During the end of May and beginning of June, I spent 18 days with a dear friend sauntering through the cities, beaches, mountains, and desert of Chile. The entire holiday was an incredible experience and now I'm faced with the daunting task of transcribing nearly three weeks of fun and adventures, large and small and everything in between. A lot happened during that time, so I'll have to split up the entire tale into multiple blog entries (probably one for each week). Before I get ahead of myself, I should give a little context as to how this trip came to be.
My close friend and trusted bro-ette (a term I use with pure endearment) Becca found herself between life gigs with a few months of downtime and decided she wanted to go to Chile, a place she had heard many good things about. She was ready and willing to travel by herself, but floated the idea to friends just in case anyone else was interested. No one else was able to commit to two and a half weeks of vacation, but I pretty much had no choice but to say yes. Seriously, do I have anything better to do? Nope. Plane ticket purchased.
Our idea for the trip was to keep it as flexible and fluid as possible. We had flights in and out of Santiago and that was it. The general approach was to plan the trip a few days at a time, making heavy use of WiFi wherever we could find it. Luckily, almost every hostel we stayed in had WiFi and/or computers for common use. Additionally, most cafes in Chile have WiFi for paying customers. Being a backpacking trip, we planned to travel light and to stay in hostels wherever possible.
Before leaving the country, we each did research on Santiago and Chile in general, mostly through Lonely Planet, Wikivoyage, and friends that had either lived in or visited Chile. Based on this research, we had a list of ideas for sightseeing and activities, including Easter Island, Patagonia, Punta Arenas, and Villarrica (a volcano in the south that is popular for hiking).
We ended up doing none of these things and it still was the trip of a lifetime.
More to come over the next few days as I aggregate all our photos, go over my travel notes, and track down the various hostels, restaurants, and bars we discovered in this massive and diverse country.
Spoiler alert: Chile is freaking awesome.
My close friend and trusted bro-ette (a term I use with pure endearment) Becca found herself between life gigs with a few months of downtime and decided she wanted to go to Chile, a place she had heard many good things about. She was ready and willing to travel by herself, but floated the idea to friends just in case anyone else was interested. No one else was able to commit to two and a half weeks of vacation, but I pretty much had no choice but to say yes. Seriously, do I have anything better to do? Nope. Plane ticket purchased.
Our idea for the trip was to keep it as flexible and fluid as possible. We had flights in and out of Santiago and that was it. The general approach was to plan the trip a few days at a time, making heavy use of WiFi wherever we could find it. Luckily, almost every hostel we stayed in had WiFi and/or computers for common use. Additionally, most cafes in Chile have WiFi for paying customers. Being a backpacking trip, we planned to travel light and to stay in hostels wherever possible.
Before leaving the country, we each did research on Santiago and Chile in general, mostly through Lonely Planet, Wikivoyage, and friends that had either lived in or visited Chile. Based on this research, we had a list of ideas for sightseeing and activities, including Easter Island, Patagonia, Punta Arenas, and Villarrica (a volcano in the south that is popular for hiking).
We ended up doing none of these things and it still was the trip of a lifetime.
More to come over the next few days as I aggregate all our photos, go over my travel notes, and track down the various hostels, restaurants, and bars we discovered in this massive and diverse country.
Spoiler alert: Chile is freaking awesome.
