Chile travel tips

Following are regularly updated travel tips for Chile.

The text below is from the comprehensive holiday travel tips to be found at
Cheap World Travel Tips.

May 22 2010 Chile travel tips

Note: An offshore earthquake measuring 8.8 on the Richter scale rocked central Chile on February 27, 2010, killing more than a thousand people and causing widespread, catastrophic structural damage. The quake struck about 115km (70 miles) north-east of the city of Concepcion and 325km south-west of the capital, Santiago. There was widespread damage to infrastructure such as bridges and about two million Chileans, or one eighth of the population, were believed to have been affected by the earthquake, with about 1.5 million buildings destroyed or damaged. Two of the worst-hit areas were the central Maule region and the city/province of Concepcion. Chile is expected to suffer the consequences of the earthquake for several years.

Santiago has a population of six million and is a comparatively safe city. Critics claim it lacks the elegant, charming and flirtatious Latin vibe of other South American cities such as Buenos Aires and Rio.

The Chilean economy has been booming in 2006 and prices in shops and cafes are generally higher than you'll find elsewhere in South America.

Worth visiting is Chile's main port and second city, Valparaiso, populated by 600,000 residents and 120 kilometres from Santiago. Valparaiso is built on a spectacular landscape of 48 hills and there are fantastic views in all directions. The old town of Valparaiso is a World Heritage site.

Apart from glaciers, the Patagonia region boasts a surreal landscape of penguins, icefloes, ancient forests, Andean volcanos, wild rivers and rocky beaches. This is a land of extremes where mountains soar 3000 metres and then drop into the Pacific Ocean as thousands of islands and archipelagos. Patagonia's wildlife is unique.

The southern Lakes district is dominated by the Villarrica volcano, which usually has a cap of snow even at the height of summer but with a peak that glows red at night. Chile south of Peurto Monte and into Patagonia is breathtakingly beautiful but travel can be rough and there are few luxuries.

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