Southern Chilean Patagonia

Chilean Patagonia may traditionally claim the bottom half of Chile, but the spirit of the region resides in the southernmost province of Magallanes (in honor of 16th-century conquistador Hernando de Magallanes), the waterway of Seno Última Esperanza ("Last Hope Sound"), and the infamous misnomer Tierra del Fuego ("Land of Fire"). It's one of the least inhabited areas in South America, physically cut off from by the rest of the continent by two vast ice caps and the Strait of Magellan. The only links with the north are via air or water—or through Argentina. It's amidst this seclusion that you will find the daunting rocky spires of Torres del Paine, horseback sheep-wrangling gauchos, islands inhabited solely by elephant seals and penguin colonies, and the austere landscapes that captivated everyone from Charles Darwin to Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. More »