communities whilst still supporting their tourist industry.
We are a member of Sustainable Travel International, a leading not-for-profit organisation dedicated to promoting awareness, appreciation and respect for local people and the environment through education and outreach programmes.
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