Spent a few days in Santiago before my expedition to Buenos Aires. Santiago is truly beautiful and has the checkboxes for cities I enjoy. It is beautiful metropolitan city with huge spots of nature (helps it’s nestled in between the Andes Mountains). Went in the summer time, and the weather was amazing (think peak San Diego in the spring time), and it doesn’t get dark until 9:30pm! Amazing.

My trip was coupled with huge jet lag (see lowlights) and other priorities so truly didn’t get to experience Santiago to the fullest. Take this list with a grain of salt, because I don’t think it captures Santiago to it’s fullest!

Itinerary

  • January 2019 - 4 days @ in Park Plaza Apart Hotel (amazing loft space) in Santiago

Highlights

  • Spending the afternoon at Sky Costanera. Usually I’m indifferent about going to “tall buildings to see the view” but Sky Costanera really won me over. It’s the tallest building in Latin America and the views are BEAUTIFUL. It’s really indicative of how beautiful Santiago is— a great metropolitan city surrounded by lush greens and the Andes mountain. I spent two hours there absolutely enamored. Left before sunset, but can imagine it is beautiful.

  • Shopping at Patio Bellavista. Open mall concept with cute outdoor patio restaurants and shops. Great place to spend the afternoon.

  • Strolling through Barrio Lastarria. Bohemian neighborhood with lots of street artists (but not overly touristy), design shops and restaurants. More “authentic” than Patio Bellavista, and feels more like a neighborhood. Plus, I think the restaurants here are better.

  • Drinking piscos at Chipe Libre. Cool edgy restaurants known for their pisco sours. They have unique flights form piscos from all over (note, this is JUST the pisco so tread lightly!) and delicious pisco sours. Good food too.

  • Having first taste of South American steak and red wine at Happening. Long story short: It’s worth the hype.

  • Hiking up Cerro San Cristobal. Larger hike with more intensity. At the top there is a zoo, museum, and even a pool. Skip the hike and take the gondola if inclined.

  • Going up to Cerro Santa Lucia. 230 foot hill that offers beautiful views of the city. My hotel was right next to it, hard to miss! (This hike is shorter, and can definitely budget less time.)

  • LOVE LOVE LOVE the Uber office here! Everyone is so friendly, they do delicious breakfasts in the morning, and just being here made me SO EXCITED TO START WORK and the new year!

Lowlights

  • Coming off the jetlag was tough. Honestly was here for four days and didn’t do much. I was wiped from traveling from winter break, and spent a lot of the time in the Uber office (one of my favorites I’ve now visited!) This trip was probably the least amount of research and the most amount of dgaf I’ve been (I legit didn’t eat for over 24 hours at one point) mainly bc I was focused on other priorities (ramping up at work) and was just so tired.

FOR NEXT TIME

  • Salar de Atacama (salt flats). Was trying to head here over April but timing didn’t work out.

sc 2.jpg