Santiago is my hometown, despite of the fact that I have lived for several years abroad, in Europe and the USA. Now, being back for good, I have been enjoying a re-discovery of my city. Of course, Corona-crisis makes it more difficult for tourism, but it allows the time to plan ahead the places to visit and things to do. Also, it gives me my mental peace to plan my next trips, my next moves, and my next visits to local attractions: the corona-crisis will be gone, and then, we will be able to enjoy ourselves again.
Because of that, I thought of writing a series of articles about the main attractions of my city, so maybe I can convince you to come and visit me. This is the first article, and it’s about how to arrive to Santiago, and the transportation system to get around.
Santiago is quite a big city, compared to the main European cities. It has almost 8 million inhabitants, same as the greater London area, and is far ahead of Madrid and Berlin with a little over 3 million inhabitants each. It means Santiago is usually a crowded city, and attractions out of downtown area are quite spread out.
Almost every major airport in Europe has flights to Santiago. But the cheapest one I ever got, was from Milano, Italy. I do not know the reason, but flying to Chile from Italy is most of the time cheaper than from France, Madrid or other cities.
It also allows you to visit the wonderful city of Milan, which can be, as in my case, quickly seen in 8 hours.
In order to get to Santiago from the airport, it’s better to take a bus, because all other alternatives – taxis and private transport companies – are quite expensive, and taxi drivers are not always honest about their fares with tourists. Two companies run buses from the airport to downtown – Tur Bus operating the green buses, and Centropuerto, which operates the blue ones. You will find them outside the main terminal by walking to your right.
For about 2 euros you get a one-way journey to downtown. The first stop, which is 35 minutes after leaving the airport, is the Pajaritos metro station where you can connect to the metro network. The next stop is Los Héroes, about an hour later, which is one of the closest metro stations to downtown, only 4 blocks from La Moneda, the government palace, and where the downtown area starts.
Because of the same reason, the public transport works pretty well, and the subway network – our metro – reaches most of the interesting places to visit. Similarly to the Oyster Card of London’s Tube, we have the BIP card, which one should buy at the metro stations for about 3 euros and top it up. The cards always have different designs, with pictures of movies, concerts, special public holidays and others. I hope you get a good one when you arrive. I got a card with an image of one of my favorite bands, Queen, on it, which was issued for the movie premiere. I was very lucky to get it.
A single journey costs 1 euro, and if you run out of credit, the system gives you a “free ride”, the cost of which will be deducted the next time you top up your card. Pretty clever, isn´t it? In order to “pay” for each journey, you will find little devices on buses and metro stations, and, the same as its name implies, the card will make a “beep” sound after a successful transaction, and you are ready to go.
The charge system is a mix of what I have seen in different countries: for buses, you have a 2-hour credit when you can hop on and hop off. You can see that when validating your BIP card, which you always must do, the sensor will show “0 journeys” because you don´t pay any extra journeys during that time. For the Metro, it’s just for a single journey, but if you already validated your journey on a bus and then took the metro, it will charge only a few cents to switch between the transport modes. Also, our metro allows the possibility of going back for free if you passed the station where you wanted to get off. Just find the stairs connecting the two platforms to get to the other side and hop on the next train free of charge.
Hostelling International has a beautiful place for backpackers and travellers in Santiago Downtown, which is close to the main attractions, but is at the same time located in a non-touristy neighborhood, which will allow you to meet locals and give you insight into the everyday life of the people.
Prices start at about 13 euros for a bed in a shared room, and about 28 euros for a private room for two people. You can find more information here.
I hope I’ve convinced you to visit Santiago de Chile. My next article will be about the five wonderful museums you can visit in the city.
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