If you are planning a trip to Chile and need information about what to do in Santiago and surroundings, here we will give you the best recommendations: Cultural activities, outdoor terraces, walks to the Andes, visit the Wine Routes are some of the excursions that can be done during the day from the capital.

Santiago: Barrio Lastarria, Bellavista and Historical Center Santiago is considered one of the most cosmopolitan cities in South America and has been recognized as one of the 25 destinations you have to visit if you travel to the region.

Here are some suggestions so that the next time you visit the capital of Chile, stay a few days and be surprised. If you want to know one of the most bohemian corners of Santiago and its surroundings, we recommend you to start with a walk through Lastarria, a small and eclectic neighborhood that is located in the heart of Santiago, in the Bellas Artes subway. The Lastarria neighborhood was declared a Typical Zone in 1997 due to the large number of historic monuments found here, such as the Forest Park, the Santa Lucía hill, the National Palace of Fine Arts, and the Bruna Palace, among others. Besides, in the surroundings, you will find the El Biografo cinema, the Museum of Visual Arts, and the Gabriela Mistral Center, which exhibits artistic creations and hundreds of restaurants and bars so you can enjoy the exquisite cuisine with the best Chilean wines.



From the Lastarria neighborhood, you can walk to the Plaza de Armas de Santiago, where you will find cafes, commercial stores, street art, and different historical and cultural buildings such as Correos de Chile, the municipality of Santiago, and the Cathedral.

You can not miss visiting the Palacio La Moneda, the seat of presidential power, tour the surrounding streets. To close the day, you can walk about fifteen minutes to reach the Bellavista neighborhood, the epicenter of the nightlife of Santiaguinos and tourists. There you can enjoy local cuisine, parties, bars and much more. During the day you can visit La Chascona, the Pablo Neruda house museum, and climb the funicular to San Cristobal hill, located in the Metropolitan Park.



Ski centers
If you travel to Santiago in winter, you can visit the ski centers located in the Cordillera de Los Andes. Here you will find fields with excellent infrastructures, such as Valle Nevado, El Colorado, La Parva, Farellones, and Portillo, where championships are held internationally and multiple events related to wine. In Santiago and around you will find many and diverse activities!

All the centers have an excellent tourist infrastructure with hotels, specialized stores, rental of equipment and classes, as well as modern ski courts with different types of difficulty: easy, medium, difficult and expert level. A center such as Portillo and El Colorado has machines to generate artificial snow in case it is scarce. Most hotel establishments in Santiago have private tours and transportation to access the winter resorts.



Santiago and its surroundings: Cajon del Maipo, a mountain range canyon If you want to leave Santiago, you can visit the Cajon del Maipo, located just one hour from Santiago. This is an ideal place to rest and enjoy nature due to the enormous amount of natural attractions that it has: such as the Volcan, El Colorado, and El Yeso Reservoirs and estuaries such as Manzano, San Jose, San Gabriel, Manzanito, among others.

If you are looking for a panoramic tour, you can make a full day that will take you to the Yeso Reservoir, a lagoon in the middle of mountains that provides water to the capital, and tour the town of San Jose de Maipo with its crafts and local restaurants. As for adventure tourism, the Cajon del Maipo is not far behind. You can go rafting on the Maipo river, climb the hills or even take a ride to the viewpoint of La Calchona with one of the best panoramic views and the possibility of seeing condors during the tour.

Valparaíso: World Heritage City
If you want to travel in Santiago and its surroundings, just an hour and a half from the capital by road, you will find Valparaíso, whose historic center was declared a World Heritage Site by UNESCO in 2003. The so-called Joya del Pacífico is characterized by its picturesque lifts and trolleybuses, but especially for its colorful hills, its cultural activities, and its nocturnal bohemia. If you want to have a privileged view of the port of Valparaíso, we recommend visiting Cerro Alegre and Cerro Concepcion, where you will find several murals painted by street artists. The architecture is characterized by its vibrant colors and balconies full of flowers, a legacy left by the Europeans who arrived in this city in the 19th century. In this region, you can also learn more about the history of the national poet Pablo Neruda and visit his house La Sebastiana or Casa Museo Isla Negra, located in one of the hills of Valparaíso. You can go to the city of Valparaíso for the day, but we recommend you stay a few days and live the experience of the most emblematic port of Chile.

Aconcagua Valley In the Valley of Aconcagua, also in the region of Valparaíso, is the Paidahuen Archaeological Park, located in the commune of San Esteban. Here, rock art is represented, represented by petroglyphs, carved figures in rock, and valuable vestiges left by ancient inhabitants of this sector.

The park can be accessed with guided tours of the San Esteban vineyard where Paidahuen is located. Santiago and surroundings: Sewell, World Heritage Site Located on the slope of Cerro Negro, two hours south of Santiago, is Sewell, a city built to house the workers of El Teniente, the largest underground copper mine in the world. During the decade of the 60, Sewell already had the property of the industrial city, housing more than 15 thousand inhabitants.



However, when the process of Chileanization of copper began, the workers were transferred to Rancagua, leaving behind a place that in 1998 would be named a World Heritage Site. Today it is possible to visit Sewell in guided tours from Santiago to learn in-depth the history of copper and the people who inhabited this town nestled in the middle of the Andes in the O'Higgins region.

In Chile, you can find some of the best wines in the world and have an experience in the wine valleys of the central area. Just 2 hours from Santiago, there is the Colchagua Valley that has heritage houses, wineries, museums, and extensive vineyards. Besides, you can visit the Museum of Santa Cruz that offers a varied sample of items that were collected hundreds of years ago to preserve the cultural heritage of Chile. If we travel to the coast, we will find the famous resort of Pichilemu, a destination that attracts surfers from all over the world and all kinds of visitors to beaches such as La Puntilla, Punta de Lobos, Hermosa, among others. Here you can take surf lessons and rent boards for the day. In this video, you will find all the activities that can be done in the Colchagua Valley, where you can stay more than a day and take advantage of the green landscapes.