fluffnfold

My spouse and I are planning a trip to Chile in late April-early May 2017. Our two non-negotiable sights are Easter Island and the Atacama Desert, but we are also considering a visit to the Lakes District and/or Chiloe. If you visited the Lakes District or Chiloe, do you consider it/them not-to-be-missed stops? We will spend 3-4 days on the Easter Island segment, 3-4 days in the desert, and 2 days for the international flights, for a total of 10 days. We can add an additional 3-4 days for the third segment. (We would love to visit Patagonia/Torres del Paine, but it won’t be the ideal time of year to visit, plus we don’t think we have quite enough time.) Thoughts on the Lake District and Chiloe?

yestravel

We visited both the Lake District and Chiloe and enjoyed them both. Not sure I would consider either "not to miss spots." Which to choose depends upon your intersts and what you'd like to see.
Check out our TR which decribes our time in each place. Scroll thru it to find the sections related to the areas you are interested in. http://www.fodors.com/community/sout...-chile-arg.cfm

mlgb

I'm not sure of the drought status in the Lakes District. We were there for a day in March/April 2016 off a cruise stop and the volcanoes didn't have much if any snow. We had a great birding guide there, and went to Llanquihue and one of the forest reserves with the alerce trees (Birds Chile just to plug them).

Huentetu

Late April and early May could be rainy.

thursdaysd

I, too, visited both. I was underwhelmed by Chiloe but definitely enjoyed the Lake District. However, Patagonia was the high point of my trip.

See: http://www.fodors.com/community/sout...-patagonia.cfm

yestravel

Ditto for us on Patagonia.