A Travel Writer’s Guide to Southern Chile

This article is drawn from our filmed conversation with Amelia Duggan, travel journalist and former Deputy Editor of National Geographic Traveller. We follow her journey through southern Chile on our Torres del Paine & Beyond trip. 

Amelia travelled at the very end of September into early October — the beginning of the season in Patagonia. She found quieter trails, guides buzzing with fresh-season energy, and yes, that famously unpredictable weather Patagonia loves to throw at you.

Here's the thing: peak months bring crowds chasing blue skies. But visiting slightly earlier? You get space to breathe, trails that feel like yours, and a more honest encounter with the place. The trade-off is embracing what locals call "four seasons in a day". We'd argue that's not a compromise — it's part of the experience.

Southern Chile is shaped by the people who live and work there — and the guides Amelia met brought that home.

In Torres del Paine, she met guides deeply rooted in the landscape. But one encounter on Chiloé stood out: our local partner Dan, who'd moved to the island after falling in love with a local. He straddles two worlds — outsider and insider — fluent in the island's dialect, connected to its people and originally from Connecticut. That combination unlocked places and stories that Amelia says she'd never have found on her own.

These are the voices that bring the landscape into focus. And the people our travellers get to meet along the way.

Twenty-five years of designing trips in southern Chile has taught us where to look. The hidden corners. The places that don't make it onto the standard itinerary.

Amelia found exactly that: hiking a private estate near Torres del Paine, stumbling across cave paintings, to spotting condors nesting up close — an insider encounter she describes as unforgettable.

Amelia also spent time road-tripping independently.

"It's so beautiful in Patagonia it almost doesn't feel real. You can get very distracted. I just had my mouth open staring up at these peaks and glaciers thinking — oh no. Eyes on the road."

The local advice? Go slow. Stop only at viewpoints. Respect the wildlife.

Amelia highlights her favourite moment in Chile: staying at Cerro Guido, with views of the eastern face of Torres del Paine. 

But it wasn't just the view. She learned to prepare maté. Met the gauchos. Spotted pumas in the wild. And behind it all, a conservation programme working to protect both the wildlife and the land they share. The kind of place where everything — the landscape, the people, the purpose — comes together.

There's a reason we paired Chiloé with Torres del Paine in a single trip.

Chiloé is intimate, human-scale: a family-run casita, local kitchens, beaches threaded with myths of witches, mermaids, and trolls. Torres del Paine is the opposite — vast skies, immense landscapes, geology measured in millennia. One draws you in close; the other pulls your gaze to the horizon.

That contrast is the point. Human stories and natural wonder, held in balance.

This trip is for travellers who value meaningful, off-the-beaten-track experiences. Beyond the typical tourist snapshots, it’s about meeting people, engaging with landscapes responsibly, and discovering hidden corners of southern Chile — from local kitchens and boutique hotels to lesser-known treks — creating a personal, unforgettable journey she says she’ll return to again and again.

If Amelia’s experience has inspired you, our team can help you plan your own journey through southern Chile.

Same landscapes, same hidden corners — but your version of the story.