7-Day Travel Itinerary in Chile

Chile is roughly 2,700 miles from top to bottom, which means no single week can honestly cover the desert, the wine valleys, and Easter Island without some hard choices. This version skips the fantasy of squeezing a Bolivian salt flat crossing into a single afternoon, something a lot of generic itineraries get wrong, and instead builds a week that a traveler can actually complete on real flight schedules.

Day 1: Santiago

Land at Arturo Merino Benitez International Airport and skip the taxi rank queue. A shared shuttle into the city runs about 8,000 to 10,000 CLP and takes 45 to 60 minutes with stops, while Uber or Cabify from the terminal runs 15,000 to 25,000 CLP for a direct 25 to 35 minute ride outside rush hour. Rush hour, roughly 7 to 9am and 5 to 8pm, can stretch that to 80 minutes, so time your arrival if you can.

• Check in near Lastarria or Providencia rather than the financial district; both neighborhoods put you in walking distance of restaurants and the metro.
• Walk Plaza de Armas, the founding square from 1541, then the Museum of Memory and Human Rights, which is free and genuinely difficult, budget two hours minimum.
• For dinner, Boragó remains one of South America’s most ambitious tasting-menu rooms, but book weeks ahead and expect a bill north of 150,000 CLP per person with wine pairing. If that is outside budget, Peumayen Ancestral Food Lab in Lastarria does a serious tasting menu built on pre-Columbian ingredients for a third of the price.

My opinion: skip the hop-on bus tour of Santiago entirely. The city rewards walking far more than it rewards a bus loop, and the metro is cheap, clean, and easy to navigate with a BIP card.

Things to Know

• Santiago sits at the base of the Andes and smog can trap in winter (June to August), so June arrivals should expect hazier mountain views than postcards suggest.
• Spanish is the working language everywhere outside hotel front desks; download an offline translator before you land.

Day 2: Valparaíso and Viña del Mar

Buses to Valparaíso leave from Terminal Pajaritos and Alameda roughly every 15 minutes, cost around 7,000 to 9,000 CLP round trip, and take about 90 minutes each way, so this is a full day, not a half-day add-on.

• Walk Cerro Concepción and Cerro Alegre for the hillside murals, then visit La Sebastiana, one of Pablo Neruda’s three houses in Chile, built into the hill with sea views he designed himself.
• Viña del Mar’s beaches are cold, the Humboldt Current keeps the Pacific here well under 60F even in summer, so treat it as a walk and seafood stop, not a swim.
• Lunch at a marisquería near Caleta Portales for fresh razor clams and congrio, Chile’s signature conger eel, rather than the tourist-priced restaurants right on the Valparaíso waterfront.

Local gotcha: Valparaíso’s hills are notorious for pickpocketing on crowded funiculars (ascensores) and around the port. Keep bags zipped and to the front.

Day 3: Fly to Calama, Transfer to San Pedro de Atacama

Flights from Santiago to Calama run about two hours; from there it is an hour by shared transfer or private taxi to San Pedro de Atacama, a dusty adobe town that sits at roughly 2,400 meters.

• Give yourself the afternoon to acclimatize before any high-altitude excursion. El Tatio geyser field sits above 4,300 meters and altitude sickness catches people who rush straight from the airport.
• Valle de la Luna at sunset is the classic first outing, guided tours run about 56 to 65 USD per person and include entrance to the Cordillera de la Sal.
• Skip the crowded main viewpoint if you can; ask your guide about the quieter dunes further along the same valley road.

Things to Know

• El Tatio’s entrance fee is roughly 15,000 CLP, paid in cash, and tours leave San Pedro around 4am to catch the geysers steaming at sunrise before the wind picks up. Bring every layer you own; it is well below freezing at that hour.
• Tours run in 4x4 vehicles because unpaved roads and washboard tracks are standard throughout the Atacama.

Day 4: Atacama Salt Flats and Altiplano Lagoons

This is where a lot of AI-written itineraries invent an impossible day trip to Bolivia’s Salar de Uyuni and back. That salt flat sits across the Andes in a different country, roughly 6 to 8 hours by 4x4 one way once you add the Hito Cajón border crossing, which itself can add another 1 to 2 hours and occasionally closes for snow. It is not a same-day excursion from San Pedro under any circumstance.

Stay in Chile instead and do the Atacama properly:

• Full-day tour to Laguna Cejar, Ojos del Salar, and the Baltinache lagoons, where you float in hypersaline water far less crowded than Cejar’s main pool.
• In the evening, book a stargazing tour with SPACE Obs or a similar licensed operator; the Atacama’s dry, high-altitude skies and near-zero light pollution make this one of the best places on earth for amateur astronomy, and most guides bring real telescopes rather than just pointing a laser.

My opinion: if you genuinely want Bolivia’s salt flat, treat it as its own 3 to 4 day trip from San Pedro, with an overnight in Uyuni town, not a bolt-on to a Chile week.

Day 5: Fly to Easter Island

LATAM runs the only scheduled service to Rapa Nui, generally one flight daily from Santiago on a 787, and it is roughly 5.5 hours in the air. Round-trip fares run 400 to 800 USD depending on season, book three to four months out if your dates are fixed, since flights do sell out and last-minute fares can double.

• Rapa Nui National Park entry is about 54,000 CLP (roughly 80 USD) for international visitors and covers ten days of access to Rano Raraku, Orongo, Anakena Beach, and Ahu Tongariki.
• Spend the afternoon at Ahu Tongariki, the largest reconstructed platform with 15 standing moai, timed for late afternoon light, then Anakena Beach, the only proper sand beach on the island and a good spot to unwind after two flights in one week.

Things to Know

• Buy your park entry ticket at Mataveri airport on arrival; it is not sold separately at each site.
• Guided half or full-day tours are worth it here specifically because a good guide contextualizes the moai and the island’s ecological collapse, both usually missing from a self-drive loop.

Day 6: Rano Raraku and Orongo, Fly Back to Santiago

• Morning at Rano Raraku, the quarry where most moai were carved, dozens still stand half-buried on the volcanic slope exactly where they were abandoned centuries ago.
• Orongo ceremonial village, perched on the rim of the Rano Kau crater, was the site of the tangata manu birdman competition and is worth the walk for the crater lake alone.
• Afternoon flight back to Santiago, another 5.5 hours; expect to lose most of the evening to travel.

Day 7: Wine Country

• Casablanca Valley is the closest option, about 90 minutes from Santiago and known for cool-climate Sauvignon Blanc and Pinot Noir, easy for a half-day if your flight home is that evening.
• Maipo Valley, just south of the city, is Chile’s oldest wine region and the place for Cabernet Sauvignon, with several producers offering tastings that pair well with a farewell lunch.
• Book a driver or small-group tour rather than self-driving; tastings add up and Chilean DUI enforcement is strict.

Visa Requirements

Citizens of the US, Canada, the EU, UK, and most of Latin America can enter Chile visa-free for up to 90 days as tourists. Requirements shift periodically, so check Chile’s consular site within a month of departure rather than relying on older blog posts.

Transportation

• Long-distance buses (Turbus, Pullman) connect Santiago, Valparaíso, and Viña del Mar cheaply and frequently; they are a poor option for reaching San Pedro de Atacama or Easter Island, both of which require flights.
• Domestic flights on LATAM or Sky Airline are the only practical way to cover Chile’s length in a week.
• Renting a car works well in wine country and around Santiago, but the unpaved tracks around San Pedro are better left to licensed tour operators with proper 4x4 experience.