San Pedro de Atacama Tours – Sand Boarding at Night

I arrived in San Pedro de Atacama, Chile with a sense of coming home. It was warm, there were cacti, and it smelled like the desert. Essentially it felt like home.

After stashing my bags and taking my first shower in three days, I set off to see what activities could be had in the area. The consensus seemed to me more lakes, more geysers, and sandboarding. While the lakes in South America are beautiful, I've had my fill of staring at bodies of water that inevitably all end up looking the same.

The geysers involved getting up around three in the morning.

Sandboarding it was.

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Valparaiso – What Makes It Chile’s Capital of Culture?

Skyline of central Valparaiso from Planeta Lindo HostelWhen you travel around Chile, you will hear one expression in particular over and over again: “Valparaiso is the cultural capital of Chile.”  Other than a few poor attempts to describe the meaning of this expression, with the most common being “all the artists go there,” you'll be left wondering what it truly means.

We were so intrigued by this expression that we decided to extend our stay in Chile to figure out why everyone has such a high opinion of a city we rarely hear about.  It only took a few moments in Valparaiso to understand, and the city quickly rose to a spot in our Top 10 favorite cities anywhere in the world.

But the question we were so interested in still needed an answer.  Why is Valparaiso considered to be a cultural highlight of Chile?

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