This is Valparaíso at night taken from Viña del Mar. Summer is alive and well, so there’s no need for a jacket at night. We took a walk along the boardwalk and, despite being relaxed and “on vacation,” we simply can’t stand to walk behind people who aren’t walking with purpose. Maybe one day we’ll adjust to strolling. The one thing we haven’t had...
This week’s Travel Tip Tuesday: water bottle economics. We’ve already written about the importance of bringing a water bottle when packing for a trip. It seems obvious, but we see people with disposable water bottles all the time. Now we’ll go a little deeper and offer some extra tips and advice. (Even if you’re going somewhere with safe tap water, like here in Chile.) When...
Caption contest: What is Chris pondering as he looks out over this pond? The Jardín Botánico Nacional was a nice afternoon walk, with ponds, trees and — my favorite — hydrangeas. It’s roughly eight kilometers away from downtown Viña del Mar, and the recommended way to get there is by bus. The buses, called micros, can get you everywhere, but they’re super confusing. There are...
Valparaíso is only a quick, 10-minute metro ride away from us. So today we decided to venture over and take a free Valparaíso walking tour to get a lay of the land. We met several other travelers, including a young woman from England who decided to make the most of her layoff and travel for a year, and a guy from Sacramento who had to...
Someone wearing a tuxedo t-shirt approached us on our first day here with a flyer for a summer concert series here in Viña. Soon, we began noticing signs for the series everywhere. So this evening we forked over the CLP$3,000 (or USD$6) to see the Santiago Philharmonic Orchestra at Quinta Vergara, the city’s big outdoor amphitheater. Neither Chris nor I...
After smuggling Holly onto the two-hour (and very comfortable) bus ride, we arrived in Viña del Mar yesterday. Viña del Mar is the town just north of Valparaíso and is famous for its annual music festival held every year in February since 1960. (Follow along on Twitter: @ElFestival) We are renting a room from the friend of a friend we met in La Paz...