CL · Curated travel guide
Atacama Desert, Tierra del Fuego, Very Large Telescope and 7 more — what each one is, and why it is worth the detour.
Chosen from everything Wikidata knows about Chile and ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions describe them, which is about as close to "famous" as open data gets. One is on UNESCO's World Heritage list.
Plateau on Pacific coast of South America
A desert plateau on South America's Pacific coast, running along a strip of northern Chile, west of the Andes, 1,600-kilometre-long (1,000-mile). It covers 105,000 km² (41,000 mi²), or 128,000 km² (49,000 mi²) counting the bare lower slopes of the Andes.
Photo: NASA, Public domain
Archipelago off the south of South America
An archipelago off the very southern tip of mainland South America, on the far side of the Strait of Magellan.
Photo: W. Bulach, CC BY-SA 4.0
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Telescope in the Atacama Desert, Chile
Usually shortened to VLT, an astronomical facility run since 1998 by the European Southern Observatory on Cerro Paranal, in the Atacama Desert of northern Chile: four separate telescopes, each with a main mirror 8.2 metres (27 ft) across.
Photo: ESO/G. Hüdepohl ( atacamaphoto.com ), CC BY 4.0
Earth's highest volcano
Properly Nevado Ojos del Salado, a dormant complex volcano of the Andes on the border between Chile and Argentina. No volcano on Earth is higher, and it is Chile's highest peak.
Photo: Janne Corax, CC BY-SA 2.5
Island in the southeastern Pacific
A special territory of Chile: an island in the Pacific's southeast, at the far southeastern corner of Oceania's Polynesian Triangle. Its fame rests on the moai, nearly 1,000 surviving monumental statues made by the early Rapa Nui people.
Photo: kallerna, CC BY-SA 4.0
Astronomical observatory in Chile
An observatory in Chile where the European Southern Observatory (ESO) built and runs three telescopes; ESO also partly maintains several other telescopes on the site.
Photo: ESO/C.Madsen, CC BY 4.0
World Heritage
UNESCO World Heritage Site in Tarapacá Region, Chile
Two saltpeter refineries, now closed, in northern Chile. UNESCO named them a World Heritage Site in 2005, bearing witness to how important saltpeter mining was in Chile's history, and to the culture and social agenda that grew up around it in the late 19th century.
Photo: rewbs.soal, CC BY-SA 2.0
Subantarctic islands of Chile
A small group of subantarctic Chilean islands at the very southern tip of South America. The Diego Ramirez Islands & Drake Passage National Park, which is entirely marine, surrounds them, but the land itself belongs to the State outside the park.
Photo: Stan Shebs, CC BY-SA 3.0
Dormant stratovolcano in South America
A stratovolcano, now dormant, on the Chilean–Argentine frontier, inside Llullaillaco National Park. It rises from the Puna de Atacama, a high plateau of tall volcanic peaks beside the Atacama Desert, among the driest places on Earth.
Photo: uploaded by Salix with consent of the author : Jaime E. Jimenez, Laboratorio de Ecología, Universidad de Los Lagos.…, Attribution
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Active volcano in Chile
A conical stratovolcano 2,652-metre-tall (8,701 ft) in southern Chile's Los Lagos Region, on the line between Llanquihue and Osorno provinces. Rising from Llanquihue Lake's southeastern shore, it also looms above Todos los Santos Lake.
Photo: Draceane, CC BY-SA 4.0
Officially the Republic of Chile, a country of the Southern Cone in southwestern South America: the world's most southerly country and the nearest to Antarctica, stretched along a narrow strip between the Pacific Ocean and the Andes. The 2024 census counted 18.5 million people.
Officially The Republic of Chile.
Based on the Wikipedia article, licensed CC BY-SA 4.0: the facts are Wikipedia's, the wording is this site's.
This guide lists 10: Atacama Desert, Tierra del Fuego, Very Large Telescope and Ojos del Salado and others. Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works is a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
By machine, from open data, with no human ranking them and nobody able to pay for a place on the list. Everything Wikidata records in Chile that is a building, a landform, a protected area or a tourist attraction, has coordinates, a photograph and an English Wikipedia article, is ranked by how many Wikipedia language editions wrote about it. Provinces, cities, airports, stations and stretches of sea shared with the neighbours are filtered out.
1 of the 10 in this guide: Humberstone and Santa Laura Saltpeter Works. That is not the full count for Chile, only the listed sites that made this guide.
Spanish. The currency is CLP.
A travel eSIM is usually the cheapest way, and avoids a roaming bill. The plans suggested at the foot of this guide start at $3.26 for 1GB for 7 days. The eSIM is data-only and sits alongside your normal SIM, so calls, texts and WhatsApp keep working on your own number.
WOM. Your phone picks whichever has the best signal where you are, the same way a local phone does.
Maps, tickets and translation all want data, and roaming is the expensive way to get it. A Computatus eSIM eSIM connects to WOM once you land, and installs by QR code before you leave.
| Plan | Data | Valid | Price | Order |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1GB for 7 days Cheapest | 1 GB | 7 days | $3.26 | Get it → |
| 1GB per day | 1 GB | 1 day | $3.29 | Get it → |
| 2GB per day | 2 GB | 1 day | $5.75 | Get it → |
| 3GB for 15 days | 3 GB | 15 days | $8.93 | Get it → |
| 3GB for 30 days | 3 GB | 30 days | $9.49 | Get it → |
| 3GB per day | 3 GB | 1 day | $11.46 | Get it → |
No app needed. Install by QR code before you fly, keep your own number for calls, and it connects the moment you land.
A commission on plans bought through these links is what pays for this guide. Nothing above depends on it: the places are chosen before any price is looked up.
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