Blog Archives

Clothes to Pack and Wear for the Chilean Lake Region

Clothes to Pack and Wear for the Chilean Lake Region

In summer months (December, January, February), shorts, short-sleeved shirts, something warmer for cool evenings and cooler nights. Always bring alternative clothes in the event the temperature cools right down. Rain jackets, outdoor shoes, or boots (not city shoes). Sunglasses, hat, sun-protection cream.

The usual summer weather here is similar to that of southern England in the summer.

How to Get to the Chilean Lake Region,
Arrivals and Transfers

Arrivals, Transfers & Transport

Introduction

The way to approach getting to the Chilean Lake Region is to decide if you are going to visit the northern access point, or the southern access point. If you arrive to the northern point, you can either stay around that area, or navigate through the Lake Region to end at the southern point.

Alternatively, you can arrive to the southern access point and stay around there or navigate north and end at the northern point.

You can, also, decide to arrive somewhere in the middle, too, and if this is the case, we will arrange that. However, the typical routes in are from the north, or the south.

The Northern Access Point

This is Pucon, via Temuco.

The Southern Access Point

This is Puerto Varas, via Puerto Montt

So, we will briefly share information on how to get to each access point.

Getting to Pucon

Pucon is located 781km, by road, south of Santiago. There are, effectively the following ways to get here.

Flight from Santiago

El Calafate Flights

Road distance 676km, drive time approx. 8hrs allowing for traffic and stops. The route is down the main Ruta 5 from Santiago to Temuco, then on the Freire where you must turn off the road and follow the signs to Villarrica and then on to Pucon. From Freire the road distance to Villarrica is 55km. Pucon is 27km from Villarrica.

Bus from Santiago

Regular Bus From Santiago Experience Chile

Regular bus departures from Vitacura in Santiago. Night-time sleeper bus, with comfortable seats that convert into beds (almost), TV and meals. The trip takes about 12hrs, but you can sleep for most of it.

Car from Santiago

Road distance 676km, drive time approx. 8hrs allowing for traffic and stops. The route is down the main Ruta 5 from Santiago to Temuco, then on the Freire where you must turn off the road and follow the signs to Villarrica and then on to Pucon. From Freire the road distance to Villarrica is 55km. Pucon is 27km from Villarrica.

Car from Argentina

From San Martin de Los Andes or Bariloche. The route over the Andes takes you through a spectacular Araucaria trees, past lakes and forest as well as Volcanoes. San Martin is “just over the border” from Pucon, but this still means a driving distance of around 200km, but it takes about 5hrs or so to drive the route considering the border crossings. Bariloche is further south from San Martin and will add on another 3hrs or so to the drive.

There is also a bus from Argentina, however, we do not handle that transfer.

We will arrange for you to get to Pucon and stay in this area, or to pass through the Lake Region down to Puerto Varas. Here, we will arrange for you to return to Santiago with a flight from Puerto Montt airport, or an onward trip to the Carretera Austral and / or Southern Patagonia and Torres del Paine and / or a Patagonian Cruise.

Getting to Puerto Varas

El Calafate Flights

Flight from Santiago or Punta Arenas

The only realistic way to get to Puerto Varas, which is located 1,008km south of Santiago, is to fly here from Santiago, which will take around 2hrs, followed by a transfer to Puerto Varas by bus or your own rent a car, either way the transfer will take about 20min.

Alternatively, if you are coming up from Punta Arenas (maybe you have been to Torres del Paine, or coming off a cruise ship), you can fly in from there. The flight time is about 1.5hrs, followed by the transfer by bus or rent a car to Puerto Varas.

From Puerto Varas we will arrange for your stay to be around this area, or we will arrange for you to self-drive up, through the lakes and end at Pucon (eventually flying to Santiago from Temuco), unless you self-drive all the way to Santiago.

Regular Bus From Santiago Experience Chile

Coming in from Argentina

There are two ways to come into Puerto Varas from Argentina. One is by road, either self-drive, private transfer or part of a tour from Bariloche, which is effectively on the other side of the Andes to Puerto Varas. This will take around 8hrs.

Lake Crossing

Alternatively, there is a lake crossing that involves two lakes on the Argentine side, one lake on the Chilean side, and a road transfer through the Andes Forest. This is a very picturesque trip, taking a full day, unless you stay overnight on the Chilean side prior to navigating the final lake.

This trip can also be done in reverse, as in Puerto Varas to Bariloche.

As with everything else, here at ExperienceChile.Org, we will arrange all of this if you wish to include it in your itinerary.

Hotel Accommodation, Chile Lake Region

Introduction

The Chilean lakes Region covers a vertical distance of over 349km, which includes at least eight large lakes and numerous other, smaller lakes.

The principal two populated centres are Pucon, beside Lake Villarrica, the northern-most lake of the large lake chain and Puerto Varas, bordering the southern-most, large lake in the chain at Lago Llanquihue (pronounced “yan-kee-way”).

Consequently, most of the accommodation is situated around Pucon and Puerto Varas. However, in between, there are also a few very good options that serve as stop offs, or places to book into for several nights and days.

These places are mentioned further below, but effectively these are located:

In addition, we would like to point out that the following hotels are, in our view, offering the highest level of services and comfort within the Chilean Lake Region. It is therefore possible for us to construct an itinerary through the Chilean Lake system whereupon you stay at top-end hotels in key areas.

Hotel Partners

We will summarise below our hotel partners within the Chilean Lake Region. Why do we have accommodation partners? The basic reality is that we, like you, want to know which hotels are “decent”, and that they offer comfortable accommodation in terms of rooms and facilities, and we prefer to work with those hotels that “pass our test”.

NOTE: Remember that we realise that you may well have a particular hotel, or lodge, that is not shown in our listings. If this is the case, PLEASE tell us what, and where this hotel is, and we will include it in your itinerary.

Lake Ranco