Where is Santiago de Chile?
Santiago (Santiago de Chile) is located in the central valley of Chile in the foothills of the majestic Andes Mountains.
Santiago Ski Areas Nearby
The Santiago ski areas are:
Other skiing near Santiago Chile:
The drive times to the Santiago ski resorts vary significantly, particularly with the
Tres Valles ski resorts, and are dependent on road conditions, weather conditions, road closures, one-way roads, traffic, the number of donkeys on the road, the number of dogs on the road….I’m sure you’re getting the drift!
Flying into Santiago
The Santiago Benitez International Airport is the main airport for flights into Santiago. Latam is the major international carrier with flights from Australia, New Zealand, United States, and Europe. Latam and other airlines fly into Santiago from other South American cities. To search for a good flight to Santiago you can use
Skyscanner or google flights.
The airport is 26km west of central Santiago.
Transport from Santiago Airport to the City
You’ll be warmly welcomed to Chile by many many touts vying for your business at the airport and offering car rental or a taxi ride into the city. It may be easier to organise a fixed price taxi at the Tur Bus desk.
Otherwise, a much easier way to get to the city is with a private driver which can be organized as part of a
tour or
ski package.
Driving to and Around Santiago
The touts will gladly show you where the car rental desks are, but it’s probably easier to pre-book
car rental so that you can consider and compare the costs in your own time.
Car rental for a 4WD in Chile can be outrageously expensive and there is huge variability in the cost. It definitely pays to compare prices. Use one of our recommended
car rental search engine facilities so that you can find a decent deal.
Try to rent chains when you rent a car. Otherwise you’ll need to rent chains on the way up to the mountains or at a
ski shop in Las Condes. See the getting there page for the relevant ski resort for more information on chain rental.
There are various tolls on the expressways around the city which are charged to an electronic chip and paid when finalising your car rental. The exception to this is a toll booth to get out of the airport which needs to be paid in cash.
The traffic around Santiago can be horrendous at times, particularly in peak hour, but this is all part of the culture (and the smog problem)! However the ring road and inner city highways are generally free flowing, parts of which are in tunnels near the Mapocho River.
P.S. Aussies, Kiwis and Poms – they drive on the right hand side of the road in Chile!
P.P.S. Yanks – the speed limits are in the metric system!
Getting Around Santiago
Those without a rental car are blessed with very modern public transport infrastructure. This includes the underground Santiago Metro that has about 120 train stations. Santiago also has an extensive bus system, and if you want to get anywhere in Chile, chances are that there’s a bus to take you there.