3 Best Sights in Quemchi, Chiloé

This tiny forested islet 6 km (4 miles) south of Quemchi is reached by walking across a stunning wooden bridge some 510 meters (1,673 feet) long. Black-necked swans and other birds frequent the area. The island hosts a botanical garden and Jesuit chapel and cemetery that date to 1761.

Reached by a 45-minute boat ride from the port of Quemchi, this immense rock outcrop juts out of the sea off the coast of Caucahue Island. Hundreds of sea lions and marine birds call it home. Boats at the port can be hired for about 12,000 pesos.

This 1,120-hectare (2,768-acre) private reserve is a magic landscape with windswept, old-growth temperate rain forest bumping up to a coastline that attracts a Humboldt and Magellanic penguin colony from September to February. A unique conservation initiative involving 46 different private owners, the park hosts the majority of the flora and fauna found on the big island of Chiloé, including the endangered Darwin's fox and the tiny pudú deer. Get here by taking a 30-minute boat ride from the Club de Pesca y Caza in Chepu, then once you reach the mouth of the river it's a three-hour hike into the park.